Recently, television news reports had a story about how the roofs of Taipei’s MRT stations were leaking after days of consecutive rain and how this shocked tourists from Hong Kong. After this, there was a report about the direct flights that have now started between Taipei Songshan Airport and Shanghai’s Hongqiao International Airport. These showed Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) with a huge smile on his face as he boarded the inaugural flight.
When reporters interviewed travelers, all of them said that the ticket prices were ridiculously expensive. However, neither Hau nor the chairman of China Airlines gave a straight answer when asked about ticket pricing.
Supporting the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China is one of Hau’s major political platforms and he will this in his campaign to be re-elected as Taipei mayor. Hau’s greatest “achievement” so far has been the opening up of direct flights from Songshan to Hongqiao and this also just happens to be a litmus test for an ECFA with China.
However, Hau has also ignored the falling standard of living in Taipei and acts like leaking roofs at MRT stations and potholes in roads are not important. Hau is extremely proud of having established direct flights between Taipei and Shanghai and keeps boasting about how this will allow people to complete a round trip between the two cities in a single day. But can the convenience of a minority of our population make up for what he has done or failed to do, over the last four years?
People from Shanghai are accustomed to bright, flashy colors so they will probably find Taipei’s old looking and outdated cityscape and urban planning somewhat quaint. Hau should think about whether he can effectively secure votes by relying on China to yield benefits to Taiwan.
Is a total reliance on China really a good strategy when running for an election here where democratic procedures are used? The excessively high price of tickets for direct flights are a clear example of how the theory of relying on China actually damages both Taiwan’s standard of living and its consdierable democratic achievements.
Although it is incorrect to say that these high prices have been used to control the number of flights available as some people have suggested. Cross-strait flights should be just like international flights and based on the norms of a free market. Furthermore, if an ECFA was supposed to be signed based on the spirit of the WTO, a free market should define business dealings between Taiwan and China.
We should not see the emergence of a market where things are monopolized by privileged groups from Taiwan and China that can increase prices at will. This not only runs counter to social fairness and equity, it also harms the standard of living and welfare enjoyed by the citizens of Taiwan.
If we look at the way in which Taiwan’s Chunghwa Picture Tubes and AU Optronics Corp have recently been accused by US judicial authorities of forming international cartels, it is very hard to not blame airline operators from Taiwan and China for forming their own cartel.
The Control Yuan should therefore impeach those civil servants who have been remiss in their duties and encourage the Fair Trade Commission and Consumer Protection Commission to get involved in investigations, to provide administrative support.
If we continue to sit around and do nothing as prices for direct flights are seriously distorted and if we are unable to use democratic and lawful methods to resist such injustices, then we are tacitly approving an abnormal situation that is a direct product of the “normalization” of cross-strait trade relations. Opposition parties should pay special attention to this issue and get to the bottom of it so the public sees through the fake “peace dividends” certain political hacks from the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are harping on, while teaming up to make huge profits. These events also make it quite clear that an ECFA will probably involve more of the same in the near future.
Voters have an extremely important role to play. With the year-end five special municipality elections not far off, voters need to give Hau and his cronies a clear lesson and demand that they stop fawning on the CCP while trampling all over the achievements of which taiwanese are most proud, namely a high standard of living and and a young vibrant democracy.
Jay Fang is the chairman of the Green Consumers’ Foundation.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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