DPP’s Stammering and Trembling under its Nuclear-free Totem

 DPP’s Stammering and Trembling under its Nuclear-free Totem

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 11, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Eric Chu, who has declared his intention to enter the 2020 presidential race, clear-cutly indicated that statement based on national security considerations, he would be willing to de-mothball and activate Nuclear Power Plant No. 4 (NPP No. 4) should the power supply become inadequate; this statement elicited Lin Yi-hsiung’s lambasting, who believed that Chu used the land and people as gambling chips, and that he should not be elected. Several days later, the International Chamber of Commerce’s International Arbitration Tribunal ruled that Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) must compensate General Electric in the amount of NT$4.9 billion for suspending NPP No. 4. To this the DPP and Lin Yi-hsiung, however, played dumb, issuing no response. From the loquacious anti-nuclear rhetoric, to the sophistry for power shortages, to the dead silence for winding up the end game, it explains that the DPP has been acting all the way to make their stances, but lacking the courage to face reality.

Originally, many people hoped that the results of the three plebiscite propositions last yearend would give the Tsai government a loud admonition, or at least offer a chance to step down for tits rash and radical energy policy. Who knew, the Tsai government, for her on down, firmed up its determination, not considering an iota for change, but continuing down its solitary path. The DPP used to describe the "popular opinion by plebiscites" as the most sacred; however, when real-life plebiscites exhibited in front of it, the Tsai government, nevertheless, has acted to march forward by trampling over it without blood or tears, even more crude and highhanded than under an authoritarian regime.

Let us leave aside Lin Yi-hsiung’s anti-nuclear bigotry for the time being, the DPP has put ideology over and above the realities of governance; knowing full-well that its energy policy has numerous loopholes, not to mention that even normal power supply has had difficulties, it has been throwing large sums of money around to picture a hodge-podge green energy that it even itself does not even know where it is. Moreover, it has made the air quality of all Taiwan deteriorate to an extent that people find it difficult to breathe, but still does not repent and make amends. The Tsai government’s acts are not ignorant, nor blind, but rather harbor a vicious mentality. In its eyes, besides power, no other thing is more important. To make the powers-that-be bow to vox populi, hand over the DPP’s totem, is something that could never be accomplished!

The DPP used to revere vox populi as divine, but once the DPP and the DPP's totem clash, the Tsai government will immediately chose to trample on vox populi without hesitation. This is the true picture of "democracy and progress"; Tsai Ing-wen's nuclear-free homeland has allowed the people to recognize the DPP's chaotic values and hypocritical morality. Why does the Tsai government, which lacks a sense of political accountability, dare not to look face-to-face at the results of the plebiscites? The reasons are very simple, what has been worshipped on the DPP’s alter is actually not what is called values and idealism; what people have witnessed is but the Green camp’s stammering and trembling under the nuclear-free totem.

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