Economy/trade
■ Promote an employment-oriented and knowledge-based economy rather than a GDP-centered economy.
■ Develop local economic sectors with local historical and cultural characteristics to create jobs.
■ Seek to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership and negotiate with major trade partners on signing free-trade agreements.
■ Readjust Taiwan’s industrial structure and create new and strategically important sectors.
■ Base salaries should be adjusted regularly according to productivity and prices.
■ Improve the working conditions and rights of temporary workers, though government agencies should not be allowed to hire temporary workers.
Cross-strait relations
■ “Reserving the right to disagree while seeking harmony and seeking agreement in a spirit of conciliation” is the central theme of Tsai’s China policy.
■ Advocate a “Taiwan consensus,” which Tsai says is a democratic process that excludes no outcomes. She refuses to recognize the existence of the so-called “1992 consensus.”
■ Establish a cross-strait framework to forge peaceful and stable interaction that is strategically and mutually beneficial.
■ Carefully review the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and proceed with negotiations under the WTO framework.
■ Conduct a thorough review of Chinese investment and encourage local businesses to focus activities and job opportunities in Taiwan.
■ Establish a sound supervisory mechanism to ensure fair competition and the transparency of Chinese banks in Taiwan.
■ Promote civil society exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.
National security/foreign policy
■ Engage with the international community by upholding the universal values of freedom, democracy and human rights.
■ Strengthen the strategic partnership with the US.
■ Strengthen cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries, Japan in particular, to maintain regional stability.
■ Develop a strong military capability to safeguard Taiwan’s peace and stability.
■ Reaffirm Taiwan’s advantage as a maritime nation, improve management of maritime resources and promote multilateral dialogue.
■ Advance foreign diplomacy using Taiwan’s soft power to attract international support.
Finance/taxation
■ Establish a macroeconomic early-warning system for financial crises.
■ Establish a supply chain providing short, medium and long-term funding to satisfy corporate needs.
■ Prevent overcentralization and monopolization of financial institutions to protect consumer rights.
■ Cut the national debt of NT$1.3 trillion (US$42.9 billion) in half in four years and achieve fiscal balance in eight years. Halt the growing national debt-to-GDP ratio to achieve “zero debt growth.”
■ Introduce a property transaction income tax based on real transaction prices.
■ Replace tax incentives with investments or funding to improve industrial competitiveness.
■ Expand the fiscal power of local governments and adopt a fairer distribution of national tax revenue among local governments.
■ Introduce a “green tax” system.
Government reform
■ Lower the threshold for constitutional amendments and referendums.
■ Reform the legislative electoral system.
■ Enact a proposed political parties bill and prohibit parties from operating and investing in businesses, directly or indirectly.
■ Advance transitional justice by restoring historical facts, releasing historical documents and returning illegally seized party assets.
■ The president would take a primary role in judicial reform, which would highlight the protection of human rights, civic participation and a mechanism for the removal of judicial officials.
Agriculture
■ Advocate a “new agriculture movement” to promote the importance of agriculture and the sustainability of farmland.
■ Improve food self-sufficiency and ensure 120-day emergency stockpiles of major agricultural produce.
■ Establish a NT$100 billion agricultural fund to encourage young people with technological expertise and innovative marketing skills to work in the sector.
■ Establish traceability and a place-of-origin labelling system, and promote organic agriculture.
■ Minimize supply-and-demand imbalances with regular monitoring and countermeasures, including a “95 percent mechanism.”
■ Increase subsidies to cover as much as half of the cost of agricultural produce damaged in natural disasters.
Technology
■ Development of technology should include cultural and innovation elements to promote the development of local industries and improve public, environmental and food safety.
■ Advocate a “nuclear-free homeland” initiative to phase out nuclear power by 2025 by decommissioning the nation’s three nuclear power plants and preventing the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant from becoming operational.
■ Improve power-generation efficiency and use alternative energy sources.
