(圖片來源：Wikimedia Commons, Information Technology Agreement parties.)
President Bill Clinton, campaigning for reelection, quipped: “It’s the economy, stupid!”He wasn’t not very president-like – the American president is supposed to be a little more polite at least – but he told the truth.The issue certainly was over the U.S. economy.
Frank Hsieh, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for president, came out of his self-imposed seclusion for 13 days to resume his campaign for 2008 a week or so ago.He challenged his Kuomintang rival Ma Ying-jeou to a debate on Taiwan’s admission to the United Nations.
Ma Ying-jeou parroted what Bill Clinton said.Ma blurted out, “It’s the economy, stupid!”It’s rude of the Harvard S.J.D. holder to call Hsieh stupid, of course.But there is a twist in translation.The word stupid Clinton used was – I don’t know who did the translation of his words – rendered to Chinese as “ben dan (stupid egg),” which means a fool or simpleton.And Ma used “ben dan” at the beginning of his not so polite quip.In effect, he addressed Hsieh as “Fool.”
That triggered a war of words between the two contestants in the presidential race.Hsieh called Ma “Fool” in retaliation.He insisted on the debate, in which he believes he can handily outwit the Kuomintang standard bearer.“A fool,” Hsieh said, “dare not speak about Taiwan.”
Both Hsieh and Ma want a referendum on Taiwan’s accession to the United Nations.Hsieh wishes Taiwan would join as Taiwan.Ma hopes to get the country back as the Republic of China to the world body which ousted “representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” in 1971.The Kuomintang’s referendum was proposed much later than the ruling party’s.That’s why Hsieh may claim Ma is following the DPP agenda slavishly in order just to win more votes, come next March 22.
President Chen Shui-bian joined in the fray by calling Ma a fool, too.Ma retorted by asking who the fool who has made a mess of the Taiwan economy is.The Kuomintang candidate is ready to debate about the economy that he believes is in the painful recession.It’s made worse by a sudden inflation triggered by Typhoon Krosa.Vegetable prices jumped two to five times as high over the past two weeks.Ma chided President Chen and his administration for doing nothing to getting the poor and the needy sufficiently fed and doing everything in their power to have their referendum on Taiwan’s UN bid held alongside the March 22 election and adopted.Hsieh countered that Ma espouses “materialism” focusing policy priorities on nothing but the lowly nitty-gritty of life which is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate.Hsieh talked about his “pragmatic idealism,” which is the code word for his lofty ideal of getting UN membership for Taiwan in its rightful sovereign-sounding name.If achieved, it will make Taiwan farther ahead on its way to independence, albeit it risks a real war with China.
In promoting his idealism, Hsieh made a gaffe.He said man isn’t an animal like the pig, the dog or the poultry chicken that cares only about feeding. “People have to have an ideal, which is much more important than just food and drinks,” he went on and concluded by saying that’s why he wants to engage Ma in a debate over Taiwan’s UN venture. There was a minor public outcry about his indiscreet remarks.People who don’t support his version of the UN referendum thought they were compared to such animals as hogs and dogs.He didn’t apologize but agreed that the economy is just as important an issue as the one he wished to talk about.
The two presidential candidates will continue calling each other names as the campaign for 2008 heats up.They are battling each other in a senseless war of words, however.
For one thing, anyone who wants a debate on Taiwan’s UN bid is stupid.Practically everyone wishes Taiwan would join the United Nations, if it could.The cold fact is that it can’t in whatever name it wants to join, so long as China holds a seat in the Security Council as its permanent member.Hence there is no need whatsoever to call a referendum on the issue.Why waste time debating the stupid non-issue issue?
The economy certainly isn’t a non-issue issue.Both candidates can discuss their ambitious plans to stimulate the economy to get everybody who needs work employed and enable all the people to live a happy, or at least contented, life ever after.But the economy is like a stubborn mule, that doesn’t budge no matter how hard its master may beat it, if it doesn’t want to move.President Franklin D. Roosevelt did what he could to get the United States out of the Great Depression.His Keynesian approach – massive public investment in infrastructure construction, like the world-famous TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) project – brought the tottering economy around but the depression would take almost a decade to come to an end only after the United States joined in the Second World War in 1941.Billions upon billions of dollars have been spent to get the Japanese economy back on its feet again after its economic bubble bust in the late 1980s; but a real recovery has yet to come.
Besides, Taiwan’s is an island economy, with foreign trade as its mainstay.That means Taiwan’s top trading partners often have a final say in its economic affairs.In other words, Taipei has no effective control over the matters that are vital for its own economic growth.The success of its economic stimulation plans depends by and large on cooperation of economic powers that may not be cooperative.
As a matter of fact, all TV debates are little more than an empty talk show.All that debaters want is to look smarter than their opponents before the audience and most of the viewers could care less where the beef is.They may not know what the real issue is. The real issue?“It’s the election, stupid!”
（本文刊載於96.10.22 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
胡思聰
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2007年6月12日 09:50
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林祖嘉
(
2018年4月17日 16:11
)
王順民
(
12月6日 16:45
)
張瑞雄
