The recent heckling of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) at a protest against the proposed construction of a plant by Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co in Changhua County put the controversial issue back in the spotlight. The trouble is, the proximity of the presidential election has colored the debate because of political agendas, and this has obfuscated matters.
The issue of whether to build the Kuokuang plant involves both the nation’s economic development and the protection of its environment. The project was originally proposed when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power, and the current governing party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), has put its weight behind the project. However, the parties have since taken opposing stances, each spouting statistics and reports to support their arguments, which just prevents the public from getting an honest perspective of the pros and cons. The clamor of politicking has stifled constructive debate.
The governing party, be it the KMT or the DPP, has backed the project, citing economic benefits and job creation in Yunlin and Changhua counties. When environmental concerns were raised, the DPP turned on a dime and started crying bloody murder. The KMT, by comparison, supports the project, but is sitting back and watching how things transpire. Meanwhile, construction has been left treading water.
Both the KMT and the DPP are being evasive when it comes to whether there is a real need for the plant or what it means for the nation’s petrochemical industry and economic development. Nor have they been particularly forthcoming on the potential environmental risks. The debate has consequently been informed by political interests and emotive claims, neither of which are going to solve any problems.
DPP presidential candidate hopefuls Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) have voiced opposition to the plant. They both owe the public an explanation of how they went from a position of supporting the project to siding with environmentalists. Tsai has suggested moving Taiwan’s petrochemical industry to the Middle East. Even former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) has questioned the advisability of the Tsai’s proposal. Tsai needs to explain what the thinking behind her plan is.
Anti-Kuokuang sentiment fomented when people became suspicious that the Ma administration had lost its neutrality and decided to push ahead with the project even before the Environmental Impact Assessment had been completed. Public Construction Commission Minister Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) has expressed concern about the impact of the plant on water and soil conservation, and the potential worsening of the problem of land subsidence, which may even compromise the safety of the Yunlin stretch of the High Speed Rail. His opinion has not changed. This is something that should be taken very seriously.
We have learned from last year’s fires at Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s sixth naphtha cracker and the current nuclear incident in Japan that just because a government says something does not make it true. People are more sensitive now about the possibility of an environmental disaster. If the government does give the go-ahead for the plant, can Ma guarantee the decision will not come back to haunt Taiwan?
Cities in Changhua County and Fangyuan Township (芳苑) need economic regeneration, but is Kuokuang the answer? Should the plant turn into an environmental nightmare, could local people cope?
The public needs to see constructive debate and straight answers, not emotive political diatribes.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs