Last month, two fires broke out within in an 18-day period at Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant in Mailiao (麥寮) Township, Yunlin County. The fact that industrial safety at the complex is clearly lacking has left Formosa Plastics Group’s corporate image in tatters and forces us reexamine the myth that economic development brings prosperity.
The problems at the complex run deeper than accidents. When the development first started, the government spent billions of NT dollars on a weir in Jiji (集集) Township, Nantou County, to provide the complex with a direct water supply. During droughts the shortfall of more than 90 percent is taken from irrigation water, which worsens land subsidence.
Another problem is the carbon dioxide emissions from Mailiao’s naphtha cracker and the electricity required to run it, which account for a quarter of the national total. Due to the high levels of air pollution, teachers and students in neighboring schools often need to wear masks in class.
Then there is the retardation of growth in local aquaculture products. In June last year, Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權) of the Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene at National Taiwan University linked cancer rates in Mailiao, Taisi (台西), Lunbei (崙背) and Sihhu (四湖) Townships in Yunlin County, as well as Dongshih (東勢) Township in Taichung County, to air pollution from the complex. The incidence of liver cancer in residents of Taisi Township, for example, has increased by 30 percent and that of all cancers by 80 percent.
Yunlin residents have endured serious pollution during the decade the complex has operated. This begs the question: where is the “prosperity” Formosa Group promised when it launched the project?
Back in 1993, Formosa Plastics promised to create a Yunlin branch of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, a nursing home, a nursing college, a bus station, a coastal recreational center, a new town of 150,000 residents and 37,500 jobs. The only one of these promises honored was the local branch of the hospital, but even that hasn’t been finished yet. Formosa Plastics has managed to create just 10,000 jobs, 60 percent of which went to foreign workers. Has anyone looked into this?
In August 1991, then Yunlin County commissioner Liao Chuan-yu (廖泉裕), Yunlin County Council speaker Chang Jung-wei (張榮味), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Yunlin chapter head Hsueh Cheng-chih (薛正直) and Mailiao Township chief Lin Sung-tsun (林松村) visited Formosa Plastics’ head Wang Yung-tsai (王永在) in Taipei to discuss the construction of the Mailiao complex. They said the project would bring prosperity to Yunlin. Shouldn’t they take some of the responsibility?
Today, almost 20 years later in Changhua County across the Jhuoshuei River, Commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) is trying to get Kuokuang Petrochemical to set up a plant there, saying it will bring prosperity to Changhua. This is like swallowing the spider to catch the fly. Local residents should be concerned.
Kaohsiung has its own problems with the petrochemical industry. Land, groundwater, and air pollution in Kaohsiung are the worst in Taiwan. Is this the kind of “prosperity” that people in Changhua want?
It is good that the residents of Yunlin are starting to demand that Formosa Group and the government give undertakings that they will keep pollution under control. No amount of money can buy clean soil, water and air, and once the locals start to demand compensation for all this, they will discover that corruption is a more stubborn stain on the landscape than industrial pollution ever was.
Lee Ken-cheng is director of Mercy on the Earth, Taiwan.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
The stocks of rare earth companies soared on Monday following news that the Trump administration had taken a 10 percent stake in Oklahoma mining and magnet company USA Rare Earth Inc. Such is the visible benefit enjoyed by the growing number of firms that count Uncle Sam as a shareholder. Yet recent events surrounding perhaps what is the most well-known state-picked champion, Intel Corp, exposed a major unseen cost of the federal government’s unprecedented intervention in private business: the distortion of capital markets that have underpinned US growth and innovation since its founding. Prior to Intel’s Jan. 22 call with analysts
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
RSS