HK a model for Taiwan?
Hong Kong’s latest retail numbers do not look good. Retail sales fell 21 percent in February, hitting their lowest since 1999. Sources cited falling visitors from China, especially to the casinos in Macau, as the cause for the decline.
Sales of jewelry items and luxury watches, commonplace bribe gifts, plunged 24 percent, led by electronics and photography sales, which fell 27 percent. Local merchants do not expect a rebound soon.
The stock market is falling and more air is being let out of the real-estate bubble that had been growing for years, while consumers shun unnecessary expenditure.
Hong Kong, under the “one country, two systems” model, is failing. China can stop the flow of visitors from the mainland at will as punishment for political activities by the courageous, free-willed Hong Kongers who believe in the rule of law.
The framework for “one country, two systems” was laid out long ago, with clear timelines for suffrage and guarantees on freedom of the press, endorsed by Britain during the handover.
China had spun the process as a model for Taiwan with so much hope and optimism, but it has turned out to be a disaster.
Taiwanese are watching like never before, especially the younger people, who say: “China, we know you want to be our friend, but we are the glorious princess and you are the ugly brute. No one wants to get into an arranged marriage knowing that they will be beaten daily. The last time we arrested publishers and booksellers was back in the dark days of the Martial Law era. You already had the ‘great leap backward,’ so please do not follow the Taiwanese ‘model of censorship’ as a way to put lipstick on a pig. Nothing says ‘no class’ like your actions in Tibet and Xinjiang. How is your ‘economic model’ supposed to play out, destroying local culture while building railroads to ferry tourists there? What a fuck-up. Will investors ever get their money back? And, good luck with all the riots after you lay off millions of unemployable workers from coal and steel industries. Who will go home and grow crops under China’s sky?”
It seems like the change from a smokestack economy to a services-led model will be achieved by increasing the budget for the state security “services” to four times what China spends on the military. Beijing will spin it to Chinese as “hostels to house legal grievance petitioners during their travels,” which are otherwise known as “black jails.”
When you look under the hood, China is not strong at all. There are massive bubbles in the stock market, the banking sector, corporate debt and housing, with desolate ghost cities and roads that lead nowhere. China cannot print enough money to save everyone. Its debt is four times its GDP.
Taiwan needs to be vigilant about Hong Kong and the economy. Saving Taiwan has to be the top priority.
Torch Pratt
New Taipei City
The curse of free trade
I do not agree with J. Bradford Delong’s idea that free-trade agreements have benefited Americans and people living elsewhere (“Debunking the populist narrative sweeping the US,” April 3, page 9). Free-trade agreements made US jobs disappear, while failing to create new jobs. They have not created well-paying jobs in other nations either, with factory workers in China working in slave-like conditions.
Furthermore, Delong says that the US has failed to manage free trade. However, he offers no specific examples of the benefits of free trade nor does he suggest policies to manage free-trade agreements.
The US can manage free trade by ending deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement. People need universal healthcare like in Canada, Europe, Japan and Taiwan; higher minimum wages; and free higher education like in France, Germany and Scandinavia.
We need to stop spending money on wars and start spending money on our crumbling infrastructure.
Andres Chang
Taipei
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