As the nation’s health officials and medical professionals strain every sinew to curb a sudden surge of COVID-19 cluster infections — the most serious outbreak of the disease experienced by Taiwan to date — the public is for the most part staying calm and behaving responsibly. That cannot be said for some of the nation’s politicians.
The most egregious example is Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Alex Fai (費鴻泰), who on Monday told a news conference that Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) should be executed by firing squad. Taiwan’s legislature is world-famous for its boisterous debating style, which often descends into scuffles, juvenile stunts and even chair throwing — but for a lawmaker to call for a minister’s execution surely marks a new low.
Fai’s outburst betrays a man whose mindset is still stuck in the Martial Law era, when KMT apparatchiks regularly had dissidents bumped off. Old habits die hard. While Taiwan long ago threw off the shackles of the KMT’s authoritarian party-state, there still exists an undercurrent of fanatical “deep blue,” pro-authoritarian head-bangers who might be motivated by Fai’s words to do something stupid.
In 1170, English King Henry II famously uttered the words: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Interpreting the words as an order, four knights rode to Canterbury Cathedral and murdered the then-archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket. Loose language has consequences: Fai should be investigated for a possible breach of legislative standards.
Fai’s outburst also reflects an ingrained blame culture within contemporary politics — certainly not limited to Taiwan — that seeks out easy scapegoats on which to pin the blame for anything that goes wrong in society.
The government has been widely praised for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, both domestically and abroad. Chen and his team at the Central Epidemic Command Center deserve a large part of the credit for this. Yet, in Fai’s eyes, Chen has gone from hero to zero and now deserves to be pumped full of lead.
Veteran actress Ann Lang (郎祖筠) on Tuesday branded the government’s reintroduction of restrictions on large gatherings as an “attack on the arts and entertainment industry,” and mocked calls for cooperation and patience as “flatulence.”
People currently calling for Chen’s head on a stake or moaning about the introduction of moderate restrictions need to get some perspective. Have they no notion of what other countries have been going through during the past 18 months?
Stringent lockdown policies have caused real suffering in so many societies around the world: small and medium-sized businesses have gone to the wall, countless jobs have been destroyed and many people have been denied the chance to say goodbye to their terminally ill loved ones, or been forced to do so separated by a cold pane of glass.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic that does not respect borders. It is nothing short of a miracle that Taiwan has been able to prevent a serious outbreak of the disease within its borders for this long. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the nation’s defenses would be ruptured.
Fortunately, the majority of the public are displaying more common sense than some politicians. An opinion poll commissioned by Global Views magazine, published on Monday, showed that Chen enjoys an 80.6 percent satisfaction rating, and that 48.4 percent of respondents are satisfied with Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) performance, while 40.6 percent said they are dissatisfied.
Nobody wants to have their lives unduly disrupted, but now is the time to pull together as a nation as we try to put the virus back in its box, and avert the devastating economic and social consequences that could flow from a full-scale lockdown.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry