Residents of Penghu go to the polls today for the second time in seven years to vote in a referendum on whether to allow casinos in the archipelago.
The first referendum was held nine months after the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例) was amended to allow the outlying islands to set up casinos if their residents agreed to the idea via referendums. That Sept. 26, 2009, plebiscite saw 56 percent of voters reject the idea.
Proponents of the new referendum argue that casinos will bring much-needed jobs, infrastructure improvements and other development benefits, including billions of New Taiwan dollars in tax revenue for the county government. They say they are seeking family-friendly integrated resorts such as those on Sentosa in Singapore that include hotels, theme parks, convention centers, restaurants, shopping and theaters alongside gambling.
They also claim that casinos are crucial to attracting other foreign investment.
They are trying so hard to downplay the gambling element that instead of the referendum ballot being entitled “a referendum on gambling,” as the first one was, today’s is titled: “Do you agree to establishing special tourism zones?” with the word casinos only mentioned further down the page.
Opponents of the measure question the effect casinos and integrated resorts would have on the islands’ environment, which is the main selling point for its tourism industry.
They say that Penghu already has water shortages during droughts and must ship waste to Kaohsiung for disposal.
Then there is the question of how the tens of thousands of tourists needed to fill resorts and casinos would get to Penghu, given the limited number of daily flights and a lack of other viable options.
However, a bigger question is whether the idea of casinos as an economic development option is worth betting on, especially as the target market for casino resorts would be Chinese tourists, even though proponents say they are focusing on Taiwan and international markets.
Not only is Chinese tourism to Taiwan dependent on Beijing’s political whims, as the rest of the nation has seen this year, it is also subject to other restrictions. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) anti-corruption campaign, now in its third year, and the slowing Chinese economy have curbed what used to be a flood of Chinese heading to Macau, Singapore and Las Vegas to gamble.
Singapore’s two casino resorts, now six years old, started off with a bang, but have been seen their revenue decline on an annual basis for almost two years, as have their rivals in Macau. In addition, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines are going after large-scale, casino-based integrated resorts.
None of those four nations, or Singapore or Macau, offers the logistical bottlenecks that resort developers would face in trying to establish facilities and attract visitors to Penghu.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Wednesday told the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Central Standing Committee meeting that the party remains opposed to casinos in Penghu County.
That drew criticism from some proponents, who said she should allow the residents of Penghu to decide what they want and respect their wishes.
It is up to Penghu’s residents today to cast a vote on their future. However, it is a future that would also affect the rest of the nation, and as the nation’s leader, as well as the DPP chair, Tsai was right to voice her concerns.
Moreover, it is not just up to the people who live in Penghu. Four years after residents of Matsu voted in favor of a referendum to allow a casino resort there, the project remains stalled, because the Legislative Yuan has not passed legislation to allow the development to move forward.
Penghu residents must decide if the suggested benefits of casino resorts outweigh the costs and whether those benefits are really achievable or simply pie-in-the-sky dreams.
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