Two weeks from now, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will hold a public debate on the merits of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), a trade agreement with China that, depending on who you talk to, will ruin Taiwan or save it.
Given the importance of the decision facing the country, and amid calls for less partisan and more balanced deliberation, it is worth considering how to improve the odds that this will happen.
The fact is, other recent hot-button issues have fared badly in the critical arena: The response to Typhoon Morakot, the US beef fiasco and preparation for swine flu.
Indeed, swine flu is again in the news, although the debate today is very different from last summer when the WHO declared a level-six global threat, the highest in 40 years.
Critics now say it was an overreaction, and nothing remotely close to the public health catastrophe we were led to expect materialized. In the last year, many countries actually saw a decline in their usual rates of flu-linked deaths.
Greater than the WHO’s overreaction were the costs resulting from it, from direct government spending on drugs, to eroded trust in the WHO and losses incurred by industries, such as tourism. Egyptian authorities even ordered that all pigs in the country be slaughtered.
In Taiwan, health officials resisted overreaction, taking an approach that balanced preparation with ongoing scientific reassessment. However, this changed once swine flu became a political issue. Initial questions raised about flu readiness were met with the government’s usual indifference, followed by increasingly virulent claims and counter-claims as political opportunism and fear mongering replaced rational discussion.
This has become a common pattern in public debate in Taiwan as politicians, closely backed by the media, take over from experts — whether they are scientists, healthcare professionals, economists, political scientists, legal academics or even the military.
This is not to say that experts always agree or that they always get it right. The WHO has shown this in its response to swine flu. It is also not to say that the views of experts are politically neutral.
Yet, there are strong professional incentives for scientists and academics to remain objective in their work. These range from disciplinary imperatives, such as scientific method, to the loss of respect for those who let political bias compromise intellectual rigor.
Ma and Tsai are both serious people. Whatever their ideological differences, both will argue for what they believe is the best way forward for Taiwan and Taiwanese. However, they are also politicians, with followers to placate and elections to win. Given that the issues before them are by their nature highly charged, the process is bound to suffer.
Perhaps the next public debate should be between professionals trained in areas relevant to it. Even in the arcane field of economic theory, Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz regularly demonstrate that experts can explain complicated issues in language that ordinary people understand.
Just as important as language, however, is the professional integrity of such figures, which helps to contain passions and anxieties associated with the often contentious issues before them.
In the end, no one knows what a trade pact with China will bring and certainly Taiwan is not the first country in the world to have doubts about such a pact, especially with a much larger neighbor with military and political ambitions. However, decisions must be made, and it would be to our best advantage to make them with sufficient information and a clear understanding of the issues.
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
To our readers: Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, the Taipei Times will have a reduced format without our regular editorials and opinion pieces. From Tuesday to Saturday the paper will not be delivered to subscribers, but will be available for purchase at convenience stores. Subscribers will receive the editions they missed once normal distribution resumes on Sunday, Feb. 2. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when our regular editorials and opinion pieces will also be resumed.
Young Taiwanese are consuming an increasing amount of Chinese content on TikTok, causing them to have more favorable views of China, a Financial Times report cited Taiwanese social scientists and politicians as saying. Taiwanese are being exposed to disinformation of a political nature from China, even when using TikTok to view entertainment-related content, the article published on Friday last week said. Fewer young people identify as “Taiwanese” (as opposed to “Chinese”) compared with past years, it wrote, citing the results of a survey last year by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation. Nevertheless, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would be hard-pressed
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