Li Sichuan caused controversy when he praised Jiang Wanan for "not missing every word" and was accused of lacking independent thinking and only memorizing manuscripts.

◎ Wu Guodong

A few days ago, KMT New Taipei City mayoral candidate Li Sichuan (right) and Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan (left) went to Banqiao Jieyun Temple to pay homage. On the stage, Li publicly praised Jiang Wanan for being able to speak on the stage "without missing a single word" after reading the speech script, which immediately sparked public discussion. (File photo)

A few days ago, KMT New Taipei mayoral candidate Li Sichuan and Taipei Mayor Chiang Wanan went to Banqiao Jieyun Temple to pay homage. The reunion on the same stage was supposed to be a heartwarming drama showing the unity of the blue camp. Unexpectedly, Li Sichuan publicly praised Jiang Wanan on the stage for speaking "every word" after reading the speech, which immediately aroused heated discussion among the public. This warm-up remark, which was originally meant to be a compliment, inadvertently confirmed in front of the entire country that Jiang Wanan was nothing more than an accurate "script reader" that lacked a soul.

Li Sichuan praised Jiang Wanan's superb recitation ability "without missing a word", which reminded people of the classic American legal movie "The Paper Chase" released in 1973. The film depicts the tragic fate of Kevin Brooks, a student at Harvard Law School's Graduate School of Law when faced with the harsh "Socratic teaching method." He possesses the enviable talent of "photographic memory" and can recite thick legal textbooks and complicated jurisprudence verbatim from beginning to end, just like a "human photocopier."

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However, the famous Professor Kingsfield of Harvard Law School hates rote memorization. What he wants is to "think like a lawyer": that is, the logical thinking and dialectical skills to analyze and dismantle problems, make bold assumptions, eliminate them one by one, and make final conclusions. Unfortunately, because Kevin lacked the logical thinking and dialectical skills that are indispensable for being a lawyer, he could only "copy and paste" word for word, and was eventually dismissed by the professor.

The classic American legal movie "Race to the Top". (Taken from Wikipedia)

The plot of the movie spans half a century, and it accurately depicts the reality of politics at the question desk of the Taipei City Council.

This perfectly explains why Jiang Wanan, who has a doctorate in law from the University of Pennsylvania and a dazzling appearance as a California lawyer, always falls into the absurd jump of "asking A and answering B" or "asking T (Taipei) and answering K (Kaohsiung)" when facing sharp questions from lawmakers about Taipei municipal government.

When a member of Congress asked about the sky-high budget for parasols in Taipei's Xinyi District, Jiang Wanan did not answer directly and defend its rationality, but "recited" word for word that Kaohsiung's Qianzhen fishing port spent 8.1 billion yuan; when a member of the assembly asked about the smoking area set up in the Gongguan business district, it was like a detention When his house was forced to be demolished and millions of dollars wasted, he once again used the same script to claim that Kaohsiung's Jiuru Bridge had been repainted for 500 million yuan. He even shouted excitedly that Kaohsiung had not inspected food safety inspections. However, it was later revealed that Kaohsiung had been inspected 18 times in five years, while Taipei City had zero inspections during the same period.

When a congressman questioned that the smoking area set up in the Chiang Wanan Mansion business district was like a detention room and had to be demolished, thus wasting millions of dollars, he claimed that Kaohsiung’s Jiuru Bridge cost 500 million dollars to repaint. (File photo)

This kind of rhetoric of "Ask Taipei, answer Kaohsiung" is obviously not Jiang Wanan's on-the-spot wisdom, but a response draft carefully fed backstage by Yin Wei, the chairman of the Municipal Government Research and Examination Committee, also known as the "NVIDIA (Yin Wei Answer)" staff team. Because Jiang Wanan lacks the dialectical logic of policy, once he breaks away from the script and faces impromptu questions from parliamentarians, he cannot quickly deduce and come up with policy solutions in his mind. He can only recite the answer script provided by "Nvidia" in the council hall, word for word, like Kevin in the movie, in an attempt to cover up the hollowness of the municipal government with national political rhetoric.

This exposes the core issue: Is a person who lacks the ability to think independently and can only recite dead information suitable to be a leader?

The most critical characteristics of outstanding leaders at home and abroad in ancient and modern times have never been "memory", but "decision-making power" and "insight". The governance of a city faces numerous sudden crises, such as food safety crises, major disasters, and financial planning, all of which rely on leaders to conduct rigorous logical thinking, analyze the pros and cons, and make final decisions amid uncertainty. If a mayor cannot think clearly and can only rely on the political rhetoric fed by his staff to respond to inquiries, then he has essentially handed over the core decision-making power of the chief minister to the strategists who are invisible behind the scenes. This kind of political giant with "full marks for reciting and zero marks for thinking" once gains power, it is very easy for him to become incapacitated when a major crisis comes.

If a mayor cannot think clearly and can only rely on the political rhetoric fed by his staff to deal with questions, then he has handed over the core decision-making power of the chief minister to the strategist who is invisible behind the scenes. (File photo)

In the next two months or so before the election, members of the opposition parties, voters, and media reporters will definitely take the opportunity to raise various municipal issues or "block the wheat" and do their best to verify and test our above-mentioned arguments. When the people all over Taiwan already know that this mayor has "only memory and no thinking ability," the more he relies on "NVIDIA's" confrontational script and the more he expresses his passionate wolf-warrior attitude "every word" on stage, the more his inner emptiness and falsehood will be exposed, and he may eventually face ruthless elimination by voters.

(The author is a retired trade promoter)