Su Tseng-chang Errs, Gov’t Cannot Adopt an Equalizing Solution in Easing Businesses from Predicament

 Su Tseng-chang Errs, Gov’t Cannot Adopt an Equalizing Solution in Easing Businesses from Predicament

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

February 16, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

In order to avoid community-acquired infections, over 80 cities on the Mainland have adopted city closures or half-city closures, or control by closed districts; this not only dealt a heavy blow to consumer markets, economic activities have also been seriously affected as factory workers could not smoothly return to their workplaces. Especially, landmark factories, such as Foxconn, the principal chipmaker for Apple, have not resumed work because they have not been approved by local governments; external circles are worried about the possible “break of supply chain” by Apple's suppliers. The economic impact of the epidemic has been accelerating its spread externally, and Taiwan has also been involved.

When industries encounter difficulties, from a political point of view, the government cannot remain “without actions”, it should propose programs to ease their predicament, thus revitalization projects are indispensible. However, it has to be prudent and may assist industries to sail through the troubled waters, but it could never be reduced to using taxpayers’ money to fill the holes of the industries’ losses. Besides, the government should focus on industries that have been hit hard for its easing programs, and should not expand explanations to include all areas; Premier Su Tseng-chang's thinking was not correct when he said "as rains and dew drops do equalizing".

Since the Tsai government came to office, it has proposed one after another various easing and subsidizing policies; nevertheless, it has not been able to rescue the sliding trends of industries. Thus, it can be seen that easing and subsidies may only cope with emergencies, while upgrading the physique of industries is the fundamental solution, which is what the government should do. 

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