Merry Christmas
& .....
Happy New Year
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Updating Democracy Index and Economic Freedom Index
Democracy Index (DI) and Economic Freedom Index (EFI)
In recent report (October 25, 2005) of "WorldAudit.org", the rank of DI and EFI of the following countries (total of 166 nations), in the format of "country name, DI, EFI" are:
Finland, 1, 15
U.K., 10, 7
Canada, 12, 16
U.S., 14, 12
Japan, 18, 39
Taiwan, 27, 27
S. Korea, 32, 45
China, 128, 112
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In recent report (October 25, 2005) of "WorldAudit.org", the rank of DI and EFI of the following countries (total of 166 nations), in the format of "country name
Finland, 1, 15
U.K., 10, 7
Canada, 12, 16
U.S., 14, 12
Japan, 18, 39
Taiwan, 27, 27
S. Korea, 32, 45
China, 128, 112
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
年尾札記
年尾札記:
吳惠林先生引述經濟學家夏道平先生的話說「真正的經濟學家」應該具有的思路是：
一. 應了解「人」具有異於禽獸的意志、理念和邏輯思考；
二. 人的欲望滿足受外在種種限制，不得不有所選擇，但力求自由選擇；
三. 人在爭取自由過程中不能妨害別人的自由，在互動中形成分工合作；
四. 人類社會的形成和擴大，是由於人的自覺行為之互動，不是靠一個人或少數人的設 計、規畫、指揮或命令而組織成的所謂「團隊」行為；
五. 「非團隊」行為是分工合作社會所賴以達成、擴大的基礎，是「無形手」（指市場）的作用，是「長成的社會秩序」；
六. 有形手（指政府）不應牽制或阻礙「無形手」運作，只能為其去礙；
七. 自由市場和政府間的關係是後者對於前者的運作，只可維護或給予便利，不得有干擾。
吳惠林先生引述經濟學家夏道平先生的話說「真正的經濟學家」應該具有的思路是：
一. 應了解「人」具有異於禽獸的意志、理念和邏輯思考；
二. 人的欲望滿足受外在種種限制，不得不有所選擇，但力求自由選擇；
三. 人在爭取自由過程中不能妨害別人的自由，在互動中形成分工合作；
四. 人類社會的形成和擴大，是由於人的自覺行為之互動，不是靠一個人或少數人的設 計、規畫、指揮或命令而組織成的所謂「團隊」行為；
五. 「非團隊」行為是分工合作社會所賴以達成、擴大的基礎，是「無形手」（指市場）的作用，是「長成的社會秩序」；
六. 有形手（指政府）不應牽制或阻礙「無形手」運作，只能為其去礙；
七. 自由市場和政府間的關係是後者對於前者的運作，只可維護或給予便利，不得有干擾。
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Taiwan's December Election
Big Eagle wants to share this article on Taiwan's Democracy with you. The article is distributed by "Foreign Policy Research Institute", http://www.fpri.org/
Jacques deLisle is Director of FPRI's Asia Program and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.
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TAIWAN'S DEMOCRACY AND LESSONS FROM YET ANOTHER ELECTION
by Jacques deLisle
December 16, 2005
Barely two weeks after President Bush pointed to Taiwan as an example of democracy that the PRC would do well to emulate,Taiwanese voters went to the polls yet again. This time, they selected county magistrates, county and city council members, and township heads. The outcome was a stinging defeat for the Democratic Progressive Party,ubiquitously if somewhat misleadingly referred to as Taiwan's ruling party because of its control of the presidency and, in turn, the premiership and the executive branch agencies in Taiwan's problematically mixed presidential-parliamentary system. The DPP won only six of the twenty-three county magistracies, down a third from its previous share. Fourteen seats--a gain of five--went to the Kuomintang, which is generally referred to as the opposition party despite its functional control of the legislature. The KMT's allies in the "pan-blue" captured the remaining county magistracies. Below the magistrate level, the DPP and its "pan-green" partners fared even worse.
The balloting also marked another milepost in the rapid development and consolidation of Taiwan's democracy. Although marred by charges of electoral irregularities and improper campaign methods, the "three-in-one" election
produced results that won wide acceptance as valid. In these respects, the voting echoed the national legislative elections of a year earlier. And it continued the recovery from the divisive presidential election of March 2004 in which the outcome likely turned on the eleventh-hour shooting of President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu, and which brought charges from the defeated pan-blue camp asserting that the incumbents' come-from-behind victory was illegitimate and the assassination attempt staged. This brief rattling of the system aside, the December 2005 election joins an ever-lengthening list of peaceful and legitimate elections that have been held since Taiwan's democratic transformation began nearly two decades ago.
While one can count seats won and lost at the county and lower levels,or rounds of legitimate elections peacefully held, little else about the meaning of the recent balloting is certain. Conflicting interpretations abound concerning what motivated voters and what the outcome portends for foreign and domestic policy, constitutional revision efforts, upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, and party alignment and reform. Amid such uncertainties, the election nonetheless did reflect and extend two broad, and not-so-salutary, features of recent Taiwanese politics.
POLITICS IS NOT LOCAL
Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill famously said that all politics is local. This month's elections support a nearly opposite aphorism for Taiwan: local politics never remains local. It may well be that local issues were first
in voters' minds in this election. Key and closely watched races did focus on the attributes and actions of individual candidates, including allegations of vote-buying, health problems, improper disclosures of medical records, character assassination, the impropriety of a candidate's attempt to reclaim a county office after a long absence in central government posts, and so on. Nonetheless, national and international issues loomed large. Accurately or not, the election was often depicted and seen as a mid-term referendum on Chen's presidency and DPP rule and as a dry-run for national legislative elections in 2007 and the presidential election in 2008. National leaders from both camps--including President Chen, Vice President Lu, presumptive pan-blue presidential nominee Ma, DPP chairman and aspiring presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang, and Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng--campaigned hard for magistrate candidates and effectively "nationalized" the races.
The election thus became, to a significant degree, about non-local issues, such as DPP governance, the merits of the KMT alternative, the economy, corruption and scandals, and money in politics. Any election that is cast in large part as a judgment on the Chen presidency and DPP government or as an expression of preference for future pan-blue or pan-green rule inevitably also implicates cross-Strait relations. While there is much room for disagreement about how different the mainland policies of the DPP or KMT really are, the two principal parties and their respective allies have been at pains to differentiate themselves from one another on mainland relations, with each accusing the other of irresponsibility toward Taiwan's interests. A vote for either pan-blue or pan-green therefore has to be read as a vote that is in part about cross-Strait policy.
Moreover, national party leaders explicitly brought questions of mainland policy into the county elections. The high-profile visits to China by former KMT chairman Lien Chan and People First Party chief James Soong came after the late 2004 Legislative Yuan elections, making the December 2005 contest the first significant occasion for the parties to seek voters' endorsement or rejection of the pan-blue's new approach to Beijing. In the months preceding the election, PFP legislators also pressed a "peace promotion" bill and pan-blue representatives backed budget measures that would have undercut the long-standing and DPP-favored Mainland Affairs Council as the institutional vehicle for cross-Strait policy.
During the campaign, Chen and other pan-green leaders pointed to such developments as showing that a vote for the pan-blue was, in effect, a vote to compromise Taiwan's functional sovereignty and its interests more generally. Chen and Lee Teng-hui, former president and godfather of the pan-green Taiwan Solidarity Union, cast the election as a choice between the KMT's position of collaborating with the PRC regime and the DPP's position of protecting Taiwan. At the same time, pan-blue advocates argued that the Chen administration, unlike the pan-blue, was unable to make progress with Beijing on issues vital to Taiwan's national interests and had a dangerous penchant for risky pro-independence stances.
