Woodrow Wilson is one of the great U.S. presidents.An idealist former educator, he considered himself the steward of the people.Toward that end, he tried to carry out a reform-oriented “New Freedom” domestic program, which had a mixed success.But he made fame for his “Fourteen Points,” based on which the World War I armistice was signed, and for his declaration of the right of the people to “self-determination.”He founded the League of Nations which he trusted would resolve future international differences – for that he won the Nobel peace prize in 1919 – but the United States did not take part in that world organization, the forerunner of the United Nations, which ousted the Republic of China in 1971 and to which the country is now trying to accede as Taiwan.
While still in the White House, President Wilson paid a hometown visit one day and met his old aunt.She was a little hard of hearing, and he had to talk to her loud enough to be heard by escorts and reporters.The aunt asked him what he was.“I am the president,” Wilson replied.“Of what?” she asked.“Of the United States,” the president answered.“Don’t be silly!” she quipped. Of course, nobody knew what that quip meant.Wilson’s aunt probably thought he had better remain president of Princeton University.
But those were the days an American boy, asked what he would be when he grew up, never failed to say, “I want to be the president of the United States.”
Ask any boy in Taiwan what he wants to be when he grows up.No one will say he wants to be the president of the Republic of China or Taiwan.Now, however, at least five men in their fifties or older and a lady are striving to become the next president of the republic.
The sixsome may not know what the old lady told her nephew but must be well acquainted with Socrates, whose dictum is: “Know thyself.”Do they?
Ma Ying-jeou, a former chairman of the Kuomintang, is the frontrunner of the sextuple pack. He is well qualified and very popular.An increasingly populist campaigner, he beats any of his rivals by a large margin in poll after popularity poll.However, he is mired in the Accountgate scandal.He was indicted on February 13 for corruption in connection with the misuse of his expense account, while he was mayor of Taipei for eight years until last Christmas. Moreover, he is a mainlander, who, his Kuomintang adversary Wang Jin-pyng has gone on the record by saying, would get no votes in central and southern Taiwan.
Wang, president of the Legislative Yuan, is wrong.After all, Ma has fans there, though not as many as in Taipei and its neighborhood.But one thing is certain: Ma won’t be a vote-getter he used to be when the campaign for 2008 heats up and his Democratic Progressive Party opponent plays the February 28 card.The bloody incident, whose sixtieth anniversary was marked with President Chen Shui-bian’s sharp attack on Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, begat a feud between native islanders and Chinese mainlanders, compelling a very sizable number of the former to vote for anybody but one of the latter.
Were Ma convicted, he might have to withdraw from the 2008 race.Even if he stayed in the fray, the “anybody-but-mainlander” minority, together with his disaffected supporters who would stay away from the polls, could defeat him. That would not help Wang Jin-pyng anyway.But he insists on running for the nation’s highest office.One greatest appeal he has is his place of birth.He rightfully claims to be a “favorite son,” but that appeal cannot be translated into a ballot box win, because none of the ruling party’s quartet is a mainlander.
Premier Su Tseng-chang or his predecessor Frank Hsieh is likely to head the Democratic Progressive Party ticket.Neither is better qualified academically than Ma Ying-jeou, who has a Harvard S.J.D.Su has no brilliant track record as an executive, while Hsieh is a loyal follower of Sung Chi-li, a once-convicted geomancer who claims to be good at levitation and other forms of magic.Sung asserted he took Hsieh on a visit to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, while both were in Taiwan, but the former premier, who knelt before the questionable geomancer in the run-up to the Kaohsiung mayoral election in 1998 to beg for divine help to win, did not deny.In the end, Hsieh won, thanks to the gossip of incumbent mayor Wu Dun-yih’s extramarital affair, for evidence of which a doctored tape was broadcast.
Vice President Annette Lu is the best qualified of the foursome.But she is lagging behind Su and Hsieh in popularity and must know that Taiwan is not ready yet to accept a lady head of state.Yu Shyi-kun, chairman of the ruling party, is trying to outdo President Chen, who declared not long ago Taiwan wants “independence,” “name rectification,” and “a new constitution.” If elected, Yu said, he would renounce Chen’s famous “five-no” pledge to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait, which the three “wants” of his new “Five Wants” policy statement were meant to negate.Yu seems more eager to declare independence, change the name of the country to Taiwan, and write a new constitution of the republic bearing that name.
Whatever qualifications they may claim for a good president, none of the six contenders have the caliber of Woodrow Wilson, whom his aunt called silly.Unfortunately, the voters in Taiwan have to choose one of them to lead their nation, come next March.
While I was studying toward my journalism degree at Southern Illinois University, Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater were campaigning for president.On Election Day, I joined a small party of graduate students, where a Republican supporter said resignedly, “Look, we don’t have a choice.One is a crook and the other is a mad dog.”He was unfair.LBJ wasn’t a real crook.Nor was Goldwater a mad man, though he wanted to bomb Hanoi flat to win the Vietnam War.The fact is that the Americans were forced to elect one of them.
So are the voters in Taiwan.That is why most of the people, save those truehearted DPP and KMT enthusiasts, remain disenchanted apolitical middle-of-the-roaders.
（本文刊載於96.03.15 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）
