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Ma ‘smears’ civil
society’s doubts
By Jang Show-ling 鄭秀玲
On July 30, a group of artists and academics — including the deans of National
Taiwan University’s College of Liberal Arts, College of Social Sciences and
College of Law — issued a joint statement regarding the controversy caused by
the cross-strait service trade agreement. The statement expressed hope for an
in-depth policy debate to build a consensus on the agreement based on a rational
and mature approach and through a diversified democratic deliberation process.
It also called on the government to listen humbly to opinions from every sector
of society, rather than relying on one-way promotion of the agreement through
formalistic official propaganda which distorts questions and suggestions from
civil society by sticking labels on them.
After the statement was issued, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said at a public
forum that some academics have sensationalized the issue with lies and
rumormongering and said that the reasons for opposition put forward by highly
placed intellectuals did not withstand scrutiny. He even said that the
confrontation was “a battle between those who tell lies and those who refute the
lies.” It was both distressing and regrettable to hear such rhetoric.
In his book The Rhetoric of Reaction, Albert Hirschman divided opposition to
social change into three narratives: perversity, futility and jeopardy. If he
had heard Ma’s response to the doubts expressed throughout civil society, he
might have added one more narrative: “smearing.”
Taiwanese have already decided that the service trade agreement was signed in a
closed-door procedure that violates democratic procedure. Former presidential
advisor Rex How (郝明義) asked who it was that decided on a closed-door approach
and why that decision was reached. He asked who decided which industries should
be included in the agreement and which not. No one in the government has come
forward to offer formal and comprehensive answers to any of these questions.
We can only wonder if Ma, when he used provocative language to attack the
academics, accusing them of rumor mongering, engaged in self-reflection. Did he
ask himself if he really could make an arbitrary decision on the scope, content
and conditions for deregulating an industry without a comprehensive industry
survey and impact assessment, and without giving the legislature and industries
a chance to express their opinions? Did he ask himself why he, a
directly-elected president, chose to harm Taiwan’s democracy or why his
government continues to stress that “the service trade agreement can only be
voted on in its entirety” after the legislature decided to review and vote on
the agreement item by item?
Over the past few months, some intellectuals and civic groups have worked hard
to study the impact of the agreement, collected information for the service
sectors involved, and consulted small and medium-sized enterprises and the
general public. All these things should have been done by the government, which
failed to accomplish any of them.
Unfortunately, people making these efforts have become targets of Ma’s
criticism. The situation is unbearable.
Neither the money to run advertisements nor the power to ask for media support
is available, and the Central News Agency certainly will not help to issue a
press release. However, an intellectual’s ethics and conscience demand action,
so releasing research results on public forums and hoping more people understand
the truth is all that can be done.
Ma’s method of rejecting public debate while simplifying any opposition as
“distortions” is not understandable.
Is this the right attitude for a president who is dealing with a major policy
crucial to people’s lives and to national development?
The more an issue is debated, the clearer the truth becomes so an invitation was
extended to Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) for a public debate, but Jiang has
decided to remain under the government’s protection.
If he does not want to face the issue in public, an invitation is extended to Ma
to discuss the cross-strait service trade agreement with academics and social
group representatives. He can replace irrational criticism through the media
with rational dialogue.
Ma would be able to respond to all questions on a public platform and clearly
explain the decisionmaking process and his reasoning behind the cross-strait
talks. That would allow the public to judge for themselves whether the signing
of the agreement was in line with democratic process, and whether the pact is
beneficial to Taiwanese people.
Jang Show-ling is chairwoman of the Department of Economics at National
Taiwan University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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