Both sides tendered predictions and threats about the election's fallout. The KMT's Ma asserted that a pan-blue victory would force Chen to be more accommodating in cross-Strait policy; Chen responded that it could lead his
administration instead to take a tougher line with the PRC. The administration later explained the president's remarks as not a definitive policy shift but rather as a rejoinder to Ma's provocation, an assertion of the administration's vigilance should an emboldened pan-blue be overzealous in pursuing accommodation with Beijing, and an empirical observation based on the negative impact on cross-Strait relations of prior pan-blue victories or policy gambits.
This is not to say that the results of the county elections are primarily an expression of voter sentiments on cross-Strait issues. Rather, the injection of mainland policy into these local elections (1) showed how inescapable questions of mainland policy have become in Taiwan's politics, and (2) raised the risk that the outside world-always focused on implications for Taiwan-PRC-U.S. relations would infer from the campaign new and unsettling developments in Taiwan's China policies, or would perceive in the results a popular verdict on the two camps' contrasting approaches to dealing with Beijing.
In both these respects, the 2005 elections faintly echoed the Legislative Yuan elections of 2004. That vote too was supposed to be about local issues. But this changed during the campaign's final weeks. At that critical juncture, with
the pan-green hopes for a legislative majority imperiled, President Chen intervened and energetically sought to rally voters in support of his administration's cross-Strait positions. It remains far from certain that critical groups of voters cast their ballots on that basis, and the pan-blue did retain control of the legislature. Nonetheless, Chen's intervention prompted the outside world--and especially U.S. observers--to view the elections through the "Taiwan sovereignty" lens that Chen deployed. It prompted a milder version of President Bush's rebuke to Chen (warning Chen against unilateral moves to change the cross-Strait status quo) at his meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2003.
The dynamic seems unlikely to abate for the early 2008 vote for president and the late 2007 vote for the legislature. The 2007 election, of course, parallels the 2004 elections, which saw the late turn to an emphasis on cross-Strait policy issues. Despite electoral district reforms that are expected to lead to a greater focus on local issues, there is little assurance that questions of mainland relations and policies will not intrude-not least because of the legacy of polarization that the 2005 elections reinforce and the shadow the looming 2008 presidential election will cast. Like all Taiwanese presidential elections, the 2008 campaign is likely to bring cross-Strait issues to the fore.
The 2006 elections for the mayoralties of Taipei and Kaohsiung may well exhibit a similar pattern. Like the 2005 county elections, they will be for posts one rung below the national level. Like the most hotly contested and closely watched of the county magistrate elections in 2005, the one for Taipei county, the two big-city mayor races are especially laden with national implications. Where the Taipei county magistracy was significant because it had provided a four-term green outpost in Taiwan's blue north and because DPP Chairman Su was the retiring incumbent, the 2006 Taipei mayoral election will be for the post that presumptive pan-blue presidential candidate Ma will be vacating and that President Chen had held before him. Like Taipei county in 2005, Taipei city in 2006 will be an election for a swing district, one winnable by pan-green candidates despite its location in the blue north.
At the core of the pan-green heartland, Kaohsiung is a place where a loss would be a major defeat for the DPP and a repudiation of its performance and policies on a range of issues, primarily good governance but potentially China as well. And such a setback is conceivable, given the pan-blue's ability to score occasional victories there and an ongoing scandal over a mass-transit project that has dogged the current, DPP city administration and that has its origins during the mayorship of current DPP prime minister and presidential aspirant Frank Hsieh.
As in most countries, Taiwan's two largest cities, along with the urbanized Taipei county, are relatively cosmopolitan places where foreign and national policies typically are thought to be more salient for voters. Given this and the mayoral elections' closeness to the 2007-08 electoral cycle, these elections will be scrutinized for their implications for national politics and, thus, cross-Strait policy.
One factor that contributes to the tendency for the politics of cross-Strait policy to pervade local elections is the high frequency of elections in Taiwan. This "election overload" is also a troublesome feature of Taiwanese democracy that the 2005 county elections have underscored.
PROBLEMS OF THE PERPETUAL CAMPAIGN
A saying attributed to Chinese peasants during the 1930s and 1940s held that the Japanese killed too much, the Nationalists taxed too much, and the Communists met too much. Taiwan today suggests an addendum: the democrats vote too much.
The density of elections with national scope or significance is striking. Since March 2004, Taiwanese voters have gone to the polls to choose a president, consider a pair of "defensive referenda" concerning possible weapons acquisition policies and terms for cross-Strait relations, elect a legislature, empanel a National Assembly to adopt constitutional amendments, and select county magistrates and councilors and lower level officials. After a brief respite, Taiwan's electorate will face at least three key contests through March 2008: mayors of the two largest and most important cities, the national legislature, and the presidency.
Politicians and commentators lament the packed electoral calendar. The perceived dangers come in several varieties. The expense of the endless string of elections provided an important argument for holding "three-in-one" elections in 2005. It also entwined with the broader concern over the cost of government to help drive the constitutional amendment shrinking the size of parliament and the increasingly sharp legislative wrangling over budgets, including a long-stalled supplementary appropriation for purchasing weapons from the United States.
Of more interest here, Taiwan's chronic voting risks polarized and paralyzed politics. The frequent elections encourage the tendency to scrutinize local elections for their implications for an upcoming national election. This in turn encourages national-level politicians to interject supra-local issues into each contest. Such tendencies may be inescapable in small and competitive democracies, but the shortness of the electoral cycle in Taiwan makes matters worse.
With each election's result thus seen not only as a measure of parties' current standing but also as a determinant of their prospects in the next election, and with each campaign effectively underway when the prior election ends, officeholders and prospective candidates face strong incentives not to take risks and especially not to risk handing the other side a pre-election political gain. "We can take a more bipartisan approach once the next election is over" is a common sentiment in democratic polities, butit is a problematic one in Taiwan, where the next election always seems only months away. The scope narrows for deals that don't provide immediate pay-offs to all participants. Prospects for inter-branch cooperation and statesmanlike approaches to policy problems are dimmed, and the temptation to score cheap or dramatic political points increases. Stalemate of the sort that has characterized Taiwanese politics is a predictable consequence.
"Voter burnout" is a commonly made prediction in Taiwan. It has not yet materialized. Turnout has continued to surpass 60 percent (with the insignificant exception of the National Assembly election, which chose representatives largely to rubberstamp the constitutional amendments passed by the Legislative Yuan). Still, the worry is pervasive. Were voter turnout to drop sharply, it would make it harder for victors to claim mandates for their preferred policies, making governing more difficult--especially in the
environment of divided government that Taiwan has had since 2000. The prospect of lower turnout also reduces the utility of one high-visibility political-governmental tool, since referenda can pass only if a majority of the eligible electorate votes.
Moreover, expectations that fewer voters may go to the polls encourage each bloc to play to its more extreme base and to vilify its opponents. Many observers attribute the turn to ideological messages and the invocation of cross-Strait issues in recent local races to this endgame drive to energize the hardcore partisan vote. On this view, those efforts to rally these core supporters became especially urgent because of party elites' fears that many among the broad center of moderate voters might stay home, despite recognition that playing to the base increased the likelihood that those fears would in fact be realized.
The constitutional change to restructure the legislature into smaller, single-member districts is expected to (1) reduce polarization, by denying a seat to, say, a fourth-place finisher with fringe followers in a four-member
district; (2) sharpen the focus on truly local issues, by giving voters a sole representative to hold accountable and by tying a legislator's incentives to the interests of a more compact and coherent community; and (3) consolidate a two-party system, by making it more likely that a three-way race will result in the contested seat's going to the candidate of whichever of the two blocs fields a single candidate.
While such expectations are perfectly in keeping with political science theory, it is far from certain that all of them will come true. The 2005 county magistrate contests seemed to offer preliminary validation to the third hypothesis: all but one of the 21 principal county magistracies went to KMT or DPP candidates; most contests saw only two serious candidates; and truly three-way races were confined almost entirely to districts where the bloc that divided either had so little support that unity was unlikely to have led to victory or such strong support that unity seemed unnecessary to secure the seat.
As to the other two propositions, however, the December elections provide grounds for skepticism. The inherent localism of those elections and the single-seat structure of the magistracies failed to check the campaigns' invocation of national and international issues or ideological and partisan appeals. Moreover, the election reinforced a regional dimension in Taiwan's politics that in some respects parallels the U.S.'s notorious division into red and blue states. While Taiwanese have long spoken of the "blue north" and the "green south," the county elections produced a map with an exceptionally clear dividing line. Although that line may not hold for long and still contains one small exception, for now it separates contiguous zones of solid green and solid blue.
THE ROAD AHEAD FOR CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS
In addition to confirming Taiwan's robust democratization, the December elections are important for the sweeping KMT victory and as an apparent harbinger of pan-blue success in the 2008 presidential balloting. Yet, it is far from clear that this election portends a significant shift in a traditionally "blue" or pro-accommodation direction for cross-Strait policy.
While the pan-blue camp appears to be on a roll, its electoral victories coincide with a "greening" of the blues, particularly on matters relevant to cross-Strait relations. The median Taiwanese voter arguably remains a consistent shade of teal on such issues and perhaps more generally. True, the 2005 mainland visits by Lien and Soong looked--especially to pan-green critics--like a shift back toward the "pro-reunification" approach that Chen and his KMT predecessor President Lee had so sharply eroded. But the dramatic pilgrimages by former pan-blue standard-bearers has not yet clearly heralded a significant reversal of trends that run generally in the opposite direction. As candidates in the 2004 election, Lien and Soong struck stances on cross-Strait relations and Taiwanese identity that were a good deal closer to Chen's and the DPP's positions than had been the case during their presidential campaigns four years earlier.
As the pan-blue's likely nominee for president in 2008, Ma has sounded more like the Lien-Soong of 2004 than the Lien or Soong of 2000. Some also credit Ma with considerable shrewdness in leaving Lien to take charge of the KMT-CCP dialogue. This approach partly insulates Ma from the risk of such dealings' casting their protagonists in an excessively bluish hue (which is a particular concern for Ma as a waishengren, or "mainlander," candidate who needs significant bentu, or "Taiwanese," support). The tactic also allows Ma an opportunity to "audition" relatively accommodationist cross-Strait initiatives with the electorate, embracing them only if they seem more helpful to the KMT's claims to be the party best able to deal with the mainland than they are harmful to its resilience to charges of failing to safeguard Taiwan's interests and functional sovereignty.
In the immediate aftermath of the KMT victories in the December elections, Ma distanced himself from the suggestion that the outcome signaled a shift in Taiwanese voters' support for the status quo or implied a demand for significant changes in near-term cross-Strait policy. Ma declared that, while the election's winning party favored greater cooperation with China, the voting did not mean that Taiwanese now favored reunification, or any departure from the cross-Strait political status quo.
As for the greens, the implications of their troubles for Taiwan's cross-Strait policies are not simple. A pan-green recovery is highly unlikely by 2008, given the margin of defeat, the responsibility for the losses that leading DPP
presidential contenders Su and Hsieh have had to bear, scandals over the Kaohsiung mass-transit project and insider trading within the presidential office, and the existence of internecine divides that have triggered speculation about the party's possibly splitting up. But a recovery is not impossible. Two and a quarter years is a long time in Taiwanese politics. And the greens' opponents may be less formidable than they appear, given not-yet-healed divisions between the KMT and PFP, rivalries within the KMT and many voters' abiding distrust of the KMT as a ruling party.
The quest for a near-term pan-green resurgence might well herald the party's continuation and extension of Chen-era approaches toward the PRC, or it might involve repositioning on a number of issues, including cross-Strait questions such as easing investment restrictions and providing direct transportation links in order to permit stronger economic ties. The DPP has only begun to grapple with how to allocate blame for its electoral defeats and consider what internal reforms to undertake in response to its rebukes from the voters. That process surely will include debate on overcoming scandals, which is an especially pressing concern given the DPP's long-standing self-positioning as a party of reform; on domestic policy and governance issues, where there is much repair work to be done on the party's image; and on factional politics within the DPP and the larger pan-green bloc, which have been a chronic problem. But the DPP's adjustments may also involve mainland policies and almost certainly will have implications for them.
Chen will remain the president for the next two-plus years and will continue to do much to shape the pan-green stance on cross-Strait matters. While pundits and politicians have differed over the likely magnitude and direction of any post-election change in the Chen administration's approach to dealing with Beijing, it seems likely that mainland relations will be a significant focus during the remainder of Chen's tenure. Given the allocation of powers in Taiwan's constitutional system and the pan-blue's legislative majority, relations with the PRC are one of the few areas in which the president has great independent power to shape policy. Further, Chen is considered to be a man concerned with his legacy, which would include his contributions to safeguarding what he routinely describes as Taiwan's sovereignty and, as some would put it, advancing Taiwan's independence. This augurs no softening of his line on relations with the PRC. On the other hand, some see Chen as wanting to leave behind some accomplishments in improving cross-Strait ties--or at least not wanting to leave all credit for impending advancements to his pan-blue opponents. This, when coupled with the pressure Chen faces from his supporters within the business community, points to pursuit of progress on the three links and other aspects of economic relations.
Finally, there are the reds. China's Taiwan policy has become more savvy. Launching a missile crisis in 1996 gave way to Premier Zhu Rongji's finger-wagging warning in 2000, and to still subtler and less counterproductive tactics for addressing Taiwan's voters and affecting Taiwan's electoral politics in 2004 and since. Inviting Lien and Soong for high-profile, feel-good visits to the mainland and passing an Anti-Secession Law are complicated tactics that have in some respects alienated some of their intended Taiwanese targets but which also have shown enhanced agility in advancing the PRC's cross-Strait agenda with relevant audiences on Taiwan.
Although the Lien-Soong trips deepened suspicions of pan-blue traitorousness in some Taiwanese circles, they also advanced what appears to be a promising Chinese strategy of divide and conquer. They also served to underscore for some Taiwanese the Chen administration's inability to make any progress in dealing with the PRC, including on concrete economic issues that matter a great deal to Taiwan's influential business community and to its economy more broadly. To be sure, the Anti-Secession Law prompted widespread concern and anger in Taiwan. But many Taiwanese at least privately conceded that it also reaffirmed a Chinese tolerance for the status quo (even as it also cautioned against further, unspecified moves toward formal independence, presumably of the sort associated with "deep green" politics in Taiwan).
While some foresee a possibility that China will seek to achieve a breakthrough in cross-Strait relations during Chen's final two and a quarter years in office, capitalizing on his weakened political condition and his imputed interest in leaving a positive legacy in mainland policy, this is not the most likely scenario. Having turned a cold shoulder to Chen for so long and having used the Lien-Soong trips and other means to cultivate the pan-blue, Beijing seems unlikely to strike a deal with Chen in the run-up to an expected pan-blue set of victories in 2007-08, especially not on any terms that Chen would find acceptable. But China's options too are constrained in ways that cannot yet be fully discerned. Given the progress of Taiwanese democracy, the intractable salience of cross-Strait issues in Taiwanese electoral politics, and the frequency of Taiwanese elections, Beijing, like everyone else, must wait and adapt to the outcomes of the recent and upcoming elections.
Jacques deLisle is Director of FPRI's Asia Program and Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.
