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Responsible
government not a petty blame game
By David Huang ¶À°¶®p
On the eve of the World Health Assembly (WHA), internal documents from the WHO
Secretariat were leaked, revealing orders to its agencies to list Taiwan as a
province of China. Once the document was revealed by a Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) legislator, it became a point of contention between the pan-blue and
pan-green camps.
On the one hand, the DPP blamed President Ma Ying-jeou¡¦s (°¨^¤E) administration
for China-leaning policies that force Taiwan to participate as a mere observer
at the WHA on humiliating conditions. On the other hand, the Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT) blames the previous DPP administration for allowing Taiwan to take
part in several specialized WHO meetings under the name ¡§Chinese Taiwan¡¨ during
its time in office, saying the DPP¡¦s political performance should also be
scrutinized.
Because the pan-blue and pan-green camps blame each other, what should have been
a joint effort to uphold Taiwan¡¦s sovereignty was quickly reduced to a tool for
domestic political point scoring.
Ignoring the respective strong and weak points made by the parties and their
relationship to the WHO, a simple review from a democratic viewpoint shows that
the government¡¦s attempts at self-justification are flimsy.
The Ma administration claims that as soon as the WHO started to belittle Taiwan,
it ¡§immediately¡¨ protested to both the WHO and the Chinese authorities. At the
same time, the administration was quick to blame the DPP for the breakdown in
unity and to claim that the DPP had also participated in meetings that belittled
Taiwan when it was in government.
Ma¡¦s administration should explain what alternative diplomatic means, other than
protesting, are available to protect Taiwan¡¦s sovereignty. After all, only the
KMT is in power and able to safeguard national sovereignty. However, the KMT has
declined to tell the public what more can be done to protect sovereignty.
Instead, it has instead chosen to blame the DPP in an attempt to rationalize its
own incompetence.
It is conceivable that the DPP¡¦s unsuccessful aggressive diplomacy to protect
Taiwan¡¦s sovereignty was the reason voters believed Ma¡¦s election promise that
cross-strait reconciliation would resolve Taiwan¡¦s diplomatic problems. In other
words, they could well have voted for the Ma administration to uphold Taiwan¡¦s
sovereignty.
Even though cross-strait relations have improved, China continues to attack
Taiwan¡¦s standing in the international community. Even more troubling is that
the Ma administration has shown absolutely no willingness to review its
policies, preferring instead to blame the previous DPP administration for
failing to uphold sovereignty.
Following that logic, if Taiwanese voters had wanted another government
incapable of upholding sovereignty, they would have simply kept the DPP. In a
democracy, voters use elections to demand a change in government to promote
continued national improvement, not to compare the faults of parties.
This does not mean that the DPP¡¦s record should not come under public scrutiny;
of course it should, but the voters already punished the DPP for its
shortcomings in upholding Taiwan¡¦s sovereignty when they elected Ma. Why then is
the KMT, the party in power and therefore subject to public scrutiny, blaming
the DPP for its past record?
If the government wants to show itself to be responsible, it should accept the
mistakes made by the previous administration. By blaming the DPP, the Ma
administration is admitting that it is unwilling to take responsibility for its
own actions and is therefore unfit to rule the nation.
David Huang is an associate research fellow at the Institute of European and
American Studies, Academia Sinica.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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