For someone who’s known as a policy wonk, and someone who talks primarily about policy in debates, all she does is perform diplomatic/symbolic functions.
Because that’s parliament’s job.
There is no executive order in Taiwan’s Semi-presidential system.
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I’m talking about legislation, not executive orders.
She can’t introduce legislation to the LFY? She has no policy ideas of her own? Why don’t we see her on a table with a pen signing legislation the LFY passed?
Right. She can’t introduce legislation to parliament. It’s bottoms up. She does sign the bills into law. That’s it. It might not be broadcast, but yes she signs them before they become law.
Parliament debates and passes. Then passes it to the president for signing. But the executive does not have lawmaking ability.
I would assume that Party Member Tsai might offer suggestions or feedback to the party, but bills must be introduced through parliament.
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Why don’t they broadcast it and why does she never talk about it?
If LFY passes something good, you’d think she’d take credit for signing it.
There’s not a single thing about legislation in all her tweets this year.
I can’t answer that. I can only speculate.
Reasons why I think there are no public policy updates through public communication channels.
She’s not a flashy person and doesn’t care about that.
Face
Prefers to use communication channels for more ‘fun’ things
May think it’s a waste of taxpayers money.
May want to avoid foot in mouth disease.
Busy working on the next project.
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Not everything needs to be a tv show, and not everybody needs to take credit for someone else’s work / a collective effort?
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Good point. Visiting a bakery needs to be on TV while enacting legislation doesn’t.
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Are there any countries except the US where signing laws with lots of media attention is actually a thing?
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Damn those crazy Americans, demanding to see the head-of-state do something substantive!!!
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China in recent years? Case in point: the ocean, hong kong, taiwan, xinjiang, tibet etc.
It certainly seems a pathetic move to always require public attention for simply doing your god damn job! This was trumps big character fail as well. Mature people respect mature leaders. As it should be.
That might be why we have the current pro freedom taiwan government rather than the pro communist chinese government we could have easily gotten.
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I’ve only met Tsai once briefly (pre-President days, when she was hard at work as the party chair putting the shattered pieces of the DPP back together after the demoralizing end of the Chen era), so I can’t claim to know exactly how she thinks. But it’s clear she works her a&& off in the background, mostly through the wonkish NDC, which formulates policy, which then goes to the Executive Yuan for tinkering, before going to the Legislative Yuan to be passed. I can’t recall a single act of obvious legislative rebellion yet—though the pension reform and the same-sex marriage issue were very fraught before passing into law, and the recruitment of foreign professionals act keeps getting punted around.
Other than that, it looks like the DPP under Tsai operate somewhat like a command control technocratic state.
Guy
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Good point. Global Taiwan Institute had an article on economic policymaking. They said that the process is pretty much the same as in the pre-democratic days. Legislators just rubber stamp national party economic policy and vary only on local issues.
Probably why they keep everything away from the public eye.
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I thought the article was lost, but apparently not.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://globaltaiwan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/GTI-Navigating-Economic-Challenges-in-a-Contested-Democracy-Jan-2020final.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjMyMaYgrjyAhVFCc0KHfd1CFoQFnoECCUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3fVcBQC4wU3sRMiFFalPyE
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One significant difference from the CCK era (from a policy perspective) is that each decision still needs to be weighed in relation to anticipated political fallout / impact.
Example from the CCK days: determine that dumping low-level nuclear waste on Indigenous territory on Orchid Island is “rational.” Lie to Indigenous people there and build the storage site.
Example from the Tsai administration: debate about where the hell can this waste go? We don’t want to deal with the political fallout of foisting it on any specific community (this, btw, includes not just long-suffering people on Orchid Island but also in New Taipei which continues to house all those spent nuclear fuel rods which currently have nowhere to go).
So when energy policy gets set nowadays, many more factors are at play compared to the top-down planning days of CCK.
Guy
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I never understood the hate for her. I think she has done an impeccable job save for vaccine procurement and maybe slightly higher economic aid for covid hit businesses.
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Same as Germany, Belgium and many others.
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Further speculation, because Tsai isnt an idiot:
There exists a large sheep like population and a hardcore opponent with severe mental deficits that literally touts treasonous propaganda. She doesnt want to lower herself to that level of shameful begaviour.
She also deals with attacks from the “deep Green” side who want her to immediately declare a Republic of Taiwan, as view her as an enemy because she won’t.
They are the ones who won’t shut up about her allegedly fake thesis (hint: it’s not).
Guy
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