Mon, Jan 09, 2012 page3

• PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s election platform

  • Prepared by Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
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  Economy/trade

  ■ Promote an employment-oriented and knowledge-based economy rather than a GDP-centered economy.

  ■ Develop local economic sectors with local historical and cultural characteristics to create jobs.

  

  ■ Seek to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership and negotiate with major trade partners on signing free-trade agreements.

  ■ Readjust Taiwan’s industrial structure and create new and strategically important sectors.

  ■ Base salaries should be adjusted regularly according to productivity and prices.

  

  ■ Improve the working conditions and rights of temporary workers, though government agencies should not be allowed to hire temporary workers.

  Cross-strait relations

  ■ “Reserving the right to disagree while seeking harmony and seeking agreement in a spirit of conciliation” is the central theme of Tsai’s China policy.

  ■ Advocate a “Taiwan consensus,” which Tsai says is a democratic process that excludes no outcomes. She refuses to recognize the existence of the so-called “1992 consensus.”

  ■ Establish a cross-strait framework to forge peaceful and stable interaction that is strategically and mutually beneficial.

  ■ Carefully review the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and proceed with negotiations under the WTO framework.

  ■ Conduct a thorough review of Chinese investment and encourage local businesses to focus activities and job opportunities in Taiwan.

  ■ Establish a sound supervisory mechanism to ensure fair competition and the transparency of Chinese banks in Taiwan.

  ■ Promote civil society exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

  National security/foreign policy

  ■ Engage with the international community by upholding the universal values of freedom, democracy and human rights.

  ■ Strengthen the strategic partnership with the US.

  ■ Strengthen cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries, Japan in particular, to maintain regional stability.

  ■ Develop a strong military capability to safeguard Taiwan’s peace and stability.

  ■ Reaffirm Taiwan’s advantage as a maritime nation, improve management of maritime resources and promote multilateral dialogue.

  ■ Advance foreign diplomacy using Taiwan’s soft power to attract international support.

  Finance/taxation

  ■ Establish a macroeconomic early-warning system for financial crises.

  ■ Establish a supply chain providing short, medium and long-term funding to satisfy corporate needs.

  ■ Prevent overcentralization and monopolization of financial institutions to protect consumer rights.

  ■ Cut the national debt of NT$1.3 trillion (US$42.9 billion) in half in four years and achieve fiscal balance in eight years. Halt the growing national debt-to-GDP ratio to achieve “zero debt growth.”

  ■ Introduce a property transaction income tax based on real transaction prices.

  ■ Replace tax incentives with investments or funding to improve industrial competitiveness.

  ■ Expand the fiscal power of local governments and adopt a fairer distribution of national tax revenue among local governments.

  ■ Introduce a “green tax” system.

  Government reform

  ■ Lower the threshold for constitutional amendments and referendums.

  ■ Reform the legislative electoral system.

  ■ Enact a proposed political parties bill and prohibit parties from operating and investing in businesses, directly or indirectly.

  ■ Advance transitional justice by restoring historical facts, releasing historical documents and returning illegally seized party assets.

  ■ The president would take a primary role in judicial reform, which would highlight the protection of human rights, civic participation and a mechanism for the removal of judicial officials.

  Agriculture

  ■ Advocate a “new agriculture movement” to promote the importance of agriculture and the sustainability of farmland.

  ■ Improve food self-sufficiency and ensure 120-day emergency stockpiles of major agricultural produce.

  ■ Establish a NT$100 billion agricultural fund to encourage young people with technological expertise and innovative marketing skills to work in the sector.

  ■ Establish traceability and a place-of-origin labelling system, and promote organic agriculture.

  ■ Minimize supply-and-demand imbalances with regular monitoring and countermeasures, including a “95 percent mechanism.”

  ■ Increase subsidies to cover as much as half of the cost of agricultural produce damaged in natural disasters.

  Technology

  ■ Development of technology should include cultural and innovation elements to promote the development of local industries and improve public, environmental and food safety.

  ■ Advocate a “nuclear-free homeland” initiative to phase out nuclear power by 2025 by decommissioning the nation’s three nuclear power plants and preventing the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant from becoming operational.

