Tsai Ing-wen's Five Battle Fronts: Her Troubling Hundred Days

Tsai Ing-wen's Five Battle Fronts: Her Troubling Hundred Days

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

A Translation

August 5, 2016

Executive Summary:

Public support is essential for the President's reforms. Judging from President Tsai's poll numbers which have plummeted, Tsai Ing-wen is going to lose the bargaining chips she needs for reform after the first one hundred days since her inauguration.  Her honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end. President Tsai has declared a multi-front war. The people are in distress. Tsai Ing-wen would be well advised to return to the two basic tenets of national governance: promote economic prosperity and ensure cross-Strait peace.

Full Text Below:

Less than a month from now, President Tsai Ing-wen will have been in office for one hundred days. Former US presidential advisor David Gergen noted that the greater part of a national leader's legacy is established during his or her first one hundred days in office, the “golden one hundred.” The history of modern democracies shows that a national leader's power and prestige do not increase over time. Rather, they are at their highest when the leader first takes office. From then on, it experiences a steady decline. If the leader achieves little or nothing during his or her first one hundred days in office, reversing the situation during the rest of the term is impossible. President Tsai made too many pledges of reform during her election campaign. Knowing this, she really should be worried.

Recently, two pro-Green polls set off alarm bells for Tsai Ing-wen. The first poll showed Tsai Ing-wen's approval ratings plummeted 14%, though still topping 50%. The second poll showed her approval ratings slipping slightly, but her disapproval ratings rocketing nearly 24%, from 12.5% two weeks after her inauguration to 36% by the end of July. Why has a newly elected president, swept into office with such great fanfare, fallen so low in two short months? Judging from news reports’ President Tsai over-promised on reform during her election campaign, and decided to open five battle fronts upon taking office. Each of these fronts is fraught with peril. The outcome is uncertain, but affect people's perceptions, value systems, and vital interests. Everyone has been swept onto battle. Social unrest is guaranteed.

The first battle front that Tsai has declared is with the Mainland. The newly victorious Tsai Ing-wen was initially cautious about cross-Strait relations. Nevertheless, upon taking office, she worsened the impasse over the 1992 Consensus. She even told the US media that she rejected the Mainland's deadline for acceptance of the 1992 Consensus. She treated sovereignty over Taiping Island with negligence before the PCA adjudication and ambivalence afterwards. When a fire killed an entire tour bus filled with Mainland tourists, she not only refused to mourn the victims, she even bungled in the eulogy etiquette, further enraging the Mainland public. Worse still, Academia Historica set back academic neutrality by denying access to scholars from the Mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao for viewing the archive. Its policy and personnel appointments reflect glaringly obvious cultural Taiwan independence and de-Sinicization tendencies. These have further exacerbated cross-Strait tensions, and undermined Taiwan's tourism industry, agriculture, and aquaculture industry. Countless individuals have been caught in its wake.

The second battle front that Tsai has declared is the annuities and pension reforms. Pension reform is necessary. But its implementation has been crude, chaotic, and lacking in credibility. The DPP has habitually vilifying military personnel, civil servants, and public school teachers; thus, winning their trust was going to be difficult. Yet the first thing the Tsai government did upon taking office was to appoint long-time critics of the pension system to the reform committee. Groups representing military personnel, civil servants, and public school teachers refer to these unqualified and unprofessional appointees as the "Queen's Committee Members." Pension reform has gone awry from the very outset. On this basis, for the rules of order and agenda-setting, it will be difficult to earn trust. Military personnel, civil servants, and public school teachers have long been the most important force for stability on Taiwan. Pension reform that is crude and that vilifies pensioners is forcing them to take to the streets on September 3. The new government's most positive, stabilizing force has become Taiwan's most destabilizing force. How can Taiwan possibly know peace?

The third battle front that Tsai has declared is against the KMT. Tsai has initiated a political pogrom. The KMT was routed in 2016. But those who support the Blue camp still constitutes about half the voters. Many merely didn’t come out to vote. Over the years, Taiwan has remained mired in Blue vs. Green political bickering. People are disgusted with the endless political conflict. Yet upon taking office, Tsai not only refused reconciliation, she did the opposite. She used the banners of the so-called "ill-gotten party assets" and "transformational justice" as pretexts to dismember the KMT. She has made her vendetta against the KMT the highest priority for her government, provoking unrest among Blue camp supporters.

The fourth battle fronts that Tsai Ing-wen has declared is that Tsai has apologized to Aborigines as chief of state and established an "Aboriginal History and Transformational Justice Committee" under the Office of the President. The fifth battle front is declaring judicial reform and establishing a “Judicial Reform Committee” at the presidential office. These two reform projects are arduous. If Tsai Ing-wen has the courage to take them on, then more power to her. But Aboriginal justice involves perspective of history, identity, and land ownership issues. Even Tsai's promised "special relationship between the Aboriginal peoples and the state" remains vague in its definition and content. Aboriginal expectations have been raised. Future agitation and conflict are guaranteed.

The Green camp has not even begun judicial reform. Yet Tsai's nominations for President and Vice President of the Judicial Yuan have already provoked a firestorm. The people are filled with doubts about the judicial system. The criminal justice system is a highly specialized realm. The judicial system is far removed from the daily lives of ordinary people. Yet the virtues or vices of the judicial system will determine the fate of criminal justice and social order. Judicial reform, once begun, leads to uncertainty and conflict. But it will also have a far-reaching impact on the future of the country.

Public support is essential for the President's reforms. Judging from President Tsai's poll numbers which have plummeted, Tsai Ing-wen is going to lose the bargaining chips she needs for reform after the first one hundred days since her inauguration.  Her honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end. President Tsai has declared a multi-front war. The people are in distress. Tsai Ing-wen would be well advised to return to the two basic tenets of national governance: promote economic prosperity and ensure cross-Strait peace.

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