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TAIWAN'S DEMOCRACY AND LESSONS FROM YET ANOTHER ELECTION
by Jacques deLisle
December 16, 2005
Barely two weeks after President Bush pointed to Taiwan as an example of democracy that the PRC would do well to emulate,Taiwanese voters went to the polls yet again. This time, they selected county magistrates, county and city council members, and township heads. The outcome was a stinging defeat for the Democratic Progressive Party,ubiquitously if somewhat misleadingly referred to as Taiwan's ruling party because of its control of the presidency and, in turn, the premiership and the executive branch agencies in Taiwan's problematically mixed presidential-parliamentary system. The DPP won only six of the twenty-three county magistracies, down a third from its previous share. Fourteen seats--a gain of five--went to the Kuomintang, which is generally referred to as the opposition party despite its functional control of the legislature. The KMT's allies in the "pan-blue" captured the remaining county magistracies. Below the magistrate level, the DPP and its "pan-green" partners fared even worse.
The balloting also marked another milepost in the rapid development and consolidation of Taiwan's democracy. Although marred by charges of electoral irregularities and improper campaign methods, the "three-in-one" election
produced results that won wide acceptance as valid. In these respects, the voting echoed the national legislative elections of a year earlier. And it continued the recovery from the divisive presidential election of March 2004 in which the outcome likely turned on the eleventh-hour shooting of President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu, and which brought charges from the defeated pan-blue camp asserting that the incumbents' come-from-behind victory was illegitimate and the assassination attempt staged. This brief rattling of the system aside, the December 2005 election joins an ever-lengthening list of peaceful and legitimate elections that have been held since Taiwan's democratic transformation began nearly two decades ago.
While one can count seats won and lost at the county and lower levels,or rounds of legitimate elections peacefully held, little else about the meaning of the recent balloting is certain. Conflicting interpretations abound concerning what motivated voters and what the outcome portends for foreign and domestic policy, constitutional revision efforts, upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, and party alignment and reform. Amid such uncertainties, the election nonetheless did reflect and extend two broad, and not-so-salutary, features of recent Taiwanese politics.
POLITICS IS NOT LOCAL
Former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill famously said that all politics is local. This month's elections support a nearly opposite aphorism for Taiwan: local politics never remains local. It may well be that local issues were first
in voters' minds in this election. Key and closely watched races did focus on the attributes and actions of individual candidates, including allegations of vote-buying, health problems, improper disclosures of medical records, character assassination, the impropriety of a candidate's attempt to reclaim a county office after a long absence in central government posts, and so on. Nonetheless, national and international issues loomed large. Accurately or not, the election was often depicted and seen as a mid-term referendum on Chen's presidency and DPP rule and as a dry-run for national legislative elections in 2007 and the presidential election in 2008. National leaders from both camps--including President Chen, Vice President Lu, presumptive pan-blue presidential nominee Ma, DPP chairman and aspiring presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang, and Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng--campaigned hard for magistrate candidates and effectively "nationalized" the races.
The election thus became, to a significant degree, about non-local issues, such as DPP governance, the merits of the KMT alternative, the economy, corruption and scandals, and money in politics. Any election that is cast in large part as a judgment on the Chen presidency and DPP government or as an expression of preference for future pan-blue or pan-green rule inevitably also implicates cross-Strait relations. While there is much room for disagreement about how different the mainland policies of the DPP or KMT really are, the two principal parties and their respective allies have been at pains to differentiate themselves from one another on mainland relations, with each accusing the other of irresponsibility toward Taiwan's interests. A vote for either pan-blue or pan-green therefore has to be read as a vote that is in part about cross-Strait policy.
Moreover, national party leaders explicitly brought questions of mainland policy into the county elections. The high-profile visits to China by former KMT chairman Lien Chan and People First Party chief James Soong came after the late 2004 Legislative Yuan elections, making the December 2005 contest the first significant occasion for the parties to seek voters' endorsement or rejection of the pan-blue's new approach to Beijing. In the months preceding the election, PFP legislators also pressed a "peace promotion" bill and pan-blue representatives backed budget measures that would have undercut the long-standing and DPP-favored Mainland Affairs Council as the institutional vehicle for cross-Strait policy.
During the campaign, Chen and other pan-green leaders pointed to such developments as showing that a vote for the pan-blue was, in effect, a vote to compromise Taiwan's functional sovereignty and its interests more generally. Chen and Lee Teng-hui, former president and godfather of the pan-green Taiwan Solidarity Union, cast the election as a choice between the KMT's position of collaborating with the PRC regime and the DPP's position of protecting Taiwan. At the same time, pan-blue advocates argued that the Chen administration, unlike the pan-blue, was unable to make progress with Beijing on issues vital to Taiwan's national interests and had a dangerous penchant for risky pro-independence stances.
Both sides tendered predictions and threats about the election's fallout. The KMT's Ma asserted that a pan-blue victory would force Chen to be more accommodating in cross-Strait policy; Chen responded that it could lead his
administration instead to take a tougher line with the PRC. The administration later explained the president's remarks as not a definitive policy shift but rather as a rejoinder to Ma's provocation, an assertion of the administration's vigilance should an emboldened pan-blue be overzealous in pursuing accommodation with Beijing, and an empirical observation based on the negative impact on cross-Strait relations of prior pan-blue victories or policy gambits.
This is not to say that the results of the county elections are primarily an expression of voter sentiments on cross-Strait issues. Rather, the injection of mainland policy into these local elections (1) showed how inescapable questions of mainland policy have become in Taiwan's politics, and (2) raised the risk that the outside world-always focused on implications for Taiwan-PRC-U.S. relations would infer from the campaign new and unsettling developments in Taiwan's China policies, or would perceive in the results a popular verdict on the two camps' contrasting approaches to dealing with Beijing.
In both these respects, the 2005 elections faintly echoed the Legislative Yuan elections of 2004. That vote too was supposed to be about local issues. But this changed during the campaign's final weeks. At that critical juncture, with
the pan-green hopes for a legislative majority imperiled, President Chen intervened and energetically sought to rally voters in support of his administration's cross-Strait positions. It remains far from certain that critical groups of voters cast their ballots on that basis, and the pan-blue did retain control of the legislature. Nonetheless, Chen's intervention prompted the outside world--and especially U.S. observers--to view the elections through the "Taiwan sovereignty" lens that Chen deployed. It prompted a milder version of President Bush's rebuke to Chen (warning Chen against unilateral moves to change the cross-Strait status quo) at his meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2003.
The dynamic seems unlikely to abate for the early 2008 vote for president and the late 2007 vote for the legislature. The 2007 election, of course, parallels the 2004 elections, which saw the late turn to an emphasis on cross-Strait policy issues. Despite electoral district reforms that are expected to lead to a greater focus on local issues, there is little assurance that questions of mainland relations and policies will not intrude-not least because of the legacy of polarization that the 2005 elections reinforce and the shadow the looming 2008 presidential election will cast. Like all Taiwanese presidential elections, the 2008 campaign is likely to bring cross-Strait issues to the fore.
The 2006 elections for the mayoralties of Taipei and Kaohsiung may well exhibit a similar pattern. Like the 2005 county elections, they will be for posts one rung below the national level. Like the most hotly contested and closely watched of the county magistrate elections in 2005, the one for Taipei county, the two big-city mayor races are especially laden with national implications. Where the Taipei county magistracy was significant because it had provided a four-term green outpost in Taiwan's blue north and because DPP Chairman Su was the retiring incumbent, the 2006 Taipei mayoral election will be for the post that presumptive pan-blue presidential candidate Ma will be vacating and that President Chen had held before him. Like Taipei county in 2005, Taipei city in 2006 will be an election for a swing district, one winnable by pan-green candidates despite its location in the blue north.
At the core of the pan-green heartland, Kaohsiung is a place where a loss would be a major defeat for the DPP and a repudiation of its performance and policies on a range of issues, primarily good governance but potentially China as well. And such a setback is conceivable, given the pan-blue's ability to score occasional victories there and an ongoing scandal over a mass-transit project that has dogged the current, DPP city administration and that has its origins during the mayorship of current DPP prime minister and presidential aspirant Frank Hsieh.
