Liberty Times (LT): What are your expectations of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) performance in his second term?
Ting Yu-chou (丁渝洲): When Ma won with a high share of the vote in 2008, it meant he came into office with a lot of public support. After he came into office, he had enormous political assets and resources of the state and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had a majority in the Legislative Yuan.
All of this meant that Ma was in a position to push his policies through, and it would not be exaggerating to say that he had everything one needed to become a great politician.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times.
Four years later, the public support that once raised him to the pinnacle of politics has dropped him down hard, and what is even more worrying is that even amid public discontent, I don’t see government employees reflecting on what they have done wrong or trying to correct their course.
To make matters worse, the head of state is himself not reflecting on his actions and carrying on as he did before, and with his current style of leadership and attitude toward his personnel, it is hard to be optimistic about the next four years.
The common view the public holds of Ma is mainly that he behaves like a “non-stick pan,” that he is complacent and that he loves himself more than he loves the people. More concretely, Ma’s actions during his time as president could probably be summed up in one sentence: “Being self-centered is the highest principle of how to treat others.”
Unfortunately, this sort of principle is the greatest obstacle to becoming a great leader, because in troubled times and when faced with great obstacles, a leader with such ideas tends to be reluctant to make decisions out of concern of harming his image.
If at this time a leader could disregard the small stain on his reputation and instead place society first, placing the happiness of the people and the well-being of the nation first, then even if the results of the policy pushed did not meet the expectations of the people, they would still understand. If the policy succeeded, then that would give the president a place in history.
No one is perfect and everyone has their flaws. This holds especially true for those who have a high position and have been in that position a long time, because they can no longer see their own flaws and do not wish to hear things contrary to their wishes.
This is the reason why those in high places should constantly reflect upon their actions and face themselves honestly, because only then will they be willing to change.
George Bernard Shaw once said: “The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves.” Whether Ma is willing to change himself is the greatest battle he faces.
LT: There are some who say that it is Ma’s leadership that is problematic. What are your views on this?
Ting: Great leaders are usually driven by their own strongly felt convictions and the belief that what they do is for the greater good, and it is this deep-seated belief that they use to encourage the people who work for them, uniting them as one and working towards realizing their vision
Quintessentially, whether a leader is good or bad can be determined by one factor — their commitment. If they lead by force of commitment to their ideals and use their wits and knowledge to produce policies leading the people toward that vision, the people would be moved and have hope and faith.
While the president has the power to nominate government personnel and takes the lead in policy decision making and resource allocation, the quality of the leader’s performance, on a grand scale, decide his place in history, or on a smaller scale, simply decide the success or failure of the policy in question.
Looking back on the performance of the Ma administration over the past four years, we have to ask why is it that popular support for the government has fallen so drastically. Why has the conflict between the KMT and opposition parties not been reduced? Why are different parts of the administrative team working separately?
In the rare and one-time-only event of our nation’s centennial anniversary, what has our government done that is historically significant? This is a question that I have asked many people, and they only remember one thing — that the Dreamers (夢想家) musical cost more than NT$215 million (US$7.15 million) for just two performances.
All of this only goes to show that Ma’s style, mindset and ability all suffer from great problems; being a nice person and having integrity does not lead to outstanding achievements.
As a national leader, one should not be doing the rounds all day as if one is still a local people’s representative, nor should one be holding a camera and wasting time on useless things.
What a leader should do is to give himself time to think and to have a cool and level head to focus on the more important work, or he may very well end up selling his birthright for a mess of pottage.
The most important job of a leader is to forge a highly efficient and capable administrative team. Regrettably, the current administration often bypasses the entire Cabinet and instructs Cabinet members individually.
This not only severely damages organizational function; it also hurts team spirit. Aside from this, the leader should have some sense of responsibility instead of trying to shrug off the blame when a problem arises.
When an official working for you is in a tough spot and does not receive tangible support from his superiors, he should at least have some form of non-verbal support or he would become conservative.
Otherwise government officials develop a passive attitude whereby they only wish to avoid making mistakes, but do not seek to do anything to distinguish themselves.
Further, a leader should be able to listen to the voice of the people, and aside from having a respectful attitude toward the people the leader should also have empathy for them.
According to the Constitution, the president is not only the head of state, but also the commander-in-chief. After the president is sworn into office, he should also assume the duties that come with this second position.
Looking back to Jan. 13, 1988, when former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) assumed the presidency after former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) passed away while in office, Lee immediately visited Kinmen.
At the time, I was a division commander stationed at Guningtou (古寧頭) and I received an order to prepare a live-fire exercise including infantry, artillery and armored forces within two days.
It was quite a shock to see that Lee stayed the night in Kinmen after watching the exercise and ate at the same table as the division commanders, and during dinner he said to commanding officer Huang Hsing-chiang (黃幸強) “I think your officers can really fight.”
At the time I had been a career military officer for several decades and received quite a few medals, but that sentence of encouragement from Lee was one of my proudest moments.
It wasn’t only Lee — former president Chiang also cared for the welfare of all officers and soldiers, and even today is still the most respected commander-in-chief.
This tells us the importance of the commander-in-chief’s attitude toward the military.
Another example is former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who also made a tour of Kinmen the second day after he was sworn into office. I suggested to Ma during his first term that he should show the concern of a commander-in-chief for his troops as soon as possible after being sworn-in, but regrettably my suggestion was disregarded.
Instead, as the first public holiday after Ma was sworn into office was the Dragon Boat Festival, the media reported that the president was going to be rowing in Bitan (碧潭), instead of going to commend the troops or visit injured military personnel in hospital.
Although Ma was unable to attend the boat race because of other reasons, he had already made a negative impression on the military.
Another event that distanced Ma from the military was the Hankuang Exercise held in April. It was rumored that Ma, the commander in chief of the military, only spent six minutes watching the exercises.
While it does not matter how long a period a time a commander-in-chief spends at an exercise, his attitude does matter a great deal.
Over the past four years, there have often been rumors or actual sightings of Ma causing similar discontent while visiting military academies or at meetings of retired military officers. This has gradually given the public the sense that Ma does not place much importance on national defense or intelligence gathering.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff Writer
Part two of this interview will be published tomorrow
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