Economy, Thy Name Is "No Feeling"

 Economy, Thy Name Is "No Feeling"

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

May 22, 2017

 Translation of an Except

In the various polls conducted for Tsai's anniversary in office, two outstanding trends merit discussion. One, in the various polls, the public are most dissatisfied with the government policies with regard to economic performance, with dissatisfaction rating reaching as high as over 60%. Two, among the different age groups, the dissatisfaction ratings for President Tsai among the younger groups has quickly climbed. In a survey targeting young people, the average score given by the youth to the Tsai government was only 46 points; including the survey conducted by the DPP itself, only people over 70 years of age gave her a satisfaction rating higher than dissatisfaction.

In the past year, the concerns of the outside world for Taiwan's economic development can be generally summed up as the following. First, the deterioration of cross-Strait relations has seriously impacted tourism, hotels, restaurants and other travel industries; this is an economy undermined by politics. Second, the fossilized policy of one mandatory holiday, one flexible day-off has not only hiked prices, but has also led to failures in manpower deployment in many service industries and SMEs, some of which have even closed down as a result; this is crude and brute decision-making. Third, the Tsai government over-emphasized "distribution," but has paid little attention to "development"; the various annuity reforms have all stressed "paying more and receiving less." These may lead to a phenomenon of "poverty for all" in Taiwan. Fourth, Tsai Ying-wen pledged to solve the problem of the low wages paid to the youth, but we haven’t seen any progress. Fifth, the Forward-looking Infrastructure Construction Plan will cost a huge sum of NT$880 billion, but the money will be spent on items without a careful assessment or on items not urgently needed by the state; this is “generosity” in using taxpayers’ money. Sixth, the Hon Hai Group, the Formosa Plastics Group and other large conglomerates have been rumored to have plans to invest in the United States, but the domestic investment environment has not been improved, leading to a full stop in private sector investment.

The main crux of Taiwan's economic illness lies in the deliberate interference of various non-economic factors, including the stirrings of labor-management relations, the swinging of cross-Strait policies, the bitter Blue-Green political fights, anachronistic laws and regulations, and the various malignant protests under the pretext of environmental or social justice. All these have prevented the economy from advancing in the direction of normal development, denying conscientious workers their appropriate remuneration, while young people are unable to change their lives from low pay. And examining the initiators, the manipulations of the DPP's political ideology cannot escape the blame. Therefore, it was impossible to expect Tsai Ying-wen to improve the economy over the last year. However, if Tsai Ying-wen could not disengage the entanglements from the font, but only uses piecemeal reforms to write down her own accomplishments in governing, it would be an exercise in futility.

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