“The buck stops here” is a noble statement which shows a willingness to take responsibility for your decisions. “The buck stops over there” is slightly less edifying to hear. No prizes for guessing which version Taiwan’s ever-impressive-politicians are keen on.

The FT recently ran an article by Kathrin Hille which featured a bunch of senior DPP politicians laying into President Chen Shui-bian. The article itself was pretty poor – I don’t want to repeat the fairly comprehensively analysis of it by Michael – but the interesting issue for me was the lack of introspection by DPP members, and their willingness to blame the boss. Five different DPP politicians were quoted – all of them either saying or implying that all the Government and the DPPs problems were down to Chen (as against an unnamed presidential aide who defended him). The best quote to illustrate this was:

“I don’t believe that clean government is the most important issue on our reform agenda,” says Lin Cho-shui, a veteran DPP lawmaker. “A much bigger problem is that Chen Shui-bian’s mysterious leadership style and his short-term opportunistic decision-making don’t work any more.”

Anyone who tries to downplay the importance of tackling corruption in Taiwan is either a) A liar, b) Completely clueless, c) On the take themselves, or d) All of the above. Of course, because corruption is endemic, it is not something that can neatly be blamed on someone else. It also can’t be solved simply by picking on a scapegoat.

This complete unwillingness by many senior DPP members to take a hard look at their party and go beyond a simplistic laying of blame on one of their members is important because it comes during the campaigning for the next DPP Chairman. Of course, some of it is down to which candidate they support: since Yu Shyi-kun is widely seen as Chen’s choice, supporters of the other two candidates are likely to lay into Chen as a way to promote their own candidate. However, it’s also in danger of turning the election into a Catch-22 situation: If Yu wins, then there’s no real powershift in the DPP, and so nothing will change, while if Yu loses, then all the DPPs problems will be blamed on Chen, meaning that nothing will change (apart from the leader).

It’s not all bad news though: The DPPs willingness to criticize their most senior member during their chairman elections stands in stark contrast to the recent KMT chairman election – where both candidates felt it necessary to be nauseatingly obsequious to a man who had led their party to two presidential election losses, lost them their majority in the legislature (twice), and nearly bankrupted the richest political party in the history of mankind. At least the DPP expects their leaders to take some responsibility – they’ve just got to learn to take some responsibility themselves too.

Chen ‘flip flopping’ on China?

On a completely separate note, the article makes this claim:

Mr Chen’s government has frequently changed policy direction, most obviously in relations with China. After pledging more economic exchanges across the Strait early in his first term, he later turned to aggressive anti-China rhetoric and last year played to pro-independence sentiment in a re-election campaign that provoked the mainland.

I’ve seen this claim again and again in various forms, and I don’t understand it. From my perspective, Chen has been completely consistent in his policy on China: He has consistently adhered to the 1999 DPP Resolution on Taiwan’s future (which states that Taiwan is an independent nation), has consistently refused to accept the ‘One China’ principle as a precondition to talks, and has consistently pushed for increased economic links within these limitations. Just about the only promises which he’s been able to keep from his inauguration speeches were his “5 noes” promise on China. Fiery rhetoric around election time is one of Chen’s trademarks (and usually a vote-winner), but it doesn’t imply any change in his policies. So, what policy shifts are we talking about here?