Anyone who has ever attended meetings for either business or national policy will tell you that the most important factor determining their success is the ability to coordinate and execute the key strategies reached.
So if one considers the national affairs conference on the economy and trade that concludes today as the government’s answer to the student-led Sunflower movement in March and April, the government has observed all the formalities, but — unfortunately — it may not end up tackling the thorny political issues that lie beneath the consensuses reached during the three-day meeting.
The national affairs conference was organized in response to a call from academics, opinion leaders and major business and industrial groups following the Sunflower movement’s 24-day occupation of the legislature’s main chamber to protest against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade pact.
Therefore, fixing the government’s lack of transparency in policymaking and revisiting the details of the service trade pact should have been the key themes of the conference, not the globalization and internationalization of Taiwan, which the government set as the main theme.
At several regional meetings held over the past three months in preparation for the conference, the government received a variety of views from participants, most of whom said that Taiwan needs to pursue a balanced strategy to develop the economy and enhance national competitiveness without jeopardizing its political stability and social coherence. Although everyone knows China is a key threat to Taiwan’s political and social stability, the government has deliberately neglected this threat; instead, it continues to equate opposing China with opposing globalization and internationalization.
However, the government is wrong. People generally do not oppose globalization and internationalization, because these are irreversible and inevitable trends for export-oriented Taiwan. What they are concerned with most are the government’s economic policies, which have led to an overdependence on the Chinese market.
The government says Taiwan’s economic problems persist because we have fewer free-trade agreements than our key trading partners do. That is only half the truth. What it fails to acknowledge is that its rapid tilt toward China in recent years is the cause of the nation’s economic quagmire. Unfortunately, the conference appears to have avoided this issue. Instead, the government is using globalization to disguise its true intent, to further embrace China, saying that opposing China means derailing the country’s moves toward strength and prosperity.
Moreover, to expand opportunities for the general public to participate in the conference, the government invited netizens to share their thoughts during the conference. However, with more diverse opinions and a wide range of topics, the conference is unlikely to reach meaningful consensuses or concrete strategies; instead it will likely result in only a lot of hot air.
There is already much that the government could do to improve the nation’s investment and business environment, without the need for a national conference. Each year, major foreign business chambers and domestic industry and commerce organizations make suggestions for improving Taiwan’s overall investment environment in their annual position papers. What Taiwan needs is a government with the will to implement market opening, deregulation and regulatory reform based on the suggestions from such associations.
Failing to respond to these suggestions and to help solve related problems simply will not create the new driving forces needed for economic growth.
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