Ma Ying-joke Government Passes the Buck Again

Sunday August 14, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-joke likes to brag that he has reduced tension in the Taiwan Strait and that he has opened Taiwan up for tourism etc. If there are problems with the Chinese tourists of course Ma Ying-joke does not take responsibility for the Pandora's Box that he opened. One of the past examples of Ma letting Taiwanese pay for what he boasts that he did was that Chinese tourists wanted to come on the cheap. Rather than offend the cheap Chinese, Ma's government let the Taiwanese travel agents and companies bear the extra burden of cost for finding cheaper places that had extra transportation requirements because they would be much out of the way.

Again, if Chinese tourists jumped ship and broke off from the tours to remain illegally in Taiwan, Ma did not take responsibility; he passed the buck to the travel agents. They now had to be the policemen and be responsible for illegal entries.

The latest passing of the buck by Ma was that Chinese tourists proved rude and destructive; several of them carving their initials or names on trees and at familiar travel spots. Some were rowdy and got in fights with Taiwanese who complained about late night disturbing the peace. Basically they were typical bad guests with little manners. So what does Ma's government do; again it is the travel agents that are responsible and will have to pay the fines for destruction of property and anything else.

Another element of course was Chinese tourists were sneaking onto military bases and photographing Taiwan's defense capabilities. So far the Ma government has not made Taiwan's travel agents responsible for being spy catchers yet, but it is probably their next step in passing the buck.

Nonetheless, the Ma government goes blithely on boasting on how it is causing peace in the Taiwan Strait and bringing in revenue to Taiwan; but in its standard fashion it does not take responsibility for its actions; the Taiwanese travel agents and others must pick up the slack for such incompetence. How long will Taiwan put up with such an irresponsible government?