Achieving economic freedom
Further to Nathan Novak’s identification of the Chinese political economy as fascist due to the heavy involvement of the Chinese Communist Party within firms in strategically important industries (“Who won China’s war on fascism?” Sept. 8, page 8), it is understandable that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was widely seen among supporters of Taiwanese sovereignty as a mistaken, if not disingenuous, attempt to diffuse the very real threat to Taiwanese freedom posed by that very salient aspect of Chinese fascism — Chinese nationalism.
Yet I would suggest that Novak’s point about the economic and financial aspect of fascism, and on which I myself have written before, may itself be one on which any successful defense of Taiwanese freedom will pivot.
Allow me to delineate the context for this hypothesis. The looming sovereign debt crises in the US and the EU together with worries about the continuing viability of the US dollar mean that the greater part of serious economic activity in China is more, not less, vulnerable to economic shocks such as that experienced in 2008.
In addition, large Taiwanese electronics firms, in spite of their wealth of engineering assets, continue to strain their eyes in the hope they can maintain their tight profit margins with the flogging of high-end electronic goods such as televisions and smartphones. A further problem in both China and Taiwan is that of natural disasters — a problem which is compounded by government incompetence at satisfying the immediate and urgent spike in demand for utilities.
Should a group of Taiwanese entrepreneurs put themselves in a position to tap some of those engineering assets from the larger firms in order to produce small and network-independent solutions to the universal problems of procuring clean water and acquiring reliable electricity, then they may find themselves in a position of much greater strategic importance than simply offering relief to poor people hit by disaster.
It takes only a little vision to see how the commercial development of nano-scale water filters or of radioisotope thermoelectric batteries, for example, could render obsolete the old idea of centralized utility networks under effective state control. And it takes only a little more vision to see very much further than that.
Not only might the potential market demand for such products far exceed that of luxuries like smartphones and TV and computer monitors, but alongside an even more severe global economic meltdown, such enterprises could help the Chinese people themselves to begin to put the government in Beijing and many of its despicable corporate hang-ons out of business for good.
Perhaps in considering a fresh perspective such as this, the opponents of ECFA may yet find it a help to the defense of Taiwanese sovereignty rather than a hindrance — and this quite irrespective of the intentions of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). If only they could remove those anti-capitalist cataracts from their eyes.
Michael Fagan
Tainan
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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