KMT economics guru looks at life after EDAC

Taipei Times: The president's Economic Development Advisory Conference closed last Sunday; how do you evaluate resolutions reached at the conference, compared to the KMT's ten recommendations proposed beforehand?

Chiang Ping-kun (江丙坤): I give my approval to the conference and its resolutions, which mostly coincide with the KMT's proposals and policy direction. The conference's success manifests that economic concerns cross party lines and the resolutions should be identical.

The labor law's deregulation was particularly hard to reach since it required workers to make concessions. Ever since former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) was in office, the KMT had been proposing to revise the labor law, which was boycotted by the then-opposition DPP which strove to safeguard workers' rights. However, this time, both the DPP and labor groups finally approved the proposal and reached the consensus of setting [the retirement pension's premier rate] at 6 percent.

The country's current economic downturn appears to have contributed to the successful reaching of consensus [at the conference]. As for cross-strait trade policies, it was the KMT which promulgated the "no haste, be patient" policy, but the situation has changed now. When I worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, I proposed to open up point-to-point direct transportation (定點直航) [across the strait.] Then ex-premier Lien Chan (連戰) also embraced the idea of using the mainland as [Taiwan's] hinterland when he advocated building Taiwan into an Asia-Pacific regional operation center (亞太營運中心). Our hopes collapsed when the "no haste, be patient" policy was announced.

However, the DPP, which is supposedly more conservative than the KMT regarding cross-strait issues, has now made a breakthrough in easing cross-strait trade barriers.

I think these two achievements highlighted success of the conference, which also provided an arena for cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties.

TT: With consensus reached on more than 300 proposals, how effectively will they be in promoting the country's economic recovery?

Chiang: The conference only addressed one-fifth of the country's economic problems. What remains is setting up a timetable to implement these proposals. Putting them into law is a difficult task since the next legislative session will only last for a month. However, I disagree with the idea of allowing all the legislation to enter the second reading by skipping the legislative committees' thorough review. Also, the likely electoral turnout at the end of the year will decide the country's future democratic development and the possibility of forming of a coalition government, which is a prerequisite for the country's political and economic stability.

TT: The government has decided to replace the "no haste, be patient" policy with a policy called "active openness, effective management" (積極開放, 有效管理). In what sense do you think Taiwanese investments in China can be effectively managed? And how open is actively open?

Chiang: The fact that investments in China increased by 108 percent last year shows that the ["no haste"] policy itself only works as an [abstract] strategy rather than a [practical] policy.

Yin Chung-wen (殷宗文) [former head of the National Security Council] had previously confirmed to me that the strategy was to lure China into conducting negotiation with Taiwan.