As in most countries, Taiwan's two largest cities, along with the urbanized Taipei county, are relatively cosmopolitan places where foreign and national policies typically are thought to be more salient for voters. Given this and the mayoral elections' closeness to the 2007-08 electoral cycle, these elections will be scrutinized for their implications for national politics and, thus, cross-Strait policy.
One factor that contributes to the tendency for the politics of cross-Strait policy to pervade local elections is the high frequency of elections in Taiwan. This "election overload" is also a troublesome feature of Taiwanese democracy that the 2005 county elections have underscored.
PROBLEMS OF THE PERPETUAL CAMPAIGN
A saying attributed to Chinese peasants during the 1930s and 1940s held that the Japanese killed too much, the Nationalists taxed too much, and the Communists met too much. Taiwan today suggests an addendum: the democrats vote too much.
The density of elections with national scope or significance is striking. Since March 2004, Taiwanese voters have gone to the polls to choose a president, consider a pair of "defensive referenda" concerning possible weapons acquisition policies and terms for cross-Strait relations, elect a legislature, empanel a National Assembly to adopt constitutional amendments, and select county magistrates and councilors and lower level officials. After a brief respite, Taiwan's electorate will face at least three key contests through March 2008: mayors of the two largest and most important cities, the national legislature, and the presidency.
Politicians and commentators lament the packed electoral calendar. The perceived dangers come in several varieties. The expense of the endless string of elections provided an important argument for holding "three-in-one" elections in 2005. It also entwined with the broader concern over the cost of government to help drive the constitutional amendment shrinking the size of parliament and the increasingly sharp legislative wrangling over budgets, including a long-stalled supplementary appropriation for purchasing weapons from the United States.
Of more interest here, Taiwan's chronic voting risks polarized and paralyzed politics. The frequent elections encourage the tendency to scrutinize local elections for their implications for an upcoming national election. This in turn encourages national-level politicians to interject supra-local issues into each contest. Such tendencies may be inescapable in small and competitive democracies, but the shortness of the electoral cycle in Taiwan makes matters worse.
With each election's result thus seen not only as a measure of parties' current standing but also as a determinant of their prospects in the next election, and with each campaign effectively underway when the prior election ends, officeholders and prospective candidates face strong incentives not to take risks and especially not to risk handing the other side a pre-election political gain. "We can take a more bipartisan approach once the next election is over" is a common sentiment in democratic polities, butit is a problematic one in Taiwan, where the next election always seems only months away. The scope narrows for deals that don't provide immediate pay-offs to all participants. Prospects for inter-branch cooperation and statesmanlike approaches to policy problems are dimmed, and the temptation to score cheap or dramatic political points increases. Stalemate of the sort that has characterized Taiwanese politics is a predictable consequence.
"Voter burnout" is a commonly made prediction in Taiwan. It has not yet materialized. Turnout has continued to surpass 60 percent (with the insignificant exception of the National Assembly election, which chose representatives largely to rubberstamp the constitutional amendments passed by the Legislative Yuan). Still, the worry is pervasive. Were voter turnout to drop sharply, it would make it harder for victors to claim mandates for their preferred policies, making governing more difficult--especially in the
environment of divided government that Taiwan has had since 2000. The prospect of lower turnout also reduces the utility of one high-visibility political-governmental tool, since referenda can pass only if a majority of the eligible electorate votes.
Moreover, expectations that fewer voters may go to the polls encourage each bloc to play to its more extreme base and to vilify its opponents. Many observers attribute the turn to ideological messages and the invocation of cross-Strait issues in recent local races to this endgame drive to energize the hardcore partisan vote. On this view, those efforts to rally these core supporters became especially urgent because of party elites' fears that many among the broad center of moderate voters might stay home, despite recognition that playing to the base increased the likelihood that those fears would in fact be realized.
The constitutional change to restructure the legislature into smaller, single-member districts is expected to (1) reduce polarization, by denying a seat to, say, a fourth-place finisher with fringe followers in a four-member
district; (2) sharpen the focus on truly local issues, by giving voters a sole representative to hold accountable and by tying a legislator's incentives to the interests of a more compact and coherent community; and (3) consolidate a two-party system, by making it more likely that a three-way race will result in the contested seat's going to the candidate of whichever of the two blocs fields a single candidate.
While such expectations are perfectly in keeping with political science theory, it is far from certain that all of them will come true. The 2005 county magistrate contests seemed to offer preliminary validation to the third hypothesis: all but one of the 21 principal county magistracies went to KMT or DPP candidates; most contests saw only two serious candidates; and truly three-way races were confined almost entirely to districts where the bloc that divided either had so little support that unity was unlikely to have led to victory or such strong support that unity seemed unnecessary to secure the seat.
As to the other two propositions, however, the December elections provide grounds for skepticism. The inherent localism of those elections and the single-seat structure of the magistracies failed to check the campaigns' invocation of national and international issues or ideological and partisan appeals. Moreover, the election reinforced a regional dimension in Taiwan's politics that in some respects parallels the U.S.'s notorious division into red and blue states. While Taiwanese have long spoken of the "blue north" and the "green south," the county elections produced a map with an exceptionally clear dividing line. Although that line may not hold for long and still contains one small exception, for now it separates contiguous zones of solid green and solid blue.
THE ROAD AHEAD FOR CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS
In addition to confirming Taiwan's robust democratization, the December elections are important for the sweeping KMT victory and as an apparent harbinger of pan-blue success in the 2008 presidential balloting. Yet, it is far from clear that this election portends a significant shift in a traditionally "blue" or pro-accommodation direction for cross-Strait policy.
While the pan-blue camp appears to be on a roll, its electoral victories coincide with a "greening" of the blues, particularly on matters relevant to cross-Strait relations. The median Taiwanese voter arguably remains a consistent shade of teal on such issues and perhaps more generally. True, the 2005 mainland visits by Lien and Soong looked--especially to pan-green critics--like a shift back toward the "pro-reunification" approach that Chen and his KMT predecessor President Lee had so sharply eroded. But the dramatic pilgrimages by former pan-blue standard-bearers has not yet clearly heralded a significant reversal of trends that run generally in the opposite direction. As candidates in the 2004 election, Lien and Soong struck stances on cross-Strait relations and Taiwanese identity that were a good deal closer to Chen's and the DPP's positions than had been the case during their presidential campaigns four years earlier.
As the pan-blue's likely nominee for president in 2008, Ma has sounded more like the Lien-Soong of 2004 than the Lien or Soong of 2000. Some also credit Ma with considerable shrewdness in leaving Lien to take charge of the KMT-CCP dialogue. This approach partly insulates Ma from the risk of such dealings' casting their protagonists in an excessively bluish hue (which is a particular concern for Ma as a waishengren, or "mainlander," candidate who needs significant bentu, or "Taiwanese," support). The tactic also allows Ma an opportunity to "audition" relatively accommodationist cross-Strait initiatives with the electorate, embracing them only if they seem more helpful to the KMT's claims to be the party best able to deal with the mainland than they are harmful to its resilience to charges of failing to safeguard Taiwan's interests and functional sovereignty.
In the immediate aftermath of the KMT victories in the December elections, Ma distanced himself from the suggestion that the outcome signaled a shift in Taiwanese voters' support for the status quo or implied a demand for significant changes in near-term cross-Strait policy. Ma declared that, while the election's winning party favored greater cooperation with China, the voting did not mean that Taiwanese now favored reunification, or any departure from the cross-Strait political status quo.
