Taking good care of Taiwan’s economy is the only way for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to restore public faith in him and that would require a collective effort rather than an oligarchy, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said yesterday.
“Instead of feeling good about yourself, you should ask the people whether you are a good president. Social stability would be in place and people would be happy and have confidence in you if you were able to take care of Taiwan’s economy,” Lee said in his closing remarks for a forum on national economic development.
The comments followed a string of similar advice and criticisms of Ma by Lee in recent months, during which the 89-year-old described the president as ruling the country with the mentality of an “emperor” and being “out of touch with Taiwanese.”
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Citing recent controversial policies of price increases on fuel and electricity and a capital gains tax on securities transactions, Lee said Taiwan is facing economic difficulties that would not be solved without visionary and effective leadership.
A good leader has to listen to not only the opinions of various agencies, but also academics, industry leaders and ordinary people before making a final decision, he said.
“You don’t make decisions with only a handful of people inside a conference room,” Lee said, referring to Ma’s decisionmaking process.
While Lee has always declined to directly criticize Ma, he said the current administration appeared to be “cluelessly courageous” in formulating its policies.
Lee said he had been particularly concerned with the nation’s status in a turbulent global economic climate even before the Jan. 14 presidential election, which was why he asked Taiwan Advocates, a think tank he established, to organize the forum.
The three-part forum discussed the issues of the change in global economic trends, the development of emerging economies and the government’s role in the market economy system.
Lee summed up his analysis of Taiwan’s economy and its challenges with nine observations.
Externally, Lee said Taiwan should speed up regional economic integration by signing free-trade agreements with major trade partners to avoid overdependence on the Chinese economy and to proceed with the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) under the WTO framework.
Taiwan may have to reconsider the pros and cons of banking and trade liberalization due to the high risk to which an economy the size of Taiwan would be exposed.
It is also essential to assist Taiwanese businesspeople in China, either by helping them return to Taiwan or transfer their investments to other emerging markets, as the Chinese economy slows down, he said.
However, it would be even more important to strengthen the domestic economy by controlling rising government debt, upgrading industrial infrastructure, promoting innovation and re-establishing the agricultural sector as the foundation of Taiwan’s economy, Lee said.
Lee reiterated his proposal to stimulate domestic economic activity and create free competition that he had been calling for in recent months, including the privatization of state-owned or state-run companies, such as Taiwan Sugar Corp; CPC Corp, Taiwan; Taiwan Power Co; Taiyen Co and Chunghwa Telecom.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching