Taiwan ranked 12th among 165 jurisdictions around the world and first in Asia in this year’s Human Freedom Index with a score of 8.56, retaining its position from the previous year.
The index, compiled by the Washington-based Cato Institute and the Vancouver-based Frasier Institute, ranked 165 jurisdictions for “personal,” “economic” and “human” freedom in 2021, the most recent year for which sufficient data were available, the report said.
Taiwan scored 7.97 for economic freedom, or ranking 11th in the world — up from 24th in 2020 — and 8.98 for personal freedom, 12th and unchanged from 2020.
Photo: Screen grab from the Cato Institute’s Web site
The report defines freedom as the absence of coercive constraints.
The criteria for economic freedom include size of government, legal system and property rights, sound money — focused mainly on inflation — freedom to trade internationally and regulation.
Personal freedom criteria cover the rule of law, security and safety, movement, religion, expression and information, relationships, and association, assembly and civil society.
Human freedom “deteriorated severely in the wake of the coronavirus [COVID-19] pandemic,” the report said, pointing to “significant declines in the rule of law, freedom of movement, expression, association and assembly, and freedom to trade.”
Taiwan’s scores also declined after consistent rises from 8.31 (28th) in the first year of the index in 2000 to peaks of 8.81 in 2016, when it was 17th in the world, and 2019 (14th).
In 2020 and 2021, Taiwan’s score fell to 8.56, with its economic freedom score dipping below 8 for the first time since the middle of the 2010s and personal freedom dropping below 9 for the first time since the early 2000s.
However, only two main factors showed substantial declines in those two years in the index — freedom of movement, likely due to travel restrictions related to the pandemic, and media and expression as defined by Varieties of Democracy, a Swedish research institute.
In other categories, the scores for Taiwan were largely unchanged.
Switzerland was No. 1 for the fourth year in a row, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Estonia and Sweden (tied for fifth), Iceland, Luxembourg, Finland and Norway.
Japan was the second-highest in Asia at 16th, followed by South Korea (28th), Armenia (33rd) and Singapore (44th).
China was 149th and the lowest-ranked jurisdiction was Syria.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS