Now, Lai Ching-te Takes Over the Mission to "Block Kuan”

 Now, Lai Ching-te Takes Over the Mission to "Block Kuan” 

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 5, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

It has been over two months since the move started to block Kuan Chung-ming’s appointment as president of National Taiwan University (NTU); the Ministry of Education most recently presented a new version of pretext, claiming that it would organize an "ad hoc cross-ministerial advisory committee" which would present in mid-April an advisory opinion for decision-making reference of the Ministry of Education. Translated into vernacular, this move means: the Education Ministry’s attempted “block Kuan mission” has failed; the end game will be taken over by Premier Lai Ching-te. Otherwise, how could a meager Education Ministry have the qualifications to convoke a cross-ministerial committee including the Interior Ministry, the Justice Ministry, the Mainland Affairs Council, the Central Personnel Administration, etc.?

Kuan Chung-ming has been accused of three offenses, being an independent director on a business board, plagiarism, and an adjunct professorship on the Mainland; after relentless public “lynching” by the Green camp for over two months, and helped by the collaborative operations of government agencies with public authority, if the evidence were indeed concrete, Kuan Chung-ming would have been convicted long ago, or he would have abandoned the nomination himself knowing that he was guilty. However, with the passage of time, the truth has not yet been out, and the jurisprudential explanation that should have been there is still absent, making the intramural divide of NTU even more vicious, while the public’s perception of the Education Ministry has become even worse because of its “intervention and inaction.”

Whether Pan Wen-chung’s earlier “block Kuan operations” were authorized by Lai Ching-te, eliciting disputes in society for two months, these operations have in fact been conducted under the acquiescence of Premier Lai Ching-te and President Tsai Ing-wen. Now, the establishment of the so-called "ad hoc cross-ministerial committee” is tantamount to officially transferring the authority of spearheading operations to the hands of the Premier. There will be no way for Lai Ching-te to further shirk his responsibility.

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