Now that the main political parties have announced their presidential candidates, election campaigns are being rolled out.
Support for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), has remained high in several public opinion polls.
However, the results of last year’s local elections show that Lai should be more attentive to economic issues. If he fails to address the economy in a more satisfying way, he could jeopardize his and the DPP’s political future.
The DPP’s performance in the local elections was affected by many political factors, including inappropriate nominations, thesis scandals and mismanagement of COVID-19 outbreaks.
However, the main issue was the economy.
While campaigning last year, the DPP did not talk about how it would cope with rising housing prices. It did not say anything about high mortgages and interest rates. Only after the election did the DPP propose to amend the Equalization of Land Rights Act (平均地權條例).
Similarly, the party knew that inflation was distressing voters, but it was only after upsets in the local elections that it started to work with major retailers to mitigate price hikes.
The DPP did not say how it would arrange the NT$40 billion (US$1.3 billion) from surplus tax revenues, and only after the elections did it announce plans to give people a once-off cash payment of NT$6,000.
Obviously, the DPP neglected the importance of the economy. Not until later did it realize that economic issues would upset the public and lead to its losses in the local elections.
With campaigning starting for the presidential and legislative elections, the issue of the economy should be taken even more seriously.
It is clear that inflation has continued to plague the public.
The media have reported that Taiwan’s economic situation is not too bad, given that the inflation rate has remained between 2 to 3 percent.
Nevertheless, people are still facing soaring consumer goods prices. History has shown that public distress caused by inflation can topple a government. The DPP must take heed of that.
Moreover, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics data show that an economic recession in the first half of this year has resulted in a decline in the job vacancy rate in the manufacturing and service sectors. The rate has dropped to 2.57 percent — the lowest in the past 13 years.
Additionally, only 28.2 percent of companies plan to give their employees a raise, the lowest figure in the past three years.
Lai must address the economy cautiously. Soaring prices of goods and a drop in job openings might have a huge effect on the presidential election.
Cheng Ming-te is a professor in Taipei City University of Science and Technology’s department of business administration.
Translated by Emma Liu
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past