“Men battle to move up, water flows down” is a Chinese maxim that is used to encourage people to improve themselves. But while water flows downwards because of gravity, men have to overcome the forces that hold them back, resist temptation and possess determination to get ahead.
A society can only improve if its members strive for continuous improvement and excellence. The advancement of moral standards, quality of life, personal ability, academic research and scientific breakthroughs — all of these depend on improvement and excellence. If people do not strive for these goals, a society will start to decay.
Taiwan is a small but densely populated nation where people have a tendency to get carried away with the latest ideas put forward by the government. The country therefore needs a government that can oversee and guide the people to ensure that society continues moving forward, instead of backsliding, because of shortsighted ideas. People that keep falling back will only expedite the decay of a society which, unfortunately, is what is happening in Taiwan now.
There used to be a popular saying that pokes fun at the public ideal of education, which loosely translates as: “Study at National Taiwan University and then head off to the US (來來來, 來台大, 去去去, 去美國).”
While it is a somewhat warped view of things, the saying encouraged Taiwanese youth to gain a solid education, make full use of their abilities and seek a better life. However, somewhere along the way, Taiwanese have fallen into the mindset of making money here in Taiwan and spending it in China.
There is a huge difference in the way Taiwanese are regressing while Chinese are moving up in the world. The number of Chinese students studying in the US has increased dramatically, while the number of Taiwanese students has plummeted. More Chinese students are going to the West, while Taiwanese students are heading to China.
Chinese officials and tourists are traveling to developed Western nations, while officials and tourists from Western countries and Taiwan are visiting the backward state of China.
During the colonial period, Taiwan emulated Japan and developed at a much slower pace than Japan, which was learning things directly from Western nations. It was not until the mid-1960s that Taiwan had the chance to learn directly from the West and take on a more vibrant form of development.
When Taiwan’s economy was starting to take off, it had funds and technology from the West and Japan which it was able to utilize to turn the country around. However, Taiwan has failed to expand on these collaborations to continue improving. Taiwanese businesspeople became satisfied with what they had and only developed an interest in using China’s cheap labor and taking advantage of its shoddy legal system and corrupt government to make money.
China spent a long time emulating the Soviet Union, gained nothing positive from doing so and did not wake up until after the Cold War. When China woke up, it started to learn from the West and moved to attract large amounts of investment funds and technology from these countries to modernize itself.
In stark contrast, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) ideology has bought about a new trend in Taiwan of learning from a backward China. The government is not trying to improve itself, the public is unaware of what is happening and the nation is blindly moving backwards. For Taiwan, this is a tragic state of affairs.
James Wang is a media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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