Can President Tsai Gavel Down on Forward-Looking Plan Amid a Cacophony of Dissent?

  Can President Tsai Gavel Down on Forward-Looking Plan Amid a Cacophony of Dissent?

 United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

June 11, 2017

 Translation of an Except

President Tsai Ying-wen recently seemed to be filled with anxiety; besides ordering that the forward-looking plan’s budget should be passed in its entirety, she also repeatedly demanded that Executive Branch officials and DPP legislators go to the grassroots to defend the forward-looking plan, and she took a personal tour to the countryside to sell the plan. On the surface, President Tsai wanted to listen to vox populi, solving problems; in reality, she wanted to throw her weight behind the forward-looking plan for fear that before the grandiose blueprint of the "construction year" got started, it would be buried in the wave of gigantic protest in Taipei’s political circles.

The forward-looking plan elicited criticism from various sectors, even Chen Po-chih, a senior presidential advisor, could not swallow it. President Tsai said that the forward-looking plan was the realization of a public policy prepared for many years by the DPP's think tank. As the drafter of the ten-year political platform, Chen Po-chih said that the forward-looking plan has little connection with the ten-year platform, even stressing that the rail plan, which was not forward-looking enough, must be slowed down. Rex How, a former national policy advisor to the president, first paid a call to Premier Lin Chuan, questioning that the overall planning was inadequate; later he contributed an article to the press voicing his objections to the forward-looking plan, stating bluntly that the young people did not endorse the forward-looking plan because it was a plan in which the public could not see any future.

The problem lies in the impromptu planning for long-term construction projects. Some young-literati style images are inserted into the framework of the plan, lacking the stature and creativity of public policy, thus becoming various items of mutilated policies and scene upon scene of budgetary fights. The DPP is in full control of the government, and there is no problem for it to railroad the forward-looking plan in the legislature, but whether the public opinion is for or against, that is another matter. President Tsai went to the countryside; if the purpose was to escape from Taipei, seeking warmth from Green-ruled counties and cities, then that is only self-consolation based on spiritual victory.

We hope that President Tsai will be more pragmatic, listen more to the true voices of the public, and think more about the effective path of governing the state, then there is still time for the forward-looking plan to be readjusted. The cacophony of dissent in Taipei may indeed not be the solution, but at least there are people trying to speak the truth, fearing that President Tsai will not listen. Taiwan has been talking about the forward-looking plan for quite some time, but nobody can make the public understand in which direction they should look. A forward-looking plan without a direction has a fuzzy and foggy future no matter which direction one looks.

Amid the cacophony of dissent, where on earth is "the veritable truth of turning over a new leaf for Taiwan"?

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