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
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison. The rigs not only typify
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS