On Wednesday last week, US President Donald Trump swung the tariff sword and left the whole world crying out in pain. On Friday the Executive Yuan announced that it would allocate NT$88 billion (US$2.7 billion) to assist industrial and agricultural sectors impacted by the tariffs.
However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is making increasingly costly and exorbitant demands, suggesting that last year’s NT$528.3 billion tax revenue surplus be put to use.
It was not that long ago that the KMT was arguing for something else entirely. KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) had called for a universal cash payment of NT$10,000 to every taxpayer, while KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) in February said that the universal cash subsidy proposal would definitely be addressed during the current legislative session — even if it meant calling an extraordinary session or extending the current one.
However, distributing NT$10,000 to every taxpayer would be an immediate expense of NT$230 billion — nearly half of the total surplus.
If the government did this, what surplus funds would it have left to cope with Trump’s tariff storm? In hindsight, it is fortunate that the government pushed back on the KMT’s proposal.
This situation makes it clear that the KMT has no clue how to run a country — it only knows how to react.
The tariff shock has only just begun, and the KMT should share in these difficult times rather than proposing such horrible ideas.
Huang Wei-ping works in public service and has a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
Taiwan’s long-term care system has fallen into a structural paradox. Staffing shortages have led to a situation in which almost 20 percent of the about 110,000 beds in the care system are vacant, but new patient admissions remain closed. Although the government’s “Long-term Care 3.0” program has increased subsidies and sought to integrate medical and elderly care systems, strict staff-to-patient ratios, a narrow labor pipeline and rising inflation-driven costs have left many small to medium-sized care centers struggling. With nearly 20,000 beds forced to remain empty as a consequence, the issue is not isolated management failures, but a far more
RSS