Economic Collapse Accelerates with Industry Outsourcing and Brain Drain

 Economic Collapse Accelerates with Industry Outsourcing and Brain Drain

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)

July 17, 2017

 Translation of an Except

Taiwan is geographically small and densely populated, with meager natural resources. It grows abundant rice, but not enough to allow 23 million people to maintain the rather affluent living standards it now has. Economic strength is the foundation for Taiwan's survival and prosperity; however, the Tsai government, since taking office for more than a year, has not only failed to show any indications that the economy has made a turn for the better, under its policy and actions of "only drain and no inflow of industry and talent," the collapse of Taiwan’s economy is even accelerating.

In the 8 years of the Ma administration, the average economic growth rate reached 2.8%, ranking third among the Asian four little dragons. Last year the growth rate fell to 1.5%, plummeting to the bottom of the four little dragons. The economic doldrums led to negative growth in both substantive general wages and regular wages last year, for the first time in four years.

Since the Tsai government came to office, its public policies and administrative actions have caused failures in the economic foundation, and the incidences are too numerous to cite. People find that the economic collapse, like mud/rock slides, is beyond rescue when they reach downstream. At present, with numerous failings needing remedy, the Tsai government must actively and simultaneously prescribe medication from several general directions. One is to follow the global situation and improve cross-Strait relations, respecting the operating mechanisms of industries, and reviving the normal interactions and cooperation of cross-Strait industries. The second is to improve the investment environment, promoting liberalization and globalization, erecting a new system for industrial development in the digital age, and blending into the new industrial chain in the global economy. The third is to respect professionalism, reversing the chaotic situation in which politics overlords the economy, misguiding the direction of national development.

The Tsai government is anxious to proceed with transformational justice; however, the goal of transformational justice is to enable the people to have a better life. Whether the Tsai government will continue to be oblivious to the fact of Taiwan's economic collapse, it all depends on what it does at this crucial moment. 

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