To manage water, first manage perceptions; only a shift in thinking can truly bring water under control.

At the end of August, a mild Typhoon Kong-rey swept past the east of the island of Taiwan, China, and because of the violent torrential rain on the island's west, counties and cities across the central and southern regions were completely flooded. In fact, with this rain, wherever it fell, that was where it flooded, and that was where landslides occurred. Northern Taiwan, especially the densely populated twin cities of Taipei and New Taipei that are both at risk, could be counted as neither alarmed nor in danger. But if the clouds and rain and water vapor had drifted north, how are we to imagine it?

This rain, however, can let Taiwanese society see through two tricks: the first is flood management, and the second is the Democratic Progressive Party.

Ignoring the Root Cause of the Nation's Rotten, Diseased State

In the face of the routine disasters of landslides and flooding, Taiwanese society always watches helplessly the "effect," yet absolutely refuses to discuss the "cause" created over the long term by snatching from heaven and earth on a fragile landmass.

This diseased body called Taiwan stems from an inherently poor constitution (a fragile landmass), and over the long term it has been self-exhausting, with the ongoing reclamation of mountain forests, urban and rural areas, rivers and seas continuing to this day without cease, even intensifying, until mountains have no forest, farmland has no fields, leaving it weak and broken. Earthquakes and typhoons are like serious illnesses invading, causing the fragile landmass to decline and worsen. In fact, under extreme weather, intense rainfall is only the final kick at the door. The root cause of "ecological disintegration, a perilously fragile nation": who cares about it, who pays it any heed?

By ignoring the root cause of the nation's rotten, diseased state, this society can only endlessly repeat the political images after a disaster: leaders sympathizing with people's suffering, inspecting disaster areas, offering condolences and relief; mutual recrimination and shirking of responsibility, attributing it all to heaven; and interests scrambling for a share in building bridges and roads, managing mountains and water. These are all the rear-end clean-up acts of politicians, capable only of briefly soothing public sentiment, everyone together waiting for the next disaster.

Spraying Money on Flood Management, a Big Giveaway of Engineering Projects

Flood-management engineering in Taiwan is endless, with a massive amount of cement-based sediment traps, retaining walls, and remediation works, the vast majority of which are dog-skin plaster-style cosmetic remodeling that not only fails to help the critically ill body, but even accumulates an even stronger source of disaster.

After the Mindulle and Aere disasters in 2004, in 2005 the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Water Resources Agency) proposed the 8-year, 80-billion NT dollar "Flood Control Plan for Flood-Prone Areas," claiming it would allocate 80 years' worth of flood-control funding at once, systematically managing rivers, drainage, and sea dikes, thereby "effectively improving flooding problems in land-subsidence areas, low-lying areas, and urban planning areas, and further protecting the safety of people's homes and safeguarding the nation's economic lifeline."

At the time, the Executive Yuan and Legislative Yuan quickly passed the "Special Act for Flood Control," adding 116 billion NT dollars through a special budget (80 billion NT dollars for the Ministry of Economic Affairs, 6 billion NT dollars for the Ministry of the Interior, 30 billion NT dollars for the Council of Agriculture), and at the same time passed the "Special Act for the Remediation of Shihmen Reservoir and Its Catchment Area," allocating a special budget of 25 billion NT dollars. Therefore, the special flood-control budget passed at that time actually totaled 141 billion NT dollars, truly a one-time, all-in giveaway of engineering projects.

The "Flood Control Plan for Flood-Prone Areas" was implemented in three stages. Stage 1 was 2006-2007, with planned funding of 30.965 billion NT dollars; Stage 2 was 2008-2010, with planned funding of 44.5 billion NT dollars; Stage 3 was 2011-2013, with planned funding of 40.535 billion NT dollars. In fact, the entire "Flood Control Plan for Flood-Prone Areas" was a combination of numerous local "engineering projects." Local governments proposed projects, the Water Resources Agency formed a group to review the projects, then assembled and integrated them into implementation plans for each stage, reported to the Executive Yuan for approval. With such a plan, as local governments struggled to grab a share of the pie, how could there be any overall, regional, systematic management? And the plan's content had no avenue other than engineering.

Heaven's Acceptance Check, Floods Running Wild

When the engineering plan entered Stage 2, Typhoons Sinlaku (2008), Morakot (2009), and Fanapi (2010) came one by one to test it, and clearly the midterm exam result was a "fail." But in December 2010, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang still stated in the Legislative Yuan that Stage 3 of the "Special Budget for the Flood Control Plan for Flood-Prone Areas" would be implemented as planned. Up to this year (2013), just as the plan was about to wrap up, heaven sent the mild Typhoon Kong-rey to come for the acceptance check, and the final exam result was of course a "flunk."

