The late US president Richard Nixon once said that ruling a country is about making choices. An administration that does not make a choice is like a wild horse running around without a direction so it would never reach the end.
Choice means choice of agenda, choice of timing and choice of method. It is common sense to all national leaders that a leader who makes no choices cannot lead, and that without leadership, he cannot rule. His traces may be found all over the map, as Nixon said, but that is merely the illusion of a busy administration. All the hustle and bustle bear no fruit.
If a leader has so many ambitions that he can hardly prioritize them or make plans for them, he would end up carrying out reforms of different natures at the same time. This kind of multi-focus political practice would render him to over-promise and under-perform. Even if he is extraordinarily gifted, he would not be able to finish them all at once.
President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) reforms are usually of a "hit and run" nature, meaning that he withdraws his plans when faced with difficulty. His tactics lack a philosophical backbone, thus, he constantly sways between the extremes of political reality and political theology. He advertised the "middle way" in the early stage of his administration and now he seems to come back to the conventional theological route of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Changing back and forth on the routes proves that he rules the country without making a choice or a clear one.
In the past few months Chen promised that his focus would be on improving the economy. How-ever, the agenda he has created has had nothing to do with economy. He announced his theory of "one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait," a "call Taiwan Taiwan" referendum and plans for a new constitution. As a result, both the ruling and opposition parties forgot about improving the economy. They were all busy fighting over national identity, sovereignty and the Constitution, putting aside what is most relevant to the average person.
Of course, a nation's identity, sovereignty and constitutional system are critical issues that deserve discussion. But these issues cannot be settled over-night. Even if we attempt to solve only one issue at a time, a resolution would not be reached immediately. Not to mention the fact that Chen's agendas arrived like waves, one after another, so that not only the opposition parties but also the ruling party itself could barely handle them.
In governing a country, crisis management is a means, not an end, comprising only part of the administrative process, not the whole. Chen's administration, however, has done nothing but fight one crisis after another. The Cabinet and legislative elite functioned like firefighters. Wherever Chen swept by, there would be fires for them to put off. The fires sometimes did not stay in Taiwan but spread to Washington. The Taiwanese may clean up the mess he left but Americans probably do not have the patience to do so for long.
Some major issues certainly need to be discussed during next year's presidential election. Yet, some issues are "governance issues" which take tremendous time and effort to solve. Treating these issues with simplified and sensational campaign language and mindset will only result in a false choice of a false extreme. Evidence can be found in previous elections that employed national and ethnic identity as the campaign agenda.
Chen is likely to pursue the theological route in the upcoming election. All the people can do over the next few months is watch politicians fight each other over these highbrow issues and watch who will be the first to fall.
Wang Chien-chuang is president of The Journalist magazine.
Translated by Jennie Shih
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