A President So Adept at Reforms Does Not, However, Know How to Reform Herself?

 A President So Adept at Reforms Does Not, However, Know How to Reform Herself?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 5, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

The DPP suffered a stunning defeat, President Tsai’s popularity rating instantly dropped to the abyss of the public opinion, with only a little over 10% satisfaction rating. Tsai Ing-wen, after only two and a half years in office, has fallen to the bottom of public opinion. It is not easy to surge anew; this is also the anxiety and worry of the DPP. Although Tsai Ing-wen embarked on a "tour for listening," judging from the fact that the Lai Cabinet merely made inconsequential adjustments, and the rumored big reshuffle has been postponed to January next year, the Tsai government seemingly has still not clearly grasped what it did wrong that aroused a tsunami of popular grievances. This blind spot is precisely the deepest power predicament for Tsai Ing-wen.

The so-called "power predicament" is that Tsai Ing-wen has her hand full of powers, yet she doesn’t know how to use them to benefit the public; instead, she uses self-righteous "reforms," "progressive values" and "ideology" to shackle the people and society. Now that her support rating massively slid down, the legitimacy of her power has also seriously eroded, to push any more changes would be met with challenges, both domestically and externally. Since Tsai Ing-wen took office, she has constantly talked about "reforms"; now what she faces, however, is the embarrassing situation that she doesn’t know how to "self-reform." It is indeed ironic.

Tsai Ing-wen's hand is full of powers, yet in the last two and a half years, her governance has been relegated to the butt of grievances from her party and fury from the people; there are several major reasons: First, she does not understand power sharing, while her desire to fill all positions of power and occupy all vacancies is too strong. Second, manipulations of power frequently overflow the tracks of democracy, the rule of law, and Constitutional government. The Tsai government’s special characteristic is hold power and harm public opinion, while lording over the legal system and covering up illegalities. Third, the close-knit nature of wielding power has cacooned Tsai Ing-wen in the "feeling good" of the party-government stratosphere. This made her unable to feel the pulse of society and the vox populi, even being unable to get in touch with sincere and down-to-earth grassroots, leaving her isolated in a vacuum from public opinion; she is even afraid of meeting real people and listening to true public opinion.

Following the electoral defeat, Tsai Ing-wen in fact still doesn’t see her own problems; although she has resigned the party chairmanship, she still tries to control everything, or she self-righteously believes that she could still control everything, so that she could again win for herself the 2020 presidential election. Nevertheless, the paradox of politics is precisely: once the hearts of the powers-that-be are no longer on the people, the people will naturally forsake the ones with power; this is a law that never fails. Tsai Ing-wen talks about reforms all the time, but she transgresses the law and abuses power, not knowing restraints; now the one who most needs reforms is herself, but, even as we speak, she does not know how to improve.

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