As for the greens, the implications of their troubles for Taiwan's cross-Strait policies are not simple. A pan-green recovery is highly unlikely by 2008, given the margin of defeat, the responsibility for the losses that leading DPP
presidential contenders Su and Hsieh have had to bear, scandals over the Kaohsiung mass-transit project and insider trading within the presidential office, and the existence of internecine divides that have triggered speculation about the party's possibly splitting up. But a recovery is not impossible. Two and a quarter years is a long time in Taiwanese politics. And the greens' opponents may be less formidable than they appear, given not-yet-healed divisions between the KMT and PFP, rivalries within the KMT and many voters' abiding distrust of the KMT as a ruling party.
The quest for a near-term pan-green resurgence might well herald the party's continuation and extension of Chen-era approaches toward the PRC, or it might involve repositioning on a number of issues, including cross-Strait questions such as easing investment restrictions and providing direct transportation links in order to permit stronger economic ties. The DPP has only begun to grapple with how to allocate blame for its electoral defeats and consider what internal reforms to undertake in response to its rebukes from the voters. That process surely will include debate on overcoming scandals, which is an especially pressing concern given the DPP's long-standing self-positioning as a party of reform; on domestic policy and governance issues, where there is much repair work to be done on the party's image; and on factional politics within the DPP and the larger pan-green bloc, which have been a chronic problem. But the DPP's adjustments may also involve mainland policies and almost certainly will have implications for them.
Chen will remain the president for the next two-plus years and will continue to do much to shape the pan-green stance on cross-Strait matters. While pundits and politicians have differed over the likely magnitude and direction of any post-election change in the Chen administration's approach to dealing with Beijing, it seems likely that mainland relations will be a significant focus during the remainder of Chen's tenure. Given the allocation of powers in Taiwan's constitutional system and the pan-blue's legislative majority, relations with the PRC are one of the few areas in which the president has great independent power to shape policy. Further, Chen is considered to be a man concerned with his legacy, which would include his contributions to safeguarding what he routinely describes as Taiwan's sovereignty and, as some would put it, advancing Taiwan's independence. This augurs no softening of his line on relations with the PRC. On the other hand, some see Chen as wanting to leave behind some accomplishments in improving cross-Strait ties--or at least not wanting to leave all credit for impending advancements to his pan-blue opponents. This, when coupled with the pressure Chen faces from his supporters within the business community, points to pursuit of progress on the three links and other aspects of economic relations.
Finally, there are the reds. China's Taiwan policy has become more savvy. Launching a missile crisis in 1996 gave way to Premier Zhu Rongji's finger-wagging warning in 2000, and to still subtler and less counterproductive tactics for addressing Taiwan's voters and affecting Taiwan's electoral politics in 2004 and since. Inviting Lien and Soong for high-profile, feel-good visits to the mainland and passing an Anti-Secession Law are complicated tactics that have in some respects alienated some of their intended Taiwanese targets but which also have shown enhanced agility in advancing the PRC's cross-Strait agenda with relevant audiences on Taiwan.
