Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Supporters hold signs yesterday protesting the forced eviction of the Wang family from their home in Taipei’s Shilin District.
Photo: CNA

Following overnight protests that descended into violent clashes between demonstrators and police, the Taipei City Government yesterday evicted the owners of two buildings in Shilin District (士林), demolishing their homes to make way for an urban renewal project.

The project, under which a construction firm plans to turn an old residential complex for 38 households into a 15-story high-rise apartment complex, was stalled for three years because of opposition from a family surnamed Wang (王), who had lived in two two-story apartment buildings in the area for more than a decade.

Taiwan's recent US beef/ractopamine scandal with its intimations of a quid pro quo backroom deal adds to the mounting realization that the nation, under the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, has been a rudderless ship. It is not that the ship of state does not move; rather it finds itself continually blown this way and that, forward and backwards by the conflicting directions, hot air currents, and excuses that emanate from the presidential office. Ma took office in May 2008, yet never has so little been done by a president who entered with so many advantages. Instead of hoped for progress, Taiwan's ship of state has tossed to and fro as it tried to respond to multiple changing winds. Those winds include misinterpreted and misapplied mandates, leadership by platitudes, inept plans from inexperienced staff, the belief that the essence of responsibility is finding someone to blame, word games, and finally insulting hood wink strategies dictating that the best way to escape unfulfilled promises is to make newer more grandiose ones. This has been Taiwan's past four years under the winds of Ma-speak.