Lai Ching-te's High-Stake Gambling and the DPP's Fire Brigade Politics

  Lai Ching-te's High-Stake Gambling and the DPP's Fire Brigade Politics

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

October 17, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

Premier Lai Ching-te’s deal of "using Guantang in exchange for Shenao" compelled Thomas Shun-Kuei Chan, Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Agency, to step down, also sacrificing the credibility of the EIA system. Not only that, he even used “today’s Lai to negate yesterday’s Lai,” jettisoning his own declarations of "clean coal" and "power generation is not enough in the north," and at the same time, wanted to phase out the coal-fired generators at the Taichung Thermal Power Plant ahead of schedule. In order to remove the fuses from the electoral campaigns in both New Taipei City and Taichung City, Lai Ching-te thought nothing of using the credibility of the Cabinet as a bargaining chip; this political gaming is indeed "high-stakes gambling."

What is lamentable is not only that Lai Ching-te lightly overturned his own declarations; what is even more surprising is that the Tsai government could, surprisingly, use its own national energy program, which had been expounded with vehemence and determination as the DPP’s chips in electoral campaigns. Three years ago, Tsai Ing-wen got elected as President using the plank of a "nuclear-free homeland"; in more than two years, her plank has shown shortcomings and loopholes, eliciting dispute upon dispute, and could not erect a holistic and secure national energy platform. Now, just for the calculations of local elections, the Tsai government could, surprisingly, chop here and cut there on her power generation program, attempting to use this to put out the people’s fire of fury in exchange for votes. How could the people trust the leadership of such a ruling party which squanders at will national policies as its own electoral resources?

Lai Ching-te’s strategy of jettisoning the Shenao power plant has been dubbed as “using Taoyuan to save three cities,” i.e., sacrificing Taoyuan to rescue the electoral prospects of New Taipei City, Taichung City, and Kaohsiung City. What cannot be overlooked is that in the same period of time, it also included the “rejection” of the plebiscite proposal of "using nuclear energy to nurture green energy" announced on the same day. This needed the complete collaboration of the Central Election Commission; very obviously, it wanted to block the plebiscite proposal, excluding it from being combined with the November local elections. The younger generation that had never witnessed the DPP’s tactics in electoral maneuverings cannot but look carefully that the “three arrows a day” by the Lai Cabinet were deployed with sophistication and depth, with all departments in the party collaborating with all efforts in putting out the fires; the plan was airtight.

The national energy policies could be abruptly changed overnight, sacrificing everything for the interests of its own party, throwing overboard professional assessments. This, in fact, has been the customary theatrical billing since the Tsai government took office. Under the thinking of "complete control of government means complete control," the Tsai government has used "ruling power to serve the party" to the extreme: the Legislative Yuan has become a 100% rubber stamp, the Control Yuan has become an organ for overturning Chen Shui-bian’s cases and an anti-control organ, and the Judicial Yuan uses all tactics to recuse itself from the power of judicial review by not taking up cases requiring its interpretation of the Constitution, devoting itself to be cohorts of the ruling party. Such overwhelming political fire-brigading and shut-out of opposition, so much so that, the dissidents could not even have the chinks of seeking justice. Where could Taiwan find a path to rely on and trust constitutional democracy?

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