Eighty years' worth of flood-control funding, exhausted in 8 years after being allocated all at once, producing this kind of flooding result, does no one need to take responsibility? Does society accept having money dumped into the water this way without leaving a trace? Why don't the media press further: the comprehensive flood management of the upper, middle, and lower reaches; the improvement of flooding in land-subsidence areas and low-lying areas; the safeguarding of people's lives and property; the conservation of a high-quality water environment. Why were none of these goals, which the government at the time boasted of and set ambitiously, ever achieved?

Flood management has never stopped through the ages. In the past, allocating budgets year by year failed to control floods; this time, allocating funding all at once over 8 years was also useless. So why allocate funding again and manage floods again? Why never think about doing something else?

Blue and Green Both Exposed

The most laughable is the Democratic Progressive Party. While in power, it single-handedly drove the allocation of 8 years' worth of flood-control funding; after leaving office, it has several times seen floods inundate local counties and cities under its governance. After the Kong-rey floods, the local heads of Yunlin (Su Chih-fen) and Chiayi (Chang Hua-kuan) actually staged the absurd drama of kneeling to the central government (they ought to bow to the people, not to those in power), and the heads of five southern counties and cities (the above two, plus Tainan's Lai Ching-te, Kaohsiung's Chen Chu, and Pingtung's Tsao Chi-hung) jointly held a press conference demanding that the central government continue to allocate 60 billion NT dollars over 6 years for flood-control funding, while the party chair (Su Tseng-chang) and the legislative caucus (Ker Chien-ming and others) also joined the dance, calling on the central government to allocate another budget, do more engineering, and manage floods once more. Such a Democratic Progressive Party is truly lamentable.

We cannot help but ask the Democratic Progressive Party: for a one-time, all-in comprehensive flood management, why is the result "head half-shaved, engineering abandoned halfway"? How can it be that "southern flood management has only just begun" (the above are all words from the local heads' press conference demanding money)? Was it the Democratic Progressive Party of 2005, or the Democratic Progressive Party of 2013, that deceived Taiwanese society?

According to statistics from the Water Resources Agency of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the five southern counties and cities governed by the Democratic Progressive Party received, in the "Flood Control Plan for Flood-Prone Areas," funding respectively of: Yunlin County 8.309 billion NT dollars, Chiayi County 6.508 billion NT dollars, Tainan City 16.968 billion NT dollars, Kaohsiung City 10.137 billion NT dollars, and Pingtung County 6.478 billion NT dollars. We must also ask: where did the money go?

Taking Yunlin County as an example, according to the implementation plan submitted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs to the Executive Yuan, Stage 1 obtained 3.15596 billion NT dollars, Stage 2 was allocated 3.22974 billion NT dollars, and Stage 3 had 1.78301 billion NT dollars. Of this funding, the vast majority was spent on drainage system engineering, with only a small portion used for river, sea dike, and soil and water conservation works. The Yunlin County Government should first clear up doubts for the public: 1. Why was it not done all at once? 2. Why only drainage engineering? 3. Which drainage systems were built, which were effective, which failed, and why? 4. What else needs to be done, and will it be effective?

Politicians are indeed one of the important causes of Taiwan's soil and water disasters. Where politicians gather is the true "disaster zone" of Taiwanese society.

The opposition party kneels and demands money, while the ruling party is doing its utmost to dismantle the soil and water conservation mechanism. The Executive Yuan under Jiang Yi-huah in June passed a draft amendment to certain articles of the "Soil and Water Conservation Act," about to be sent to the Legislative Yuan for review, throwing wide open the door to designated soil and water conservation areas. Has Taiwanese society ever known of this, and is it willing to pay for it? As for Minister of the Interior Li Hong-yuan, who suddenly became the Water Resources Agency director, talking freely about land subsidence and comprehensive flood management, yet absolutely avoiding his most fundamental duty in flood management: national land planning and conservation. The nation's chaos truly has its reasons.

Change Your Head, Stop Going in Circles

Return land to heaven, return land to water. What we need is not managing mountains and managing water, but a new head, a new way of thinking.

Look at the urban and rural areas where we hope to live in peace. When the paths water takes are taken from us, flooding is the norm, not the abnormal. Look at the mountain forests that protect our safety and our lives. Reclamation and consumption never cease, so how can mud and rock flows be heaven and earth being unkind? Collapse or flooding is merely, under a nation out of control, the natural course of mountain forests and soil and water seeking stability again.

With such a landmass, such land use, such cement engineering, such rainfall, how can there not be flooding and landslides? Simply put, there is only one reason for no flooding and no landslides: "there's a ghost."

When disaster is unavoidable, why not avoid disaster so as to meet disaster without calamity? Why not think about rebuilding a "water-retaining" environment for the nation, for urban and rural areas, instead of only ever wanting a massive amount of "drainage" engineering?

The same words were said at the time of Mindulle in 2004, said again at Morakot in 2009, and said again now (2013) at Kong-rey. What on earth is wrong with this society? We truly seem like a generation running madly on the beach as a tsunami approaches, and on a closer look, the desperate sprint is in fact running in circles in place. There is a film that laments this, calling it "The Age of Stupid."