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EDITORIAL: Government
is busy doing nothing
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) achieved a whole new level of chutzpah this
week in going on the defensive over its economic stimulus plans (or lack
thereof) and its stolen party assets. The sheer brazenness of the comments from
administration and party lawmakers almost defied belief, except that under
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, we have come to expect that the
emperor has no clothes.
First up was Executive Yuan Deputy Secretary-General Steven Chen (陳士魁), who said
on Wednesday that the government was hard at work trying to boost the economy,
but was not concerned about whether the public could see any improvement,
calling the determination of progress “a subjective matter.”
Chen went on to say that he had publicized only a few of the more than 100 plans
put forward by Cabinet ministries as part of the government’s massive “Economic
Power-up Plan” so as to not overburden the media, but that he could assure the
public that the majority of the plans were nearly accomplished. So, he did not
want to create more work for reporters by actually telling them what the
government was up to, which would create the need for them to write stories
about what was being done. What a pile of horse manure.
This supercilious comment echoed the ill-fated 40-second TV ad that was pulled
from YouTube this week, the one with the narrative that the Economic Power-up
Plan was too complex to explain in simple words, but the important thing was
that a lot of things were being done. The public would just have to trust the
government, was the implication. No wonder so many people were quick to label
both the ad and the government’s YouTube account as frauds.
A willingness to trust in the unknowable and unseeable is what Chen and his
masters are counting on — a mindset that hearkens back to the KMT’s
authoritarian era, when the public was more malleable (or more scared).
The only example of the “more than 100 plans” that Chen was willing to mention
was a proposal to take effect early next year that would mean people no longer
having to routinely renew their vehicle licenses. He said the policy would
benefit 15 million motorcyclists and 6 million drivers, adding: “If people still
cannot feel an improvement after that, then I am speechless.”
It is hard to see how reducing paperwork for motorists is going to get an
export-oriented economy back on its feet, but Chen’s implication was that it is
not the government’s problem if the public is too slow or too dim-witted to
understand what is being done on its behalf. Chen’s comment left many
speechless, but from laughter, not disbelief.
Just as the KMT and its officials cannot understand why the public is unwilling
to see what is not there, like the emperor’s clothes, they do not understand why
critics continue to harp on about the party’s stolen assets.
On Thursday, it was KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng’s (吳育昇) turn to defend the
indefensible. In a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration
Committee to review a proposed bill on political parties, Wu complained of
persecution by opposition lawmakers who wanted to include something about the
KMT’s stolen assets in the bill. He said only the courts could decide “whether
KMT assets are legal or illegal, it’s not a decision that should be made by the
legislature.”
It does not take a court to decide what was stolen. It has always been very
clear. Any assets obtained from property, companies and facilities held by the
Japanese colonial government at the end of World War II should rightfully have
ended up with the national treasury, not the KMT. Any profits derived from such
stolen assets are also tainted fruit and should be handed over to the treasury.
This is not persecution, it is fact, and only the KMT remains too blinkered to
see it.
A brazen defense of the indefensible is becoming the trademark of the Ma
administration. If all the energy spent on whitewashing was put toward something
that was actually productive, the economy would be bouncing back already, as
would Ma’s poll numbers.
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