■ Advance an energy tax, eliminate subsidies for industries with high carbon emissions and high energy consumption.
■ Adjust industrial policies that have over emphasized northern Taiwan to create employment nationwide.
■ Encourage state-owned and private businesses to take the lead in research and development instead of the government.
■ Establish a sustainable green economy based on “clean technology,” encouraging energy conservation and carbon reduction.
■ Develop local research and development capabilities for domestic military technology.
Education
■ Implement a 12-year compulsory education program.
■ Ensure education quality and equal opportunities.
■ Establish a public childcare and child education system.
■ Adjust the ratio of public and private higher-education institutions with a long-term goal of more than half of students attending public institutions.
■ Promote smaller classes, schools and school districts in elementary and secondary education.
■ Adjust curricula to highlight local languages, art, history and literature in the spirit of holistic education.
■ Promote recurrent education and lifelong learning.
Environment
■ Enact national land planning and national land restoration laws, and conduct a complete assessment of national resources.
■ Restore the ecological path of the Central Mountain Range and develop Aboriginal community economies.
■ Develop sustainable agriculture based on environmental preservation.
■ Integrate the management of water, land and forestry resources.
■ Increase civic participation in the environmental impact assessment system.
■ Reduce industrial pollution and carbon emissions.
■ Promote protection biological diversity and related education..
■ Strengthen government preparation in the areas of disaster relief, mitigation and prevention.
Culture
■ Advocate a decentralized policy of cultural development.
■ Preserve Taiwan’s cultural diversity, in particular the languages of various ethnic and Aboriginal groups, by enacting a cultural development standard law to protect the constitutional rights of different cultural groups.
■ Increase the cultural budget and investment to develop local professionals and promote cultural creative industry.
■ Develop the art and culture industry to create employment and improve quality of life.
Social welfare
■ Allocate public funding of at least NT$40 billion over four years to establish a stable system for long-term care and a centralized task force reporting directly to the president.
■ Train more local caregivers, rather than hiring more from abroad, to create more job opportunities.
■ Ensure that unemployed people receive government subsidies and provide workers who are forced to take unpaid leave with short-term subsidies.
■ Implement healthcare reform.
■ Encourage a higher birthrate by providing women-friendly and family-friendly support and more public childcare facilities.
■ Provide rent-only social housing for the underprivileged and people with low incomes.
Ethnicity
■ Reconstruct national history from multi-ethnic viewpoints and embrace Taiwan’s rich cultural diversity in all public policies.
■ Grant various languages the status of national language and combat ethnic discrimination.
■ Establish a new partnership with Aborigines and implement Aboriginal autonomy that would guarantee Aborigines management rights over their property and fiscal revenues.
■ Advance a discrimination-free policy on new immigrants and ensure their civil rights, as well as the rights of their children to health, education and employment.
Gender
■ Increase women’s participation in politics with female ministers and representatives to account for no less than one-third of the total number.
■ Promote a public childcare system.
■ Create women-friendly living spaces and work environments.
■ Democratize families by promoting gender equality.
■ Respect the rights of people of all sexual orientations.
■ Implement the concept of gender mainstreaming by assessing the different implications for men and women of all policies and legislation.
Youth
■ Provide public dormitories for university students and subsidies for economically challenged students.
■ Encourage universities to collaborate with local businesses to create job opportunities for young people.
■ Promote entrepreneurship among young people by providing public mortgages and a government-driven platform as an intermediary between entrepreneurs and businesses.
Others
■ “Decompress” Taipei and the congested north by deploying new government facilities, institutions, corporate headquarters and innovative industries in central and southern Taiwan.
■ Transform Taipei by funding large-scale urban redevelopment programs and develop key cities along the high-speed rail line into regional hubs.
■ Allocate more funding and personnel, establish a comprehensive system for animal rescue, shelters and adoption, implement strict controls on illegal breeders and animal abandonment, and promote life education.
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
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