The Greatest "Negligence and Omission" Is Erroneous Gov’t Policy

 The Greatest "Negligence and Omission" Is Erroneous Gov’t Policy

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

August 17, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

On August 15, the public did not hear news about North Korea launching missiles toward Guam, but unexpectedly experienced the most serious power outage in 18 years, plunging the whole island of Taiwan into bewilderment and panic. “Assigning blame” has always been the strong suit of this government. CPC (Chinese Petroleum Corporation Taiwan) immediately came out and admitted their mistake; the Economics Minister immediately tendered his resignation, which was approved. The Cabinet then described the power outage as "negligence and omission" just as lightly as in the last outage the Cabinet ascribed blame to a "natural disaster.” Apparently, the Tsai government doesn’t know that the greatest "negligence and omission" causing the power crisis is precisely its own erroneous policy; the government’s policy objectives aimed high, but could not point out the safe path leading to the goals.

President Tsai formulated a "nuclear-free homeland" policy for completion in 2025, but had not undertaken a meticulous assessment, nor considered pragmatically the power needs of the country and society. Moreover, Tsai Ing-wen had not seriously considered the capacity of the government and other sectors such as Taipower to cope with the consequences of the policy. Under such circumstances, relying only on her strong convictions, plus psychological factors such as political opportumism or social vanity, she decided to make it the top priority policy of the state; naturally it is bound to have myriad unforeseen consequences.

Strictly speaking, the August 15^th blackout is not merely "negligence and omission" or an "accident"; its more apparent imagery is reflecting "systemic errors" and "operational collapse" of the government policies. In fact, since the end of last year, the various power plant accidents of Taipower elicited problems of inadequate electricity operating reserves at peak usage periods; this has already proven that Tsai Ing-wen's energy transformation policy has plunged the nation into a quagmire, “biting off more than one can chew” and "implementation can’t catch up with planning." However, despite caveats by the outside world, and despite how many times Taipower has switched on yellow and red lights, the Tsai government has not moved one inch, not honestly facing the problem, nor adjusting its policy with modesty, playing the old tune that "the objectives remain unchanged." Taiwan's power supply has already reached a critical point, but the Tsai government’s energy policy has no cut-loss point. Shall we watch the power supply fall off the cliff before our own eyes?

Examining the reasons, the government's erroneous energy planning and the weak implementation have all bared their embarrassment. This is precisely the most dreadful "negligence and omission" in the power supply.

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