Addressing the nation's economic woes, participants in the Conference on Sustaining Taiwan's Economic Development engaged in heated debate Thursday and Friday. The conference came at the end of several months of committee work which was also sharply divided. All told, the conference process displayed a national elite sharply divided on the nation's economic future.
Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmakers, who walked out of the session on Friday afternoon, described the conference as a "big hoax" -- a show staged for corporate Taiwan to push forward its agenda for cross-strait liberalization, with the Cabinet playing second fiddle. Businesspeople weren't happy with the conference either, and said that the event had been a failure as it didn't address their primary concerns nor reach agreement on measures to allow more economic exchanges with China.
But what did people expect would happen? Did they really believe that simply bringing together the 190 or so participants -- which included representatives of political parties, the business community, academics and environmental activists who have never agreed with each other before -- would magically generate a useful list of medium and long-term goals for the economy? Could these people do any better in a two-day meeting, which covered a vast array of controversial policy options, than our elected representatives have over years of legislative debate and brawling?
While the conference was initially proposed to collect ideas on how to deal with the nation's long-term, structural and contentious economic problems, it actually turned out to be a "mega gathering" of economic interests with a variety of conflicting views on investment, trade and cross-strait matters. Not surprisingly, the conference appeared about as polarized as the Legislative Yuan.
Virtually no one needed to be persuaded that Taiwan's economy is overly dependent on the Chinese market, a situation which is neither reliable nor sustainable. Everyone accepted that the Chinese market is only part of the global economy, not the center of it. At the same time, participants agreed that the future of Taiwan's industrial and national competitiveness resides in our own technological upgrading and industrial transformation, not solely on China's growth.
There was also no dissent that an outdated limit on China-bound investment should be fixed, but that the policy should be adjusted carefully and with due attention to the downside risk. An immediate and complete liberalization of cross-strait ties that would put Taiwan's national security in jeopardy was never up for debate. Similarly, participants universally agreed that government deficits have risen too high too fast and that something needs to be done to reduce the debt.
One other agreement on process was particularly instructive: Conference participants resolved that the best solution to their divergent views was to put a total of 166 contentious suggestions on the conclusion list under the category of "other opinions." This meant that while they couldn't directly agree on some issues, they wanted the opinions used as a reference point in future policy development.
So if there was a message from the conference, it was not about how participants performed or the final outcome. It was also not about the perception that the conference participants were avoiding tough decisions. The message was that people want those who rule this country to make the economic policy decisions that need to be made.
The government may be trumpeting the achievement of reaching consensus on a total of 516 opinions in the conference, but make no mistake -- these were "motherhood" opinions opposed by no one. The government now needs to carefully look into the suggestions under the "other opinions" list -- which is the true challenge presented by the conference.
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