1.A tough first year in the WTO
Fake rice wine, agricultural discontent and strained ties with China marked Taiwan's first year in the WTO, which it joined on Jan. 1.
Senior members of the trade body also took Taiwan to task over its implementation of WTO rules, particularly with regard to the protection of intellectual property rights.
Even so, trade officials from Taiwan and China eventually sat down earlier this month in Geneva to discuss Beijing's plans to slap tariffs on imports of certain steel products from Taiwan.
The meeting marked the first time trade officials from the rival countries had negotiated under the WTO framework since they joined a year ago.
Before the groundbreaking trade talks, Chinese officials had been adamant in terming cross-strait issues as "internal affairs" and had refused to formally negotiate with Taiwan.
While the EU and US railed against Taiwan's poor enforcement of laws preventing the pirating of music, movies and software, what alarmed Taiwanese the most was the bootlegging of rice wine.
The price of rice wine -- a popular cooking ingredient in Taiwanese households but viewed as "distilled liquor" in Taiwan's WTO accession agreements -- surged from NT$21 to NT$130 per bottle.
The high prices fuelled an industry making illicit rice wine that frequently contained dangerously high levels of methanol. The result was the death of 10 people in the closing weeks of the year.
The farming sector also began to feel the effects of freer markets for agricultural products.
The prices of more than 200 vegetables and fruits fell by between 20 percent to 50 percent during the year, further straining the finances of farmers and fishermen.
Nevertheless, Taiwan's success in joining such an influential trade body has spurred the government to begin pushing for bilateral free-trade agreements from the US and Japan. -- By Monique Chu
2.Mayoral elections confirm status quo
After weeks of strenuous campaigning and endless speculation, the results of the Dec. 7 mayoral elections for Taiwan's two biggest cities only confirmed the status quo.
In Taipei, KMT incumbent Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) strolled to victory with 64 percent of the vote, his DPP challenger Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) mustering a mere 36 percent.
But, with a total of 1,374,862 votes cast in the Taipei poll, from a pool of 1,947,169 eligible voters, the turnout of 70.61 percent was approximately 10 percentage points lower than that in the 1998 mayoral contest.
Ma's margin of victory was 13 percentage points higher than that of 1998 and catapulted him into being a potential contender for the 2004 presidential election. Ma however, reiterated his campaign claim that he would focus on doing his job as mayor. DPP headquarters, on the other hand, noted that Lee's 36 percent of votes had safeguarded Taipei's core DPP vote.
In Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city, DPP incumbent Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) pulled off a narrow victory, taking 386,384, votes or 50 percent of the total in the five-candidate race.
His main rival, KMT candidate Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英) polled 47 percent of the votes cast, with 361,546.
The turnout in Kaohsiung was 71.38 percent.
With his wife standing alongside him and shedding tears of joy, Hsieh told his supporters that all his campaign promises would be put into action based on a strict time frame in an effort to balance development between the north of the island and the south.
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