Academia Sinica member and Yu Chang Biologics Co founder Chen Lan-bo (陳良博) said recently that the Sunflower movement was “the mightiest movement Taiwan has seen in several decades” and that “this student movement will kick-start the development of Taiwan’s biotech industry.”
In fact, the Sunflower movement will not only give the biotech industry a boost, it has lifted the economy in general and the stock market, and this is not a case of hindsight being 20/20.
Early this year, the government took a very negative view of the economy, estimating that economic growth for the year would be 2.57 percent.
Despite that, I expressed optimism in an article in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Jan. 22. I did so for purely economic reasons, saying that when the opposition blocked the service trade agreement last year, it allowed the economy breathing space and room to grow.
Stopping the policy, which would destroy the economy and agriculture, meant that the nation was able to recover economically this year.
With the student-led movement in March, the brave and unselfish protesters pulled the nation back from disaster.
Data shows that net foreign investment from September last year to June reached NT$750 billion (US$25 billion), and a net NT$137.5 billion was invested in the Taiwanese stock market during 26 consecutive days of net buying during the most intense period of the demonstrations.
Late last month, research institutions raised forecast GDP growth to 3.18 percent, and Goldman Sachs raised its target for the TAIEX to 10,500 points.
There was a reason for their optimism: They subconsciously were relieved that the service trade agreement had been blocked.
The funny thing is that when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) met with overseas Taiwanese in Panama recently, he beamed with joy because the TAIEX had reached 9,393 points, completely forgetting that only six months earlier, he repeatedly said that the economy would be destroyed if the service trade agreement was not passed. It is clear that the president has been deceiving the public by telling lies.
However, it must be understood that the Sunflower movement was not an ad hoc event — it had been gestating for a period of time.
Taiwan Solidarity Union legislators and party leaders, Taiwan Brain Trust founder Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏), civic organizations and their leaders and members of student media who were not afraid of China had been tirelessly traveling the nation, holding hundreds of meetings explaining their opposition to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and the service trade agreement. They did this with the support of newspapers, with reports insisting on a Taiwan-centric outlook. Without all their hard work and information, there would not have been a Sunflower movement.
Anyone who invests in the stock market and makes a good profit in the next nine months should thank all these people. It is because of them that we were able to block the service trade agreement, a law that would have put an end to Taiwan as we know it.
It is also because of them that Taiwanese, at least so far, have been able to block the preposterous plan to introduce free economic pilot zones — which would kill the agricultural industry — and give Taiwan a year to recuperate.
Huang Tien-lin is former president and chairman of First Commercial Bank and a former national policy adviser to the president.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
RSS