Taiwan is no longer a poor, developing country. For years, it has boasted of having one of the world’s largest foreign reserves. Last month, our foreign reserves were the fourth-largest in the world at US$362.38 billion, with a per capita GDP of US$18,414.
So it shouldn’t have been a big deal for Taiwan to offer a monthly subsidy of NT$30,000 (US$931) to each qualified Chinese graduate student studying in Taiwan or even for Taichung City to procure designer trash cans, each of which costs more than NT$10,000, from government coffers or taxpayers’ money.
However, for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to revoke an annual subsidy of NT$1.5 million that helped support promising tennis player Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) before he made it into the Wimbledon Championships as the world’s 71st-ranked player — a subsidy that had been introduced during the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration — shows the KMT has a different agenda on its mind. To no one’s surprise, that agenda places more emphasis on China.
For years, the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre has garnered global exposure for diplomatically isolated Taiwan, but only 10 percent to 15 percent of its annual budget comes from government subsidies, or about NT$10 million a year.
Cloud Gate has been the most fortunate local performing company, since it receives the biggest share of the subsidies available to local troupes.
The fact that so many cultural and performance groups have embarrassingly small budgets and receive little government support and that Taiwan hasn’t allocated enough funds to build a world-class airport or tennis center proves that there’s very little room for the government, be it the KMT administration or the former DPP government, to waste pennies.
Consequently, the government’s priorities will have a terrible impact on those who may be in serious need of financial help.
For example, the KMT government has vowed to budget NT$95 billion over the next 10 years, or NT$9.5 billion per year, to help grassroots workers and traditional businesses if they are hurt by the country’s newly inked trade pact with China. Though necessarily justified, and accounting for only 0.5 percent of government expenditures each year, this budget allocation remains unfair to the nation’s taxpayers, who will have to be held responsible and pay for the consequences because the pact will offer more benefits to big conglomerates than to the local economy.
Why not ask these big conglomerates, the great beneficiaries of the deal, to pay for the so-called “necessary evil” behind the trade pact with China?
Taxpayers had already borne the brunt of the domestic banking sector’s record-high bad loans, accumulated at the turn of the century when massive lending to big businesses turned sour.
Such a mistake cannot be allowed to reoccur.
The damage, however, has been done and could begin trickling down, as an annual budget allocation of NT$9.5 billion for disadvantaged businesses — an expenditure that wouldn’t have been necessary were it not for the government’s ill-advised signing of the trade agreement with Beijing — will likely cut into government subsidies to groups such as Cloud Gate, professional athletes such as Lu and students of higher education.
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
RSS