Don’t Underestimate the Collective Will Expressed by the “All People Turn-over” in 2018

  Don’t Underestimate the Collective Will Expressed by the “All People Turn-over” in 2018

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

January 1, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Saying farewell to "turn-over," the word representing 2018, we have crossed into the threshold of 2019. The word "turn-over" is far-reaching in meaning; last year, Taiwan experienced many unprecedented chaotic events in politics, various forms of "Dong Chang Phenomena" and various types of administrative collapses. The accumulated popular grievances eventually erupted in the year-end local elections as the gigantic explosion of momentum-- "hating the DPP party," leaving the collapse of the mammoth under the Green camp complete control. Today, standing at the starting point of 2019, can people see that Taiwan’s scene will become better in the coming year?

If we say that 2018 was the year that the people in Taiwan, with strong collective will, turned over the various barriers structured by the powers-that-be, then in 2019 the politico-economic situation faced by the people is still full of challenges. Domestically, for the ensuing general elections in 2020, the atmospherics of wrangling in politics will inevitably become more and more messy and odious; the ruling party will probably continue to cater to its own interests. Looking internationally, the new year's economic situation is even more perilous. The global economy's prosperity, after a trend of expansion in recent years, has been approaching the end, with a turn to decline. The dimming prospects of Brexit have also led to the loss of people’s confidence. Add to this the impacts of the US-China trade war, not only will the economy of Mainland China slide down on a big scale, but US growth will also inevitably be weakened; Taiwan, on the other hand, will probably be undermined by being sandwiched. Precisely because of this, if local governments can propose a recipe for invigorating grassroots economies à la Han Kuo-yu, perhaps it will be more beneficial to the people at the grassroots.

Standing on the threshold of 2019, we want to remind the Tsai government that it should take lessons from its defeat in 2018. Momentous setbacks perhaps cannot be immediately recovered, but if, when facing this force of strong "new vox populi" it looks the other way instead, then it would be difficult to shake off forever the stigma of the DPP "does not know how to govern."

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