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Updated Tuesday, March 25, 2008 0:00 am TWN, By Dr. William Fang, Special to The China Post

Ma’s first challenge: restore moral order

At the first press conference following his landslide victory in the presidential election, Ma Ying-jeou, the president-elect, told his audience that he would do his best to recruit both virtuous and capable people to serve in the government. Between these two characteristics, Ma stressed, he would put virtue ahead of ability. The president-elect should be loudly applauded for this wise statement. Just as Chinese sages taught in the past, morality is the foundation that determines the survival of a nation. Ma’s remarks were particularly insightful at a time when most people thought that how to tackle economic issues should be the top priority of the new administration, to be inaugurated on May 20.

As everyone can see, under the eight years of the Chen Shui-bian administration, almost all moral values that used to be cherished by Taiwanese and Chinese people in general such as integrity, humbleness, goodwill and conscientiousness were gone. The most serious mistaken teaching advanced by “deep green” supporters of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was that Taiwan independence represented the “highest moral value” at the present time. It was this misconception that enabled many influential native Taiwanese leaders, including religious figures, to justify their support of the scandal-ridden Chen government without any qualms. What they did not see was that history teaches us that any country under extremely corrupt rule without caring about the well-being of the people is doomed sooner or later no matter what ideology it promotes.

Secondly, indecent and even vulgar and dirty behavior and language exhibited by high government officials have set clearly negative examples for the whole nation, particularly young people, with profound and far-reaching influence for many years to come. When the president and the minister of education acted improperly in a serious manner, for example, all educators would be at a loss as to how to teach the right things to their pupils. Failure to implement educational reforms as promised constituted one of the most significant factors contributing to the overwhelming defeat suffered by the DPP in the 2008 presidential election.

Thirdly, “en-au” or “stubborn refusal to admit mistakes” was another serious moral shortcoming developed by the DPP over the past years. Pan-green leaders seemed to completely forget the famous Confucian teaching, “I undergo self-examination three times every day.” The general perception was that top DPP leaders have lost almost completely their ability to correct themselves through introspection. The Ma administration should strive to revive this virtue of the Chinese tradition so the nation can improve steadily despite the mistakes it has committed.

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