On Monday, Chinese-language newspapers quoted Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (
It seems Siew doesn't fully grasp the inner workings of the EU.
First, this year the EU gained two new members, Bulgaria and Romania, which puts the total number of EU member states at 27.
Second, economic integration in the EU is built on the basic premise that the 27 sovereign member states all recognize each other and the need to build mutual relationships based on equality and cooperation. They are not permitted to be hostile to each other, which is why they can cooperate on the establishment of a joint European army.
In contrast, China at present has deployed more than 800 ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan on its southern coast and refuses to recognize the Taiwanese government. China's hostile cross-strait policies will make it very difficult to build a cross-strait common market.
Third, the Maastricht Treaty signed by all EU member states gives EU citizens the fundamental rights to move freely, work and live anywhere in the EU.
The title of Article II-75 in the draft EU constitution mandates the "freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work."
Item 2 of the text reads: "Every citizen of the Union has the freedom to seek employment, to work, to exercise the right of establishment and to provide services in any Member State."
With the entry of 10 Eastern European nations into the EU in 2004, the lower wage levels in these countries resulted in workers using the right to freedom of movement to move to Germany, France, Italy and other countries with higher standards of living.
At the time, France began seriously debating what was said to be the phenomenon of "Paris being flooded by Polish plumbers."
Many of the workers from the Eastern European member states not only competed with French workers by accepting lower wages, but they also evaded taxes and this caused much disgruntlement among French workers.
The differences in salary structure between Taiwan and China is much greater than the differences between the countries in Eastern and Western Europe. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, in 2005 more than 1,000 workers in the EU textile industry lost their jobs every day because the EU removed the import restrictions on Chinese textile products.
Since Taiwanese and Chinese share the same language and because the two governments have no negotiation mechanism to manage the situation, the creation of a cross-strait common market would lead to a great influx of people from China using the right to free movement to come to Taiwan to work.
Given the lower salary requirements of Chinese workers, salaries in Taiwan would probably plummet, or, in the best-case scenario, would be highly unlikely to rise.
With jobs going to those who were willing to accept lower salaries, one can only wonder what impact Taiwanese unemployment would have on social stability.
For these reasons, it seems quite clear that we should give careful thought to Siew's suggestion for a cross-strait common market.
Wu Chih-chung is secretary-general of the European Union Study Association in Taiwan.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS