KMT railroading THSRC
The fiasco over the proposal to revive Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) shows that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ policymaking process is murky and the purpose of government intervention does not have the best interests of the public in mind.
This is one more instance that makes President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration unpopular and untrustworthy. The suspicion is that there is collusion between politicians and big business.
The government’s action lacks moral persuasion. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was unfriendly toward Continental Engineering Corp (CEC) chairwoman Nita Ing (殷琪), a former THSRC chairperson, from the outset. KMT legislators were unsupportive of her plan to finish the project when Nita was working closely with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration and constantly questioned the safety of the operation. Then her proposal to restructure the financial plan was rejected based on the argument that it would not profit shareholders.
The problem is, the fruit of success and the burden of hardship were not shared fairly. The CEC, one of the THSRC’s five original investors, and the original shareholders deserve better for carrying out the great challenge to build the rail system and taking the high risk to finance the project. Any latecomers would give people the impression that the KMT administration was robbing Peter to pay Paul.
There has been no attention paid to the history of Tang Eng Iron Works Co, which was taken over by the KMT in 1962. Tang Eng was very successful at the time, teaming up with Mitsubishi and expanding quickly to help supply the Vietnam War effort.
A Wikipedia report is erroneous in this regard, saying that Tang Eng suffered financially because of Vietnam War. The truth of the matter is that the KMT did not allow Tang Eng to extend credit when a small loan was due and took over the entire company by forcing Tan Eng into bankruptcy. The company’s president, unable to cope with the political tyranny, suffered a stroke and died at a young age.
If Tang Eng could have remained private, Taiwan would have been able to compete well with modern South Korean heavy industry, given that it was Mitsubishi’s equal after the World War II.
Sadly, the KMT does not pay attention to history and is attempting to squeeze out of THSR the people who can build a better Taiwan.
With the US government’s dealings with Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, it can be understood why the US is a world leader in technology and innovation. When it sees strong business leaders, it supports them and helps them to help society, creating a win-win situation.
The zero-sum mentality on the part of KMT is why Taiwan’s economy is stagnant and incomes are declining. There are many other sound projects the ministry could undertake. Electric cars and fuel-cell vehicles will take over the automobile industry in the near future. The innovation of Gogoro to build electric scooters and charging stations appears to fit well with this trend. This will help with air pollution, which has long been considered a major contributing factor to cancer, as well as paving a path to the world market.
The ministry needs to set its priorities right to help build Taiwan’s transportation infrastructure for the 21st century while avoiding political smear campaigns.
James Hsu
Santa Carina, California
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
US President Donald Trump on Monday gave his inauguration speech. Although mainly directed at US citizens, his words were subject to global scrutiny by leaders and others wanting to understand more about his intentions for his second term. The US has been Taiwan’s strongest ally since the end of World War II and Trump’s first term brought many welcome advances in Taiwan-US ties. Still, many Taiwanese are concerned about what Trump’s second term will mean for the nation, especially after comments he made concerning Taiwan’s national defense and semiconductor industry. During Monday’s address, Trump said that the US “will once again consider
RSS