The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which came to power in 2000 after half a century of dominance by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), will leave a mixed legacy, analysts said yesterday.
During its two terms in office, the DPP remained a minority government. It failed to win an absolutely majority of seats in legislative elections in 2001, 2004 and last year.
The high turnover of premiers — six in eight years — and Cabinet officials characterized its eight years in office.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
Critics often said the frequent changes made it difficult to sustain consistent policies and provide adequate oversight.
The completion of the Hsuehshan Tunnel (雪山隧道), the Taiwan High Speed Rail and the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit System — all long-stalled projects during the KMT government — were often cited in response.
“Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp [THSRC] wouldn’t have finished the project without the government’s staunch support,” said Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明), a political commentator, referring to government help for the once capital-starved THSRC in the face of strong opposition.
But Chen Fang-ming said the case also exposed its incompetence because “it didn’t come up with any measures to compensate for the impact it would have on other modes of transportation.”
Also central to criticism against the DPP government has been the “lackluster” economy.
But the Executive Yuan said Taiwan achieved steady economic growth over the last eight years and its consumer price index (CPI) registered relatively slow growth despite surging prices of international raw materials and crude oil.
“Taiwan’s economic growth averaged 4.1 percent between 2000 and 2007, and reached 5.23 percent in the last four years, outperforming South Korea’s 4.7 percent. The CPI had an average growth rate of only 0.89 percent between 2000 and 2007,” it said.
Tu Jenn-hwa (杜震華), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, however, offered a different interpretation.
The figures showed Taiwan was doing “just fine” in comparison with other countries, but it was still “below par,” considering its previous performance, Tu said.
“The global economy experienced its fastest growth over the past 30 years between 2005 and 2007. Hong Kong and Singapore boosted their rates to between 7 and 8 percent. Apparently Taiwan didn’t seize the chance, or the rate could easily have been 6 percent,” Tu said.
Tu said Taiwan lost out on economic growth because of its “conservative” cross-strait policy.
The Swiss-based International Institute for Management and Development ranked Taiwan 13th for global competitiveness in its 2008 report released on Wednesday, after the country had declined for two consecutive years to 18th place last year.
Of all the sub-factors included in the survey, Taiwan’s worst performance was in receiving Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), with the ranking sliding to 44th, two notches below last year.
“The DPP government should be credited with its efforts in enhancing the nation’s competitiveness, but Taiwan could have done better without its ‘conservative’ cross-strait policy, as it halted the inflow of FDI into the country,” Tu said.
Taiwan Strategy Research Association secretary-general Wang Kung-yi (王崑義) characterized the situation over the past eight years as “hot economy, but cold politics” as well as “warm people-to-people relations, but cold official ties.”
Cross-strait political engagements have sunk to a low not seen since 1999, when then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) declared cross-strait ties as “special state-to-state relations.”
Despite this, the government opened up limited tourism to Chinese visitors on a trial basis. It also considered the “2005 Macau model” — negotiations in Macau between Beijing and Taipei that lifted the ban on direct flights for the Lunar New Year — an achievement in cross-strait relations.
Taipei and Beijing implemented the first non-stop charter flights between the countries during the Lunar New Year Holiday in 2005, mostly to facilitate the return of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople.
An increase in the scope of the flights was agreed to in June 2006 to include four types of cargo charter flights, but the negotiations on regular cargo and chartered passenger flights as well as the opening up of Taiwan to tourists directly from China later came to a standstill.
Wu Tung-yeh (吳東野), an associate research fellow at National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations, said a major cause of cross-strait deadlock was “rash and confrontational” approach Chen Shui-bian took when dealing with sovereignty-related issues.
Chen Shui-bian highlighted sensitive subjects to ingratiate himself with pro-independence voters, but that damaged trust between Taiwan and China and hurt relations with its allies, especially the US, Wu said.
Chairman of the Taiwan New Century Foundation Chen Lung-chu (陳隆志), on the other hand, praised the DPP government’s efforts in this regard, saying the party made it clear to the international community that Taiwanese consider Taiwan a sovereign and independent country.
“An important problem when considering Taiwan’s sovereignty is, as [an international law expert] James Crawford said, ‘Taiwan is not a state because it still has not unequivocally asserted its separation from China and is not recognized as a state distinct from China,” Chen Lung-chu said. “But when the DPP government applied for UN membership under the name Taiwan, we made history. It was a very big step forward for the country.”
Lin Cheng-yi (林正義), a researcher of European and US studies at Academia Sinica, said that Chen Shui-bian’s handling of sovereignty-related issues forced the US to face problems that were bound to crop up on the road to democratization.
The US response to Chen Shui-bian’s pro-independence moves was to make its position on cross-strait issues more clear, Lin said.
The administration was also criticized for allegedly taking a cavalier attitude towards people’s livelihoods.
Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), secretary-general of the League of Taiwan Social Welfare, said: “The DPP flunked the test on how a party should realize its ideas when its becomes a ruling party.”
“When the DPP was in opposition, one of its dreams was to establish a welfare state based on social equality and justice, but over the past eight years it failed to narrow the gap between welfare for the public and welfare for teachers, civil servants and military personnel,” Wang said.
Wang said the DPP government made “farmers” a special group that received preferential treatment for its own political purpose.
“The monthly welfare pension for elderly farmers was raised from NT$3,000 in 2003 to NT$4,000 in 2004, NT$5,000 in 2006 and NT$6,000 last year, all because of elections,” Wang said.
The former lawmaker also blasted the DPP government for listing the National Pension System — to be launched in October — as one of its achievements, saying the government actually dragged its feet on the plan during its first seven years in the office.
“As the National Pension System is a social insurance-based program, the government knew that the public wouldn’t be willing to pay premiums,” Wang said.
Tu also criticized the DPP government for failing to alleviate income inequality by means of advancing tax reform, or giving disadvantaged people a helping hand.
It was “unbelievable” that Taiwan’s Gini coefficient, an indicator of the inequality of wealth distribution between 0 and 1, had risen from 0.27 in early 1980s to 0.35, Tu said.
From the perspective of culture, Chen Fang-ming, also the director of the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University, lashed out at the administration’s focus on ethnic Taiwanese.
“When the government didn’t take the historical memories belonging to Mainlanders, Hakka and Aboriginals seriously and respect their cultural memories, how could these groups sympathize with its ethnic Taiwanese-centered localization?” he said.
For the DPP government, the 228 Incident of 1947, in which the KMT troops suppressed a Taiwanese uprising that left tens of thousands dead, missing or imprisoned, seemed to be all the country’s history is about, Chen Fang-ming said.
“Over the past eight years, the 228 issue was brought up by the DPP government again and again, but the history about how mainland Chinese fled to Taiwan, how the Mainlanders see the history of the Massacre of Nanjing and how they fit in the society in Taiwan never came to its attention,” he said. “Aboriginal people have totally different historical memory than that of the ethnic Taiwanese ... but they were all ignored by the DPP government.”
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