Mon, Aug 11, 2003 page8

• Editorial: Feeling hot? Who's to blame?

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  Heat wave: it's more than just the name of the coolest disco band of the '70s, authors of the immortal Boogie Nights and The Groove Line; it's a meteorological phenomenon making life miserable here in northern Taiwan and we want to know who to blame.

  "What?" you say. Isn't that up to God? (Or the gods, depending on your confession.) Good heavens, no! This is Taiwan and it is a well-known fact that in Taiwan, whatever happens, somebody in the DPP-led government must always be responsible -- at least according to the blue camp. Should lightning strike, the question of how to prevent it striking a second time always takes a back seat to the more vital one of which government minister can be pilloried by blue-camp legislators for not having the presence of mind to do something or another that is never clearly explained. Of course the legislature isn't in session now, more's the pity. If it was, it could waste huge parts of Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san's (林陵三) time asking why the DPP government hasn't seen fit to provide more cloud cover.

  The government, however, is worrying about more important things. Well "thing," actually, since its only current concern is the impact of anything at all on President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election chances. So naturally it will be concerned that Chen appears to have the heat wave under control in a masterful and presidential way. This is more difficult than it might seem, because Chen's government is just full of people who think they know better about their portfolios than the president himself and as a result implement policies without telling the president -- which Chen then has to reverse on the rare occasion that he picks up a newspaper and finds out what is going on. With that in mind, it is always possible that Chen doesn't know that it is hot yet. And what if minister Lin conjures up that cloud cover after all, just after Chen has predicted more heat for the next week? Chen, remember, didn't know when the cancellation of the Fourth Nuclear Power plant would be announced nor that farmers and fishermen were up in arms over reform of their savings associations -- until three months after the event.

  Veteran observers of Taiwan politics will, of course, know that the thing the government should do is to form an ad hoc committee to investigate the heat wave and at some time in this century produce a report on the topic which nobody will read. Oh, how we miss Lien Chan (連戰) being in government, for it was leading this kind of futility that really was the KMT chairman's forte.

  Then there is the security question. Could an evil Chinese mastermind be manipulating the weather to weaken Taiwan's defenses and hasten reunification? Will Taiwan's armed forces simply conclude that it is too hot to fight? This might sound like the plot of a Sax Rohmer novel or the movie The Avengers, but it is no wackier than a number of other things that the TSU takes seriously. Could there be any connection with so much of Taiwan's air-conditioner industry moving to China in recent years? Coincidence? We think not.

  On the other hand, residents of sweltering Taipei tell us that, just as the foolish virgins in the Bible neglected to get oil for their lamps, they forgot to have the Freon, or whatever is used these days, replaced in their air conditioners and now cannot get their units serviced for love nor money. Inadequate supervision of the city's air conditioning servicing industry -- at last, a stick to beat Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) with. There's something for everyone in this heat wave.
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