Who Is Going to Blaze the Trail as Popular Opinion Turns Direction Sharply?

 Who Is Going to Blaze the Trail as Popular Opinion Turns Direction Sharply?

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

January 2, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

2017 was a year that left people on Taiwan bewildered with fear and uneasy with misgivings. Internationally, "The National Interest," a US international affairs magazine, carried an article expressing the view that "Taiwan ranks second among the five places where World War III could break out in 2018." Regionally, cross-Strait relations are not good, as well as the reality of China's rise, make the situation of Taiwan’s marginalization increasingly serious. In cross-Strait affairs, PLA planes circling Taiwan has become normal, and "the most peaceful cross-Strait era” is gradually becoming a thing of the past; the situation may not have come to a stage of “swords drawn and arrows at the ready,” yet it is already as cold as ice and frost.

The internal governance of the DPP administration is also full of setbacks and problems. Smearing the annuities reform for the retired military, civil servants and public school teachers antagonized what used to be the pillar of the nation's security and stability. The flip-flopping of the “one mandatory holiday, one flexible day-off” policy left industries at a loss as to what to follow, while labors’ rage burned as a wildfire. The unrealistic energy policy hurt the stability of the power supply and also sacrificed the public’s health. Various high-handed approaches to amending laws in order to expand authority, as well as the forceful taking over and robbing of civic organizations, have all the more trampled on and destroyed the freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law that Taiwan had painstakingly earned step by step.

After over three years of settling, the public has begun to wake up from their agitation; the excessive manipulation of anti-China and hate-China sentiments have also made the rational forces that care about cross-Strait peace no longer remain silent; the new self-reflecting forces have been rapidly growing. This is an opportunity for Taiwan to return to the path of truth, rationality, and for reshaping peace.

Tsai Ing-wen's poll ratings are in a free fall and the legitimacy of the DPP governance is also rapidly collapsing. This has also given a lesson to the powers that be; politicians may fool some of the people but cannot fool all of the people forever. Good faith is after all the foundation of governance and the bedrock of rulers’ legitimacy.

The bars have been lowered in the "Plebiscite Act" since its latest revision; those who are interested are all grinding their axes, hoping to push their advocacies through plebiscites and promote their ideas. 2018 is an era for a hundred schools of thought to contend in politics, the beginning of another change in Taiwan, and also a crucial year for whether Taiwan can get out of its current impasse, transforming and morphing in the process.

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