Why Isn’t DPP Employing the Ferocity in Blocking Kuan to Strive for Governance?

  Why Isn’t DPP Employing the Ferocity in Blocking Kuan to Strive for Governance?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 15, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

It has been one hundred days since the Ministry of Education started to "block Kuan" on January 5^th. It is not known whether because he felt guilty for failing to accomplish the mission or was no longer willing to shoulder the blame for murdering education that Pan Wen-chung finally submitted his resignation. Premier Lai Ching-te originally did not want to approve Pan’s request, quibbling that Pan Wen-chung resigned for “family reasons.” However, when Pan Wen-chung’s resignation statement urged a “stop to political manipulations,” the truth was out. Premier Lai immediately changed his tune to “reluctantly agree” to approve his resignation. These one hundred days was a bloody record of NTU’s lynching by a government falsely claiming to be democratic. Although Pan Wen-chung vacated his post with ease, he left behind an end game that it is difficult to say how it should be handled.

Judging from the ferocity that Pan Wen-chung launched this move to block Kuan for over three months, it could not be said he didn’t exhaust his efforts. Nevertheless, in the end, besides proving his own abuse of authority and the DPP’s narrow-mindedness, Pan Wen-chung finally only let the people feel a chilling effect towards the Tsai government’s cold harshness, while it accomplished nothing else. The public is curious that in the last three months plus, for what other affair of state did the Lai Ching-te Cabinet team so persistently make efforts in unison? None! People cannot think of any. In the last three months, the DPP’s “act” that most impressed people was that the Ministry of Education, the Mainland Affairs Council, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Taipei District Prosecutors Office launched attacks on Kuan Chung-ming from all directions.

As far as Lai Ching-te is concerned was it true that other important affairs of state related to Taiwan’s future mattered little incomparison to Pan Wen-chung’s move to “cblock Kuan,” which he especially cared for? Otherwise, why did Lai strongly persuade Pan to stay on in the last Cabinet reshuffle, asking him to carry on his unaccomplished mission? Or, as far as Taiwan independencefigures and "Taiwan independence workers" are concerned, the joy resulting from clubbing down Kuan Chung-ming was far greater than the sense of accomplishment from striving for governance. Otherwise, why did he allow the various government agencies to jointly attack Kuan Chung-ming, and not care about the erosion of the government’s image as a result?

We do not know what President Tsai Ing-wen’s views on Pan Wen-chung’s move to “block Kuan” for the past 100 days were; based on the division of powers between the Presidential Office and the Cabinet, even if she thought it was improper, we are afraid, it would be inconvenient for her to directly give instructions to the Cabinet. However, the blocking Kuan  storm hurt the government’s image to no small degree, while she remained quiet throughout. This exposed that her chasm with Lai Ching-te was not shallow, thus she desperately needed Chen Chu to help out in the Presidential Palace.

Nevertheless, the blocking Kuan case has seriously hurt the people’s trust in the government, which will not be resolved with the departure of a single Pan Wen-chung. How the Lai Cabinet will “rule by law,” allowing Kuan Chung-ming to assume his post as soon as possible would require some pondering. Thinking back on the DPP’s relentless move to block Kuan for 100 days, why didn’t it usesuch enormous will and strength to strive for governance?

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