Talk about a “February crisis” began in China. Since the Lunar New Year falls in late January this year and because of the large number of companies that have closed or are closing as a result of the economic crisis, next month may begin with a wave of unemployment sweeping across China causing social instability.
In addition to sending the unemployment rate into a double-digit percentage, the economic crisis is also affecting the middle classes, who have acted as a buffer between China’s privileged and lower classes. Their addition to the ranks of unemployed will have a direct impact on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule. The upshot of this is that since November the CCP has done its best to help the middle classes ride out the storm by propping up the stock market and the real estate market. These attempts include trying to push the Shanghai composite index to somewhere between 2,400 points and 3,000 points to help the middle classes who entered the market that reached its height of 6,124 points around the time of the CCP’s 17th national congress in the fall of 2007.
However, although Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) has spent 4 trillion yuan (US$586 billion) trying to prop up the market, the index has barely increased from its low of 1,678 points in November and is still languishing below the 1,900-point mark.
In early November, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) warned that the economy would slow down this year. Before that, a wave of bankruptcies occurred among Hong Kong-invested businesses in the Pearl River Delta, a situation that is likely to deteriorate further after the Lunar New Year.
In late October, Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), Hong Kong’s richest man, stopped making new investments anywhere in the world. He recently also sold his shares in Bank of China and Bank of America Corp is selling part of its stake in China Construction Bank Ltd. The question is, is this a foreboding of more to come.
During an interview with the Washington Post on Dec. 9, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said: “The idea is not to encourage our people to invest on mainland China, because the investment climate over there isn’t as good as it was before ... So the idea is not to encourage investment over there, but instead to make Taiwan’s own investment climate better.”
In 2007, during the presidential election campaign, I warned about the restrictions on foreign businesses included in China’s Foreign Investment Industrial Guidance Catalogue (外商投資產業指導目錄) and now Ma talks about the investment environment as not being “as good as it was before.” The man has some nerve.
Compared with China and Hong Kong, Taiwan’s government is being optimistic if it thinks issuing consumer vouchers is enough to solve the problem and that China can be relied upon to solve all the other economic problems. Apart from speeding up Taiwan’s opening up to China, all Ma is doing is running around performing his “spending show.”
I don’t think there is much risk that people will save their consumer vouchers for their historical value. It is pretty clear that they are meant for spending, so there is no need for Ma to run around promoting their use. What worries the public more is any unexpected problems that may occur because of the government’s arrogance and inability. The only reason Ma is promoting the vouchers and encouraging spending is because he wants to create an image of himself as “Ma the Savior.”
The problem is that, whether it is the consumer vouchers or the “special state affairs” fund, the money comes from hard working Taiwanese taxpayers, not from Ma’s own pocket.
Ma’s spending is not only incapable of stimulating the public’s willingness to spend, but it also leaves an unpleasant feeling that he is trying to show off his own wealth. Ma and many of his top officials have savings in excess of NT$10 million and they also have other funds, shares and real estate. How could they understand the plight of the average citizen or the unemployed?
This spending act does nothing to stop a recent spate of deaths from starvation during cold weather, suicide and murder, or arrogant attitudes toward Taiwan’s sovereignty and living standards.
Paul Lin is a political commentator based in Taiwan.
Translated by Perry Svensson
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
RSS