Although the Lien-Soong trips deepened suspicions of pan-blue traitorousness in some Taiwanese circles, they also advanced what appears to be a promising Chinese strategy of divide and conquer. They also served to underscore for some Taiwanese the Chen administration's inability to make any progress in dealing with the PRC, including on concrete economic issues that matter a great deal to Taiwan's influential business community and to its economy more broadly. To be sure, the Anti-Secession Law prompted widespread concern and anger in Taiwan. But many Taiwanese at least privately conceded that it also reaffirmed a Chinese tolerance for the status quo (even as it also cautioned against further, unspecified moves toward formal independence, presumably of the sort associated with "deep green" politics in Taiwan).
While some foresee a possibility that China will seek to achieve a breakthrough in cross-Strait relations during Chen's final two and a quarter years in office, capitalizing on his weakened political condition and his imputed interest in leaving a positive legacy in mainland policy, this is not the most likely scenario. Having turned a cold shoulder to Chen for so long and having used the Lien-Soong trips and other means to cultivate the pan-blue, Beijing seems unlikely to strike a deal with Chen in the run-up to an expected pan-blue set of victories in 2007-08, especially not on any terms that Chen would find acceptable. But China's options too are constrained in ways that cannot yet be fully discerned. Given the progress of Taiwanese democracy, the intractable salience of cross-Strait issues in Taiwanese electoral politics, and the frequency of Taiwanese elections, Beijing, like everyone else, must wait and adapt to the outcomes of the recent and upcoming elections.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
檢討陳水扁總統的決策及用人機制 / 瞿海源
轉載東森星期講義 --
檢討陳水扁總統的決策及用人機制
2005/12/11 00:05
瞿海源
全國地方三合一選舉，民進黨大敗之後，輿論及民進黨人士多認為陳水扁對敗選要負很大的的責任，但阿扁迄今未公開露面對這樣的指責發表談話。日前陳水扁總統在總統府接見四位獨派資政，資政們轉述總統的談話。也在同一天，阿扁總統電子報也發表陳水扁總統對選舉結果發表的一些意見。就這兩份非正式公開發表的內容來看，陳水扁總統似乎還沒有真正深切地檢討，還是在因應場合的需求，回應乃至討好特定會見的對象。
陳水扁對民進黨敗選負多大責任並不重要，而是要看他到底有沒有「真誠」地在檢討，尤其是來檢討自己。總統個人有無能力和智慧檢討並改進賸餘任期的施政，不僅關乎他個人到底會不會是一個失敗的總統，更對國家整體發展有重大影響。
就阿扁在總統電子報發表類似敗選檢討的談話而言，陳總統大體上是在說一些冠冕堂皇的話，並不是真誠的檢討。他說，知恥近乎勇，選舉結果不理想、施政表現不能得到選民的肯定，他都必須深切反省與檢討。他又承諾，今後將以最高的要求、最嚴格的標準來檢驗每一位團隊成員，包括他自己在內，重新建立起「清廉、勤政、愛鄉土」的信譽，積極贏回民眾對扁政府的信賴與支持。這些場面話，阿扁說來很習慣，也很輕鬆，但是他到底會不會使澈底的真正的檢討呢，恐怕是很大的疑問。
阿扁對所謂獨派四資政發表的談話，也正好展現陳水扁總統依舊唯我獨尊，沒有自我檢討的意思。因為總統府並沒有對這個會談發表新聞，或發表了新聞卻未被報導，新聞所報導的是與會者所轉述，或許會有些出入，但也未見總統府澄清，我們大約還是可以認定陳水扁總統在會談中表達了下面幾個重要看法：
──販選後，陳水扁總統並沒有慰留行政院長謝長廷
──未來的內閣要能貫徹他的改革思考
──在謝揆任內，現在已經沒有外交、兩岸和國防的「總統權」
──今後兩年不必再向在野黨妥協，一定要回到基本面
──第二次經發會，是為發展本土經濟，而絕不是要藉機「拚開放」
也許是阿扁向獨派四大資政交心，有意無意間說些真心話，也可能是為了對大老有所交待，說話要有些擔當才這麼說。不過，無論如何，總統對閣揆在第三者面前有意見，甚至有貶抑有抱怨，大約都是很不妥當的。大老們轉述這麼嚴重的話，總統府沒有澄清，大家就會相信總統確實這麼說了。阿扁若真是說了類似並沒有慰留行政院長的話，或是真的說了張俊雄和游錫坤院長任內自己有外交、兩岸和國防權力，現在卻沒有了，這都是對行政院長很嚴重的指控。果真如此，行政院長非立即遞出正式辭呈不可。
對於實質上到底會有什麼改革更張，從目前總統電子報和大老的轉述，雖然還看不太清楚，但是這中間還是表達了阿扁幾個關鍵的基本立場。第一、他似乎有意要有一個可以貫徹他主張的內閣，包括閣揆在內，至於他的主張卻是模模糊糊的，說是他的改革思考，不知道是改革什麼。第二、他表示已經沒有和在野政黨妥協的需要，要回歸基本面。只是這個基本面是什麼，也是不清不楚。面對獨派大老說這樣的話，大家可能會聯想到阿扁又要向台獨基要派靠攏。面對依舊是朝小野大的局面，又特別是在縣市長選舉大敗之後，阿扁反而擺出不妥協的強硬態度，這樣就會做得好基本面的事？第三、他特別強調第二次經改會不是拚開放，而是要促進本土經濟發展，也是在面對獨派大老說這樣的話，於是二次經改在政治上，特別是兩岸政治上也就定了調。
我們不知道，陳水扁總統依靠什麼樣的機制提出以上這些攸關國家發展的觀點，甚至可說是未來改革施政的方向。不過，仔細檢討起來，阿扁總統並沒有真正的有效機制來做這些決定。他不是靠資政做決策，因為四大資政就在他面前做客，他也不是靠國策顧問，也不是靠總統府那個局，似乎也不是靠祕書長副祕書長。那麼他就靠自己做決定。讓人擔心的也正是這個狀況。因為五年多來，陳水扁總統似乎很少做對什麼決策，使得中央政府，也是他自己所稱的扁政府施政效能一直提升不起來。其實，陳水扁的決策和用人機制是扁政府至今仍然困坐愁城邁向失敗的主要根由。應該徹底檢討的也就是這個關鍵所在。
（●作者瞿海源，台大社會學系教授，中研院社會學研究所研究員，澄社社員。本文取自東森集團所屬的民眾日報。照片取自瞿海源─學術資訊網。）
檢討陳水扁總統的決策及用人機制
2005/12/11 00:05
瞿海源
全國地方三合一選舉，民進黨大敗之後，輿論及民進黨人士多認為陳水扁對敗選要負很大的的責任，但阿扁迄今未公開露面對這樣的指責發表談話。日前陳水扁總統在總統府接見四位獨派資政，資政們轉述總統的談話。也在同一天，阿扁總統電子報也發表陳水扁總統對選舉結果發表的一些意見。就這兩份非正式公開發表的內容來看，陳水扁總統似乎還沒有真正深切地檢討，還是在因應場合的需求，回應乃至討好特定會見的對象。
陳水扁對民進黨敗選負多大責任並不重要，而是要看他到底有沒有「真誠」地在檢討，尤其是來檢討自己。總統個人有無能力和智慧檢討並改進賸餘任期的施政，不僅關乎他個人到底會不會是一個失敗的總統，更對國家整體發展有重大影響。
就阿扁在總統電子報發表類似敗選檢討的談話而言，陳總統大體上是在說一些冠冕堂皇的話，並不是真誠的檢討。他說，知恥近乎勇，選舉結果不理想、施政表現不能得到選民的肯定，他都必須深切反省與檢討。他又承諾，今後將以最高的要求、最嚴格的標準來檢驗每一位團隊成員，包括他自己在內，重新建立起「清廉、勤政、愛鄉土」的信譽，積極贏回民眾對扁政府的信賴與支持。這些場面話，阿扁說來很習慣，也很輕鬆，但是他到底會不會使澈底的真正的檢討呢，恐怕是很大的疑問。
阿扁對所謂獨派四資政發表的談話，也正好展現陳水扁總統依舊唯我獨尊，沒有自我檢討的意思。因為總統府並沒有對這個會談發表新聞，或發表了新聞卻未被報導，新聞所報導的是與會者所轉述，或許會有些出入，但也未見總統府澄清，我們大約還是可以認定陳水扁總統在會談中表達了下面幾個重要看法：
──販選後，陳水扁總統並沒有慰留行政院長謝長廷
──未來的內閣要能貫徹他的改革思考
──在謝揆任內，現在已經沒有外交、兩岸和國防的「總統權」
──今後兩年不必再向在野黨妥協，一定要回到基本面
──第二次經發會，是為發展本土經濟，而絕不是要藉機「拚開放」
