A few days ago, former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) published an article about how the DPP needs to face the China issue to create a new mainstream. Kuo urged the DPP to discard old ideas such as opposing the opening of cross-strait relations lest it loses its chance to regain power. Kuo’s comments are worthy of further discussion.
Kuo’s article was based on two main ideas. The first idea was that only 4 million Taiwanese, a minority, will be adversely affected by signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, less than those who stand to benefit from such an agreement. The second idea was that former president Lee Teng-huei’s (李登輝) “no haste, be patient” policy caused severe conflict between political and economic forces and that the DPP gained popularity by opposing the policy and encouraging Taiwanese businesses to invest in China.
However, we must ask ourselves whether those who will be hurt by an ECFA really represent a minority of the population. The headline of the Chinese-language China Times on Saturday gives us an answer. The headline said that the gap between rich and poor has widened to 62 times, a new record high. More specifically, the average annual income of Taiwan’s richest 5 percent was 62 times the average annual income of Taiwan’s poorest 5 percent. In 1998, when Lee’s “no haste, be patient” policy was in effect, the difference was only 32 times, but that rose sharply to 58 times after the DPP adopted its “active opening” policy in 2006.
In 2002, there were 64,535 households living below the national poverty line, but by 2007, that number had increased to 83,366 households. Since President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has started to open up even more to China, 93,059 households are now living below the poverty line, yet another record high.
Even worse is that the average real income of Taiwanese workers has fallen sharply. The 2000 average annual income of NT$61,893 has shrunk to NT$53,195 this year.
An ECFA with China is aimed at opening further and integrating more closely with China. Kuo said in his article that opening up toward China will benefit most Taiwanese. If that’s the case, why have the DPP’s “active opening” policy and the Ma administration’s policies of still greater opening up to China caused decreases in average real incomes and widened the gap between the rich and poor? Obviously, reality differs drastically from what Kuo’s article portrayed.
Was the DPP’s rise in popularity in 2000 aided by the 1998 transformation in cross-strait policy? In 1996, when Lee was advocating his “no haste, be patient” policy, the DPP promoted boldly investing in China to differentiate itself from the KMT. By doing so, the DPP co-opted and attracted large political donations from big corporations that desperately wanted to invest in China. While the DPP did gain from this opportunistic line, which involved taking advantage of others’ difficulties, it also planted the seeds for the eventual fall of the DPP’s political ideals, a drop in living standards, a collapse in pro-Taiwan ideology and the return eight years later of a government hell-bent on unification with China.
There are two main reasons why the DPP was elected to rule in 2000. First, during the democratization that took place during Lee’s era, localization entered mainstream public opinion, and by embodying localization, the DPP opposition managed to win the public’s trust and confidence. Secondly, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) split and the DPP abandoned Hsu Hsin-liang (�?}) for Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), which gave voters the impression that the party opposed excessive investment by Taiwanese companies in China. One can say that the DPP’s election victory in 2000 had nothing to do with the transformation of cross-strait policy.
If the reemergence of the DPP that Kuo talked about in his article means insisting that a minority — instead of a majority —will be adversely affected by an ECFA and recreating the practices that the DPP used for eight years in government, I am not sure it would be good for the 23 million people of Taiwan.
Huang Tien-lin was a national policy adviser to the DPP administration.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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