For the presidential poll in March, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) strategists should employ optimism rather than the defeatism that DPP candidate Frank Hsieh (
Ending defeatism cannot be accomplished without an energetic campaign to counter accusations that the DPP is to blame for everything that has gone wrong with the country -- or even that things went wrong to begin with.
For years, the idea that the DPP has been responsible for an "economic downturn" in Taiwan has been beaten into the consciousness so vigorously and with so little resistance that it has become received wisdom. Every day we hear about Taiwan's "slouching" or "limping" economy or, if we listen to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), about people struggling to make ends meet and barely eking out a living.
These economic "doldrums" and the DPP's culpability are examples of mythmaking, the result of a campaign of lies that successfully tapped into the irrational and uninformed fears of people who, in many cases, have never had it better.
At times the public seems to inhabit a psychological realm that can border on the downright gullible. As a result, a long series of reports on big retail companies making record profits, the stock market reaching new heights and unemployment falling to its lowest level since February 2001 were ignored.
Instead, everything is seen through the gloomy lens of pessimism: GDP growth is "only" 5.9 percent; unemployment is at a "high" level of 3.9 percent. What many fail to realize, however, is that GDP growth of 5.9 percent is more than respectable, while a unemployment rate of 3.9 percent would be the envy of many a country.
Part of the problem is comparing Taiwan with developing countries such as China -- a practice most unfair, as Taiwan is a modern, developed country and double-digit GDP growth will never happen again. The US, Germany, Britain and France haven't experienced sustained growth of this magnitude in decades, if ever, and economists there would be dancing in the streets if they experienced Taiwan's 5.9 percent growth.
Developing countries like China, Thailand and India have primitive economic circumstances and social and environmental dangers that are rarely factored into long-term economic forecasts.
True, there are grounds for complaint for middle to low-income workers. They rightly say that their wages have not risen -- for close to a decade in some cases -- in response to inflation. But instead of noting the effective absence of labor unions -- an important feature of most advanced economies -- and confronting employers who prefer to reroute entitlements into unpredictable annual bonuses, the government is blamed, even though it can only legislate for the minimum -- and minimal -- wage.
With all its faults, the DPP came to power at a time when the very paradigms of international relations were being shaken. Blaming the government for this is invidious. Love it or hate it, the DPP didn't orchestrate the Sept. 11 attacks, the US-led "war on terror," the invasion of Iraq, the US subprime mortgage crisis or record oil prices.
Once and for all, as it prepares for the March elections, the DPP and its presidential candidate should get their act together and light a candle in the dark to ward off the imaginary monster of economic failure.
Such myths have only ever helped the KMT.
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
Saturday is the day of the first batch of recall votes primarily targeting lawmakers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The scale of the recall drive far outstrips the expectations from when the idea was mooted in January by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘). The mass recall effort is reminiscent of the Sunflower movement protests against the then-KMT government’s non-transparent attempts to push through a controversial cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014. That movement, initiated by students, civic groups and non-governmental organizations, included student-led protesters occupying the main legislative chamber for three weeks. The two movements are linked
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