Taiwan's economy is going down the tubes. This is obvious, because it is what every politician and taxi driver in the country says. And if they say so, it must be true.
Of course, if you have even passing knowledge of economics, you might be tempted to disagree with this well-worn description of the nation's situation.
After all, the nation's five most prominent economic researchers project next year's GDP growth will be between 4.11 percent and 4.21 percent -- a respectable figure for any post-industrial economy. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.86 percent in November, while the nation's leading stock index, the TAIEX, is hovering around 7,900 points and recently hit a six-year high.
But why let facts and figures intrude on groundless speculation borne from ignorance and politically motivated pessimism? After all, as any taxi driver or tea-house cashier can tell you, Taiwan is doing badly because its GDP growth is less than China's blistering hot -- as the international media loves to describe it -- double-digit percentage point growth.
Perhaps to an economist, it seems illogical to compare the GDP growth of a post-industrial economy to that of an emerging market. But why listen to people who base their opinions on expertise? It's not just easier, but emotionally rewarding to complain and blame everything on whichever political party you don't like.
It's a feature of Taiwanese politics that might mystify some people. Why do both the pan-blue and pan-green camps see fit to portray Taiwan as a nation on the verge of economic collapse? Isn't it in the interests of one or the other to play up Taiwan's solid economic performance? Why wouldn't the Democratic Progressive Party or the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) use the nation's healthy economic indicators to bash the other's economic policies?
As with other facets of local politics, the answer is that economic policy is filtered through a narrow ideological prism that has little to do with reality.
That ideological prism is cross-strait relations.
With this in mind, it is easy to see why everyone is so negative about the economy, despite the paucity of evidence supporting such views. Rational analysis has no place in a battle between opposing ideological extremes. And this is one of the few cases where the views are so extreme that they actually end up sharing ground on the fringe of popular debate.
Both unificationists and independence supporters stand to gain from portraying Taiwan's economic situation as dismal.
From the unificationists' view, Taiwan is lagging behind China, and the only way to catch up is to seek ever closer ties. Meanwhile, the independence camp seeks to demonstrate that Taiwan's economy is already suffering because of its ties with China, and hopes to limit interaction between the two.
But, as is usually the case with narrow ideas, both of these views fall far short of offering any kind of reasonable plan for Taiwan's economic future.
China is not a mountain of gold from which the nation's businesspeople can earn untold riches. The country has enough problems simply trying to lift its vast population out of abject poverty. Still, neither can Taiwan live in economic isolation. Although the popular press makes much of Taiwan's economic "dependence" on Beijing, the reality is that all major economies are, in some degree, dependent on China. And China is economically dependent on them.
Those who say "China will solve all of our economic problems," and those who say "China is the root of all of our economic problems" are wasting our time. What Taiwan needs is an honest debate about economic engagement with China, while considering how best to protect and expand the economic gains of the past 30 years.
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