也許是阿扁向獨派四大資政交心，有意無意間說些真心話，也可能是為了對大老有所交待，說話要有些擔當才這麼說。不過，無論如何，總統對閣揆在第三者面前有意見，甚至有貶抑有抱怨，大約都是很不妥當的。大老們轉述這麼嚴重的話，總統府沒有澄清，大家就會相信總統確實這麼說了。阿扁若真是說了類似並沒有慰留行政院長的話，或是真的說了張俊雄和游錫坤院長任內自己有外交、兩岸和國防權力，現在卻沒有了，這都是對行政院長很嚴重的指控。果真如此，行政院長非立即遞出正式辭呈不可。
對於實質上到底會有什麼改革更張，從目前總統電子報和大老的轉述，雖然還看不太清楚，但是這中間還是表達了阿扁幾個關鍵的基本立場。第一、他似乎有意要有一個可以貫徹他主張的內閣，包括閣揆在內，至於他的主張卻是模模糊糊的，說是他的改革思考，不知道是改革什麼。第二、他表示已經沒有和在野政黨妥協的需要，要回歸基本面。只是這個基本面是什麼，也是不清不楚。面對獨派大老說這樣的話，大家可能會聯想到阿扁又要向台獨基要派靠攏。面對依舊是朝小野大的局面，又特別是在縣市長選舉大敗之後，阿扁反而擺出不妥協的強硬態度，這樣就會做得好基本面的事？第三、他特別強調第二次經改會不是拚開放，而是要促進本土經濟發展，也是在面對獨派大老說這樣的話，於是二次經改在政治上，特別是兩岸政治上也就定了調。
我們不知道，陳水扁總統依靠什麼樣的機制提出以上這些攸關國家發展的觀點，甚至可說是未來改革施政的方向。不過，仔細檢討起來，阿扁總統並沒有真正的有效機制來做這些決定。他不是靠資政做決策，因為四大資政就在他面前做客，他也不是靠國策顧問，也不是靠總統府那個局，似乎也不是靠祕書長副祕書長。那麼他就靠自己做決定。讓人擔心的也正是這個狀況。因為五年多來，陳水扁總統似乎很少做對什麼決策，使得中央政府，也是他自己所稱的扁政府施政效能一直提升不起來。其實，陳水扁的決策和用人機制是扁政府至今仍然困坐愁城邁向失敗的主要根由。應該徹底檢討的也就是這個關鍵所在。
（●作者瞿海源，台大社會學系教授，中研院社會學研究所研究員，澄社社員。本文取自東森集團所屬的民眾日報。照片取自瞿海源─學術資訊網。）
Saturday, December 03, 2005
A Thought after Taiwan's Election on 12/03
從臺灣的選舉看臺灣和大陸民衆的區別
2005/12/04 (From ETToday)
山水之颠 (中國浙江人)
12月3日，臺灣進行了「三合一」地方選舉，本人因為電腦技術水準還可以，通過網路瞭解了臺灣更多的政治形態，也形成了自己獨特的觀點，而不是以中共洗腦的方式來看問題，下面就談談自己所謂的「獨特」觀點吧！
12月2日，本人看到了臺北縣三合一選舉的現場，說實在的，那個場面現在的大陸已經很少看到了，要說大陸有這種場面，那估計是5.4運動期間和抗日戰爭時期了，但臺灣的這種文化卻也折射了臺灣人特有的個性文化，那就是說話鼓動性強，很煽情！每個政治人物必須就是天生的演員，否則沒有人會買你的帳。相反，大陸因為是一黨獨大，強調個人服從組織，因此個性很差，好像很多政治人物都是鐵板一塊，和人民保持很大的距離，給大眾充滿了神秘感！
很難說這種模式的孰優孰劣，先說說臺灣的優勢吧，我們有很多臺灣來的老師，臺灣來的老師的一大特點是，說話很隨意，比如愛開黃色笑話調節氣氛等，因此每個臺灣來的老師個性都很鮮明，每個臺灣老師就是一個很受期待的人物，期望他有新的觀點。但大陸的老師就不一樣了，沒開始就知道他想要講什麼東西，結果也是「不出所料」，因此從人才的層面來說，臺灣的這種文化成就了很多個性鮮明的人才，有點像古代中華的百家爭鳴，非常可貴。說完臺灣的優勢後，再說說他的劣勢吧，臺灣因為開放＆自由，卻也帶來了問題，這個巨大的問題是口水不斷，效率極地，總統的權威掃地，世界上可怕沒有一個地區的總統沒有像阿扁這麼沒尊嚴了吧，好像大家都不尊敬他，但他還是能做最高的領導人，因此，這幾年臺灣經濟的持續下滑，和政治過度自由是有直接關係的，可惜的是負面效果由百姓承擔，所以制度上應該要有改進的空間。
再說說大陸吧，大陸由於高度的集權，很多新的觀點都被控制，因此好像大家鐵板一塊，有觀點不感說，有牢騷不能當眾發，還有致命的一點是，政治人物是為上級服務，不是為百姓服務，因此腐敗很嚴重，拍馬屁很嚴重，利益集團很強大，百姓相當無奈，更沒有人為百姓代言，農村也搞所謂的民主，但向臺灣一樣，搞的亂哄哄，最後大家還不相信選上的可以幹什麼，呵呵。但也不是說集權沒有任何好處，他的好處就是效率很高，你不幹也得幹，不想幹也得幹，得罪百姓發展經濟可以，但得罪上級的政策維護百姓利益，或許你的烏紗帽就要丟了。因此大陸決定的事情效率很高，整個策略只要中央咬牙，一般都能幹成，大陸標榜的就是集中優勢力量幹大事嘛。
因此大陸和臺灣發展出不同類型的多元文化，這是社會制度的使然，但是我們感到悲哀的事，我們不能和我們的臺灣同胞進行交流，上次我和臺灣的朋友交談，大家都想早上在溫州，下午去臺北。臺灣和大陸同文同種，和朋友交流很方便，很自在。這是和那些黃頭發藍眼睛的朋友交流所沒有的感覺，和臺灣的朋友談話也有很多話題，我們就像一個提問生，因為我們大陸的老百姓對臺灣很陌生，很好奇。因此我最後的觀點是：大陸不要天天拿拳頭嚇唬臺灣，臺灣不要天天和大陸耍嘴皮子，不知道那邊先妥協，不知道哪邊可以先相信對方。一樣的同胞不一樣的想法和個性是很好的，但我們希望不要在政客的操弄下，發展成對對方一樣的仇恨，大陸需要想臺灣學習，臺灣需要和大陸共用尊嚴。
因此，一樣的血，一樣的淚，卻有不一樣的思想，這是制度對蒼生百姓的迫害，臺灣的朋友，何時才能大家多些提煉和包容。大陸的人們，請你們放下對臺灣的成見吧！人民隔絕，政黨利益集團的也請你們少些操弄，多些真誠。注：臺灣當局說陸委會的吳主任要來大陸談，我想民進黨真的想推動，這很好，要是中共還能答應，那會更好，因為我就是想和臺灣的朋友交流，不管他什麼黨。
BigEagle Remark: It is good to see how Chinese envies the democratic process in the recent Taiwanese election.
2005/12/04 (From ETToday)
山水之颠 (中國浙江人)
12月3日，臺灣進行了「三合一」地方選舉，本人因為電腦技術水準還可以，通過網路瞭解了臺灣更多的政治形態，也形成了自己獨特的觀點，而不是以中共洗腦的方式來看問題，下面就談談自己所謂的「獨特」觀點吧！
12月2日，本人看到了臺北縣三合一選舉的現場，說實在的，那個場面現在的大陸已經很少看到了，要說大陸有這種場面，那估計是5.4運動期間和抗日戰爭時期了，但臺灣的這種文化卻也折射了臺灣人特有的個性文化，那就是說話鼓動性強，很煽情！每個政治人物必須就是天生的演員，否則沒有人會買你的帳。相反，大陸因為是一黨獨大，強調個人服從組織，因此個性很差，好像很多政治人物都是鐵板一塊，和人民保持很大的距離，給大眾充滿了神秘感！
很難說這種模式的孰優孰劣，先說說臺灣的優勢吧，我們有很多臺灣來的老師，臺灣來的老師的一大特點是，說話很隨意，比如愛開黃色笑話調節氣氛等，因此每個臺灣來的老師個性都很鮮明，每個臺灣老師就是一個很受期待的人物，期望他有新的觀點。但大陸的老師就不一樣了，沒開始就知道他想要講什麼東西，結果也是「不出所料」，因此從人才的層面來說，臺灣的這種文化成就了很多個性鮮明的人才，有點像古代中華的百家爭鳴，非常可貴。說完臺灣的優勢後，再說說他的劣勢吧，臺灣因為開放＆自由，卻也帶來了問題，這個巨大的問題是口水不斷，效率極地，總統的權威掃地，世界上可怕沒有一個地區的總統沒有像阿扁這麼沒尊嚴了吧，好像大家都不尊敬他，但他還是能做最高的領導人，因此，這幾年臺灣經濟的持續下滑，和政治過度自由是有直接關係的，可惜的是負面效果由百姓承擔，所以制度上應該要有改進的空間。
再說說大陸吧，大陸由於高度的集權，很多新的觀點都被控制，因此好像大家鐵板一塊，有觀點不感說，有牢騷不能當眾發，還有致命的一點是，政治人物是為上級服務，不是為百姓服務，因此腐敗很嚴重，拍馬屁很嚴重，利益集團很強大，百姓相當無奈，更沒有人為百姓代言，農村也搞所謂的民主，但向臺灣一樣，搞的亂哄哄，最後大家還不相信選上的可以幹什麼，呵呵。但也不是說集權沒有任何好處，他的好處就是效率很高，你不幹也得幹，不想幹也得幹，得罪百姓發展經濟可以，但得罪上級的政策維護百姓利益，或許你的烏紗帽就要丟了。因此大陸決定的事情效率很高，整個策略只要中央咬牙，一般都能幹成，大陸標榜的就是集中優勢力量幹大事嘛。
因此大陸和臺灣發展出不同類型的多元文化，這是社會制度的使然，但是我們感到悲哀的事，我們不能和我們的臺灣同胞進行交流，上次我和臺灣的朋友交談，大家都想早上在溫州，下午去臺北。臺灣和大陸同文同種，和朋友交流很方便，很自在。這是和那些黃頭發藍眼睛的朋友交流所沒有的感覺，和臺灣的朋友談話也有很多話題，我們就像一個提問生，因為我們大陸的老百姓對臺灣很陌生，很好奇。因此我最後的觀點是：大陸不要天天拿拳頭嚇唬臺灣，臺灣不要天天和大陸耍嘴皮子，不知道那邊先妥協，不知道哪邊可以先相信對方。一樣的同胞不一樣的想法和個性是很好的，但我們希望不要在政客的操弄下，發展成對對方一樣的仇恨，大陸需要想臺灣學習，臺灣需要和大陸共用尊嚴。
因此，一樣的血，一樣的淚，卻有不一樣的思想，這是制度對蒼生百姓的迫害，臺灣的朋友，何時才能大家多些提煉和包容。大陸的人們，請你們放下對臺灣的成見吧！人民隔絕，政黨利益集團的也請你們少些操弄，多些真誠。注：臺灣當局說陸委會的吳主任要來大陸談，我想民進黨真的想推動，這很好，要是中共還能答應，那會更好，因為我就是想和臺灣的朋友交流，不管他什麼黨。
BigEagle Remark: It is good to see how Chinese envies the democratic process in the recent Taiwanese election.
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