Most reform measures in recent years have been half-baked. Shackled by political differences, compromises have to be made in any type of reform -- political, economic, social, educational. The effects of many reforms have been undercut by the lack of complementary packages or resources. The result is the nation pays a lot, but gets little in return. The reforms do not win praise from the international community, and the people don't acknowledge the government's determination to undertake reforms or their results.
The Legislative Yuan held a three-day extraordinary session this week to review six financial bills related to the government's two major policy aims -- financial reforms and cross-strait economic rela-tions. Four bills passed -- the Real Estate Securitization Statute (
This outcome may look good at first sight, but the failure to pass the other two bills -- amendments to the Statute Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (
The financial-committee law establishes a mechanism for financial monitoring and management. The Agricultural Finance Law is aimed at fixing the grassroots level financial institutions whose operations have been distorted by political factionalism and which are sinking under the weight of bad loans.
The proposed financial reconstruction fund was aimed at resolving problems posed by financial institutions' bad assets and improving the bad-loan situation, in order to revitalize the economy and prevent Taiwan from copying Japan's economic decline. So the government is ready to launch its financial reforms, but the programs have not been given the drive they need to kick off. The steep fall in financial stocks yesterday was proof that the financial sector and the public were disappointed by the legislature's ineptitude.
The establishment of free-trade ports is a revised version of the Asia-Pacific operations center and Asia-Pacific logistics center programs drawn up by the KMT government. These free-trade ports, which will be customs-free areas, will allow Taiwanese businesses to combine manufacturing in China with processing and marketing in Taiwan. This country will be able to flexibly use Chinese and Taiwanese raw materials to raise the added value of China-made materials and semi-finished products. This is supposed to help redirect capital that has flowed out to China and was to be new strategy for cross-strait economic and trade relations.
However, due to the heightened cross-strait frictions caused by the SARS epidemic, President Chen Shui-bian (
The government, political parties and lawmakers were under intense pressure to produce results during the extraordinary session. The government needs to continue to negotiate with the opposition to resolve the differences on the remaining legislation. The government should also understand that reforms need to come with complementary packages. Free-trade ports need direct links. The extraordinary session should only be a comma, not a full stop. There is still a lot of hard work ahead.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this