Using the Spear of Yunlin to Attack the Shield of Tsai Ing-wen

  Using the Spear of Yunlin to Attack the Shield of Tsai Ing-wen

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

February 20, 2017

 Translation of an Except

After the investment plans in Taiwan by the Formosa Plastics Group were met with obstacles, it was forced to shift to the United States. The Formosa Plastics Group originally had three expansion projects for its 6^th Naphtha Cracker Plant in Mailiao, Yunlin; after being blocked for six years, the government experts committee has demanded that the three projects be returned for a new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The three projects involved an expansion plan with an estimated investment of NT$ 17 billion. The principal purpose was a renovation program for the 6^th Naphtha Cracker Plant after fifteen years in operation; it aimed at energy saving and pollution reduction. Unexpectedly, after being blocked for six years for an EIA, it has been returned to square one.

Based on the long-term hostility on the part of local environmental group vis-à-vis the Formosa Plastics Group, in fact, it was to be expected that the expansion project for the 6^th Naphtha Cracker Plant could not go through. The problem is that the government's EIA mechanism must possess a spirit to transcend populist confrontations, and present a policy decision based on objective and scientific reasoning and evidence. That would be the way to exercise public authority.

The Formosa Plastics Group has recently accelerated its planned expansion in Texas investing NT$ 150 billion. The Formosa Plastics Group has another investment project in Louisiana valued at NT$ 280 billion. A petition for an EIA has been filed for the latter. If the Formosa Plastics Group were truly a vicious enterprise that only knew how to produce pollution as in the eyes of Yunlin residents, it could not be welcomed by the US government, nor could it sail through EIA of the locality.

Recently, the government has prepared a main dish called "forward-looking infrastructure construction project"; it plans to invest one trillion NT dollars over four years to expand the domestic demand market in order to lay the foundation for national development in the coming three decades. Contrasting the two, the government cannot even hold on to the investment of indigenous enterprises, but boasted pompously about “forward-looking construction” in the coming three decades. Isn’t this a big joke? When we throw this "spear of Yunlin" toward the shield of Tsai Ing-wen’s economic stimulus plan, what result will we get?

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