How Did the Tsai Gov’t’s “Degrading Governance” Happen?

 How Did the Tsai Gov’t’s “Degrading Governance” Happen?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

February 22, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

For the separate legislation bill on same-sex marriage, the Cabinet artfully named it the bill entitled “Implementing Act for Constitutional Interpretation #748 of the Judicial Yuan” in order to duck the flak of the dispute between pro and con groups. Such an approach of ducking the issue shows that the Tsai government only seeks to muddle through, losing the ambition to persuade and promote the new deal. On the same day, a news story was circulating that Tai Chein, chairman of CPC Taiwan, who elicited rumblings of a move to dismiss him by the labor union was fired, to be replaced by Jerry Ou, who had already left the government system. The accidental journey at CPC Taiwan of the “PhD in duck-raising” came to a full stop with the stepping down of Lai Ching-te.

Both incidents deflected the reality that the Su Cabinet’s job is not an easy one, and also cleaning up the endgames and wrong personnel appointments of the Tsai government’s boastful politics. For the last three years, such phenomena of "degrading governance" of the Tsai government have emerged one after another: the so-called "progressive values" however at a crucial moment, cavalierly ended like a bundle of rotten logs. For instance, for the twice revised "Labor Standards Act," the human rights of labor were praised to cloud nine as President Tsai's "softest spot in her heart" and then fell heavily to the ground. Both being strikes at China Airlines, the flight attendants received every courtesy, but "only this once," never allowing the pilots to follow suit. The slogans of good governance that sounded like music, as the time in power stretched on, dropped down like a parabola one by one. For the ambitious and pompous "annuities reforms," after having slaughtered the military, civil servants, and public school teachers, the more serious labor pension, however, has been left untouched. When governance gets stuck in the mistaken assigning of issues, the government can only endlessly wind up the messes it left behind by itself. What visions could such embarrassing “degrading governance” bring to the country?

When the economy slows down and incomes stagnate, the phenomenon of "consumption downgrading" will appear in society; the middle class will lose the quality of life that it originally used to enjoy. Similarly, when the governance of the government is plagued by missteps, with the supply of talent inadequate, spinning in place will appear in politics, or even with a phenomenon of backpedaling, which is precisely "degrading governance." Under such circumstances, most of the government's energy is used to wind up endgames and cope with the crises, with no surplus energy to look forward with ease. The current Tsai government is precisely mired in the predicament of a disorderly government agenda. In the past three years, how many times has Tsai Ing-wen used florid young literati-style rhetoric? Now, the spokesperson she has relied on can only blurt out crude monikers such as "hillbilly" [referring to Kaohsiung City Mayor Han Kuo-yu]. This is veritably the degrading of civilities.

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