  ■ Improve power-generation efficiency and use alternative energy sources.

  ■ Advance an energy tax, eliminate subsidies for industries with high carbon emissions and high energy consumption.

  ■ Adjust industrial policies that have over emphasized northern Taiwan to create employment nationwide.

  ■ Encourage state-owned and private businesses to take the lead in research and development instead of the government.

  ■ Establish a sustainable green economy based on “clean technology,” encouraging energy conservation and carbon reduction.

  ■ Develop local research and development capabilities for domestic military technology.

  Education

  ■ Implement a 12-year compulsory education program.

  ■ Ensure education quality and equal opportunities.

  ■ Establish a public childcare and child education system.

  ■ Adjust the ratio of public and private higher-education institutions with a long-term goal of more than half of students attending public institutions.

  ■ Promote smaller classes, schools and school districts in elementary and secondary education.

  ■ Adjust curricula to highlight local languages, art, history and literature in the spirit of holistic education.

  ■ Promote recurrent education and lifelong learning.

  Environment

  ■ Enact national land planning and national land restoration laws, and conduct a complete assessment of national resources.

  ■ Restore the ecological path of the Central Mountain Range and develop Aboriginal community economies.

  ■ Develop sustainable agriculture based on environmental preservation.

  ■ Integrate the management of water, land and forestry resources.

  ■ Increase civic participation in the environmental impact assessment system.

  ■ Reduce industrial pollution and carbon emissions.

  ■ Promote protection biological diversity and related education..

  ■ Strengthen government preparation in the areas of disaster relief, mitigation and prevention.

  Culture

  ■ Advocate a decentralized policy of cultural development.

  ■ Preserve Taiwan’s cultural diversity, in particular the languages of various ethnic and Aboriginal groups, by enacting a cultural development standard law to protect the constitutional rights of different cultural groups.

  ■ Increase the cultural budget and investment to develop local professionals and promote cultural creative industry.

  ■ Develop the art and culture industry to create employment and improve quality of life.

  Social welfare

  ■ Allocate public funding of at least NT$40 billion over four years to establish a stable system for long-term care and a centralized task force reporting directly to the president.

  ■ Train more local caregivers, rather than hiring more from abroad, to create more job opportunities.

  ■ Ensure that unemployed people receive government subsidies and provide workers who are forced to take unpaid leave with short-term subsidies.

  ■ Implement healthcare reform.

  ■ Encourage a higher birthrate by providing women-friendly and family-friendly support and more public childcare facilities.

  ■ Provide rent-only social housing for the underprivileged and people with low incomes.

  Ethnicity

  ■ Reconstruct national history from multi-ethnic viewpoints and embrace Taiwan’s rich cultural diversity in all public policies.

  ■ Grant various languages the status of national language and combat ethnic discrimination.

  ■ Establish a new partnership with Aborigines and implement Aboriginal autonomy that would guarantee Aborigines management rights over their property and fiscal revenues.

  ■ Advance a discrimination-free policy on new immigrants and ensure their civil rights, as well as the rights of their children to health, education and employment.

  Gender

  ■ Increase women’s participation in politics with female ministers and representatives to account for no less than one-third of the total number.

  ■ Promote a public childcare system.

  ■ Create women-friendly living spaces and work environments.

  ■ Democratize families by promoting gender equality.

  ■ Respect the rights of people of all sexual orientations.

  ■ Implement the concept of gender mainstreaming by assessing the different implications for men and women of all policies and legislation.

  Youth

  ■ Provide public dormitories for university students and subsidies for economically challenged students.

  ■ Encourage universities to collaborate with local businesses to create job opportunities for young people.

  ■ Promote entrepreneurship among young people by providing public mortgages and a government-driven platform as an intermediary between entrepreneurs and businesses.

  Others

  ■ “Decompress” Taipei and the congested north by deploying new government facilities, institutions, corporate headquarters and innovative industries in central and southern Taiwan.

  ■ Transform Taipei by funding large-scale urban redevelopment programs and develop key cities along the high-speed rail line into regional hubs.

  ■ Allocate more funding and personnel, establish a comprehensive system for animal rescue, shelters and adoption, implement strict controls on illegal breeders and animal abandonment, and promote life education.
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