To communicate face-to-face with the young generation and hear their national policy suggestions, Premier Jiang Yi-huah today attended the 2014 youth policy forum held by the Ministry of Education at the Taipei Teachers' Hostel to cultivate masters of ceremonies and panel discussion leaders.
The premier exchanged views with the young participants and encouraged them to practice democracy in their daily lives by continuously discussing politics with others no matter how much they differ in their opinions.
Jiang first explained current policy on food safety, education and employment—topics about which young people are deeply concerned—and then answered questions about a range of political issues.
The frequent occurrences of food-safety incidents in Taiwan are due largely to certain "black-hearted" manufacturers who attempted to obtain enormous profits, their lack of sound monitoring mechanisms during the manufacturing process, as well as central and local government authorities' slackness in conducting inspections, the premier explained.
"If these issues are to be thoroughly resolved, it is not enough to merely raise fines and increase inspection personnel," he emphasized. "The government must work on policy through multiple channels, ranging from manufacturers to food-safety standard operating procedures and random checks to consumers' food culture."
Linking education with employment, the premier noted that more and more graduates of higher education cannot find work within one or two years after graduation. This demonstrates the past educational reform of setting up more universities, despite raising the quality of talents and causing flourishing development of higher education institutes, has nonetheless resulted in a shortage of vocational and technical talents, especially considering the low birthrate in recent years.
The premier believes that decisions on which higher education departments should have their quotas increased and which should have their quotas decreased must be made based on social demand. In addition, industrial transformation must be expedited; academic-industrial collaboration strengthened; students' entrepreneurship and employment skills enhanced; and students' sensitivity to the market augmented so that young people can all have successful careers after graduation.
Afterward the students proactively raised questions on issues such as the role of youth in public affairs, systems of parliamentary representation and referendum, Cross-Strait Agreement on Trade in Services, and police eviction of protestors from the Executive Yuan on March 23.
Regarding the roles played by young people in national and social movements, the premier indicated that youth and students, like other citizens, all hope for their country to become better and better, but they should monitor policies in a rational and legal manner rather than resorting to irrational and violent means.
"There is absolutely room to discuss policies, and the government should offer channels for people to express their various opinions. The value of democracy lies in the spirit that 'the minority is subordinate to the majority' and 'the majority respects the minority'," he said.
"The principle of 'the majority respecting the minority' means that the minority still has opportunities to replace the majority in future elections, and the minority is allowed to fully voice its opinions before a policy is formulated," explained the premier.
Since the end of martial law in 1987 and the across-the-board re-election of National Assembly members in 1991, Taiwan has changed from an authoritarian country to a democracy with a high degree of freedom of speech which allows transition of political power, indicated Jiang.
Citing the recent student demonstration revolving around the services pact as an example, he said, "When opponents challenge government policies through student demonstrations or social movements, they should obey the rules of the game under democratic mechanisms, expressing opinions through public hearings, symposiums, demonstrations, petitions or voting instead of ramming democratic government by resorting to confrontations usually seen in authoritarian regimes.
"If opponents labeled the government dictatorial and authoritarian and used all possible means to topple it whenever they disagreed with it, the legitimacy of democratic electoral systems would be undermined. If this minority later became the majority, its opponents would likely resort to the same method to overthrow it. That is why most opponents in democratic countries play the supervisory role in a rational and peaceful fashion," he said.
Responding to a student's question about malfunction of the country's representational system, Premier Jiang replied that although the system cannot be replaced, it can be improved. For example, "When politicians deviate from public opinion, petitions can be filed and civic groups formed to monitor them and request them to frequently return to their constituencies to face their electors," he said.
Taiwan's current referendum threshold, in which more than half of voters must cast ballots and the majority of these ballots must be "yes" votes for the referendum to take effect, is moderately strict, Premier Jiang pointed out. In the past, there were several examples in which the threshold could not be met, and the referendums were therefore criticized as "birdcages."
In fact, the current system was legislated in 2003 (well into the nation's democratic transition), the premier pointed out. Jiang said he is open to discussion of whether the referendum threshold should be lowered but is adamant that it cannot be removed, stating that a system in which any referendum could be passed by a simple majority of those who vote on it, no matter how few voters that would be, would lead to referendums being passed "too easily and rashly."
As for the conflicts over the Cross-Strait Agreement on Trade in Services, Jiang indicated that the government should clearly present the pros and cons on various issues to the public before the decision is made. No matter what the issue is, Jiang said, the government should accept the decision of the majority, and everyone should take the responsibility. "This is how a democratic society works," he said.
When asked by a participant whether the police went too far in enforcing the law while evicting the protesters who broke into the Executive Yuan on March 23, Jiang pointed out that law enforcement at meetings and demonstrations has become looser in recent years to conform with the spirit of human rights conventions but underscored that there are certain lines that cannot be crossed.
"Trespassing in the Executive Yuan offices is against the law," he said. "It is also very inappropriate to paralyze the administrative hub, or not withdraw until the government agrees to some conditions."
While the eviction of protesters was "an extremely painful decision," it cannot be interpreted as an order by the government to inflict violence on people, Jiang said. He also indicated that in a small number of cases policemen enforced the law excessively and that he strongly disagreed with this behavior and requested a review of it.
Finally, Jiang said that the police's contributions and the government's basic principles in dealing with this event should not be denied due to individual cases of police losing control. "The nation's stability cannot solely rely on police," he emphasized. "The public must have consensus on the rule of law to move constitutional democracy forward."