The actual direction of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) "happiness economy" is now clear. Despite the proposal to dynamically manage the cap on China-bound investments, the basic principle is to continue opening up to China. This "new silk road" is similar to the policy of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his running mate, former premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長).
Of course, there is room for rational debate about the "Taiwan victorious" strategy, but if the predicament from 17 years of growing economic integration with China is not confronted and China-bound investments are allowed to continue, Taiwan will be threatened, not renewed.
In the past seven years, I have repeatedly made suggestions about Taiwan's economic policies. Yet, the supposed new trend of "confident openness" proposed by the DPP still holds sway. Is this phenomenon a consensus reached after logical debate, the arrogance of political factions or a persistent enthusiasm for China resulting from being permanently lost along the "Silk Road?"
In 2001, the North American Taiwanese Professors' Association's public policy committee formed an economic and technological policies team. I was responsible for drafting several policy recommendations that were published on April 28 of that year, including "three strategic considerations, four major obstacles and 10 policy proposals."
In brief: "Taiwan's globalized economic integration should aim toward North America, the European Union, Japan and other technologically innovative global centers. Only then would it aid in the importation and dissemination of technological advancements and raise Taiwan's ability to evolve economically. Contrariwise, over economic integration with technologically weak developing countries, including China, would remove Taiwan's limited resources from innovative global centers and distance Taiwan from high tech markets in developed nations. This is not conducive to Taiwan's long term interests."
This kind of strategic discourse is vastly different from the "active opening and effective management" policy set by the 2001 Economic Development Advisory Conference. Seven years later, our previous concerns have materialized. As an opinion piece about Taiwan's economic policy and its alienation from the US and Japan in the Nov. 14 edition of the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) said: "On the surface, Taiwan's outward economy appears prosperous. However, deeper analysis reveals the reverse of these: a one China structure diametrically opposed to the DPP's independent position which alienates allied nations and leans self-destructively toward the enemy state."
Some say that to open further to China and increase Taiwan's "winning circle" is the way to go. There is some basis for this belief. Yet one should remember that this theory assumes that key production elements do not migrate across countries and technologies remain in stasis. Once Taiwan's capital and technology migrates to China en masse, and Taiwan has to invest in itself to increase its lead in advance of China, then the so-called "winning circle" will be expanding in China, not Taiwan.
Hsieh's "sovereignty versus opening-up" thinking that seeks to relax economic cross-strait strictures over-simplifies the issue. Taiwan's winning strategy lies in proactive innovation and increasing globalization.
Hwan C. Lin is a research fellow at the Taiwan Public Policy Council, a US think tank, and associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Translated by Angela Hong
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
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,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS