As a democratic polity, Taiwan is rapidly growing up. In the weeks following the sensational election of a DPP president, the island's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are already maneuvering for position, staking claims to the notice of the new powers that be. Disparate in many ways, one thing they have in common is...
The election of Chen Shui-bian as the tenth-term president of the ROC is being hailed as proof that Taiwan is already far advanced along the road to becoming a mature democracy. But elections are only one sign of maturity. Another, equally important indicator of a civil society is the emergence of influential non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Since martial law was lifted in 1987, such associations have proliferated in Taiwan, and many of them can take the credit for important initiatives in the realm of social welfare.
As long as the Kuomintang (KMT) could be equated with the government, Taiwan's NGOs tended to look to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for inspiration and assistance when seeking to change entrenched attitudes. With the election of Chen Shui-bian, the DPP is enjoying its time in the sun. Will the party continue to be supportive of the island's civic groups? The Taipei Review talked to six different associations about their past dealings with the government and what they expect of the new regime.
The Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation
The foundation was set up in December 1981 as the first voluntary organization to provide help to victims of facial injuries and burns. Chen Shu-lan has been the foundation's executive director for almost seven years, and for the last three of them she has also been its director.
Our foundation aims to provide a comprehensive range of services, including psychological counselling, physical rehabilitation, and other assistance to injured people. Our ultimate goal is to return patients as quickly as possible to their families, the work force, and society.
We don't have particularly strong links with any political party. We believe that how a given party implements its policies has an impact on the whole of society and the country's welfare. We are welfare promoters, and as such we're supposed to take an opposite stance to the government's, as happens in other countries. We're hardly in a position to establish a good relationship with the party in power because we need to be free to criticize, to ask for things, and often to push. So in the past it was easier for us to establish channels of communication with the DPP, especially in the realm of legislation. We're therefore very curious to see how the DPP will redefine its relationship with us, now that it's come to power. This is a whole new situation. We need to take time to see how things develop.
We haven't changed course in any way since the election. We'll continue to devote ourselves to helping people who've suffered facial injuries and burns. I think the biggest change will be that the DPP's administration won't be as powerful as the KMT's, because it has fewer seats in the legislature. The KMT was very authoritarian and it had ample resources. But the DPP is really going to have to listen to us and involve more social groups like ours in its reform programs. As for us, we mean to provide the new government with every assistance.
To date, the DPP's social welfare policies remain fluid. There's nothing concrete to implement yet. Their ideas are still very vague and abstract. Under the KMT, the government was always bereft of clear and complete social welfare policies. There was no direction. In the past, we held a number of National Welfare Forums, but the government showed no real interest in them. They ignored us. In the future, however, the government really must listen to different voices from society and do more to embrace organizations spearheading social reform.
We really need to scrutinize the structure of the Cabinet. Currently, the Social Affairs Department of the Ministry of the Interior is the highest office handling welfare issues islandwide. That's not good enough. We should redesign the Cabinet in such a way as to give social welfare greater prominence. In local governments, the situation is even worse. They have so few resources. The September 21 earthquake and its aftermath revealed how serious this problem was. Local governments showed themselves totally powerless to embark on major reconstruction projects, even for things involving basic services like health and sanitation. All they could do was wait for subsidies and support from the central government.
We really hope that the DPP will honor their campaign promises and listen to our opinions. After all, they're a weak government--what else can they do?
National Association of Small & Medium Enterprises ROC
Day Sheng-tong, the association's chairman, wants the government to pay more attention to the island's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), pointing out that they are the foundations of Taiwan's economic development.
SMEs have made a terrific contribution to the Taiwanese economic miracle. Taiwan has no real natural resources except its high-quality manpower, but that high-quality manpower allows it to manufacture brilliant products for export. For decades, this place has been an Asian production outpost for lots of famous multinationals. Without its export markets and manpower, Taiwan would never have gotten where it is today.
I really do expect the DPP to care more about SMEs. I want them to understand the difficulties we face and give us more support. A lot of the island's large enterprises are going down the wrong road. They're staking everything on financial services when they ought to be focusing on manufacturing. If we end up in a situation where money-market dealings generate more profit than manufacturing, Taiwan's going to be looking at an economic recession. You have to realize that Taiwan's SMEs are the root of the economy, while financial activities are just leaves on a twig. These SMEs work hard for their money. They can be cautious, yes, but they're also not afraid to risk expanding abroad. If we don't have strong roots, how are the leaves ever going to prosper?
I hope that when the new president comes to power, he will correct the imbalance. Many countries like Korea are highly appreciative of Taiwan's wealth of SME experience, but ironically our own government has been much less interested in it.
From my own work experience, I believe Taiwan should be developing itself as an Asia Pacific manufacturing center, rather than a regional financial center. The environment here is totally different from Hong Kong's or Singapore's. Those places are too small to sustain a sizable manufacturing industry, so they concentrate on financial services. But here in Taiwan we really cherish our work force, and I don't understand why we're not promoting it more aggressively. We should combine our current advantages, resources, and manpower in an effort to internationalize our products, and we should be doing it sooner rather than later.
We're currently focusing too many of our resources on the computer industry. Since 1995, Taiwan has been the third largest computer hardware supplier in the world. Information technology has become the island's primary export in terms of value, but it's followed by textiles. We need to reconsider the role of traditional industries. Currently, there are almost 8,000 textile factories in the United States, still generating good earnings and creating high foreign exchange reserves. The government should be taking a leading role, guiding and helping the SMEs that account for 98 percent of Taiwan's enterprises. Is it just going to stand by and watch as traditional industries wither away?
I'm totally against abolishing the ban on direct trade, transport, and communications between the mainland and the outlying islands of Kinmen, Matsu, and Penghu [which the legislature rushed through soon after the election]. I agree that the ban wastes too many of our resources, but we must ensure our national security first. Economic considerations are secondary. The ban should be lifted only after a long and thoughtful process, and it needs to be accomplished by comprehensive legislation. Otherwise it's going to do us a lot of harm.
I hope that the new president will adopt a hands-on approach to the problems of Taiwan's SMEs. We need more than just words from him. He should go to southern Taiwan to see for himself, forge links with them, and find out what they need.
Homemakers' Union and Foundation
Chen Man-li the NGO's secretary-general, has devoted herself to its affairs since its foundation in 1987.
As members of Taiwan's society, which is undergoing drastic change, a small number of homemakers felt that they could no longer put up with the island's environmental degradation and educational problems, so we decided to speak up and take some responsibility. Our purpose is to bring women together to help improve the environment and people's quality of life. Our NGO is run by all the members, who make decisions jointly and carry out their work independently, without benefit of corporate or other sponsorship.
It's important to understand that, for a long time, Taiwan's first priority has been economic development. That's why our environment has degenerated so badly. We hope we can do something for the environment. We also try to forge links with other groups as a means of increasing our leverage. We lobby legislators. At first, the government's attitude toward us was negative, but then it came to realize that organizations like ours could make a positive contribution, and its attitude underwent a considerable change. Nowadays, we work with the government more and more. For instance, we recently applied to the Environmental Protection Administration for a grant in aid of our waste oil recycling program and a project for manufacturing soap from used cooking oil. We don't need too much capital, because we're a non-profit organization. And more and more people are joining our organization because they've come to recognize that we're trying to build a better society. Don't just stand there and criticize; everybody needs to contribute!
Environmental problems embrace water, air, and land usage. Each is vitally important in its own way. If the government really wants to deal with these problems, it should first review Taiwan's ecology as a whole. But in practice it chooses to work on issues like garbage disposal and incinerators, because they're highly visible crowd pleasers.
Under the KMT, economic development was always the first priority. In many large projects, for instance, environmental evaluations were undertaken in a sloppy manner, with lots of concessions made to big corporations. There was nothing we could do about that. So in the past we found it was easier to communicate with the DPP, because they were in the same boat as us--powerless. DPP legislators used to lend a hand. Now that the DPP has become the party in power, I think we should give them a period of time to demonstrate their sincerity, say three to six months. I don't know whether they'll be able to do it or not. But we should closely monitor the performance of president-elect Chen Shui-bian.
We don't expect to obtain any support from the new administration. We believe that in order to raise the island's standard of living, everybody should pitch in and take some responsibility for their lives. Basically we just want everyone to be free to live happy, comfortable lives. That's our goal.
The Humanistic Education Foundation
The foundation, which was set up twelve years ago, is dedicated to the development of human-centered education in Taiwan. It seeks to identify problems in contemporary education, promote alternative educational theories, and help create a social and political forum to discuss the purpose and means of education. Wu Li-feng is the foundation's executive director.
In the past, nobody paid much attention to youngsters in Taiwan. Now we're trying to focus on them and their problems. A lot of elementary and high-school students are growing up unhappy. They have to face numerous pressures stemming from our rigid school environment. It's our job to make sure that every student has a chance to grow up happy and enjoy studying in the framework of a healthy educational system.
We've always had problems. For example, we set up a school, the Forest School, in 1990. [This elementary school adapted North American and European experimental teaching methods in an effort to sponsor children's interest in self-directed study. It ran into problems over its failure to comply with the strict provisions of Taiwan's private school legislation.] It was never really welcomed by the government, because it was so different from all of the island's regular schools. They nearly forced us out of business. But then we won the support of some legislators, and the school's still there. But we're completely on our own: nobody wants to get involved. Actually, it's a wonderful opportunity to go our own way and validate our ideas in an effort to get the law changed.
While the KMT was in power, the rigidity of the system manifested itself in all areas, including school organization, curriculum, teaching methodology, materials, and teacher training. The KMT was ultraconservative about anything that wasn't part of the regular system. Once people start to change their mindsets, however, a lot of things can be achieved quite quickly, even changes in the law. Fortunately, things have gotten a lot better recently. More and more people have come to an understanding of our ideas and decided to support our work.
But the whole educational system is still subject to incredible pressures, because on the supply side the Ministry of Education hasn't increased the number of high schools quickly enough. It's not just the ministry, though; the whole administration had this attitude problem. That's why a lot of people belonging to socio-educational reform groups voted for the DPP in the recent election. The DPP made it a plank of its policy that the island's annual education budget should never fall below 6 percent of GNP. We believe that if the proposal becomes law, the education budget can be applied in a much more just and rational way.
We're really looking forward to cooperating with the new administration and helping it build a better educational system for our children. We want school to be somewhere children love to go when they get up in the morning.
Fu-Jen University Student Association
Chen Chian-yu is the leader of the Fu Jen Catholic University student association.
The first thing I want to say is that for a long time the KMT could do nothing to solve its problems, because it completely lacked guts and there wasn't enough pressure on it. So this is a good opportunity for the KMT to accelerate its reform program.
Power rotation is a good idea, but we really do need to think quite carefully about what the goals and meaning of power rotation are. Otherwise, we'll be going around in circles.
The DPP's biggest problem is that it doesn't have enough talented people to manage national affairs. That's something the party needs to work on in the immediate future. If it wants to consolidate its hold on power, it must train and recruit more talented people into the team. We can see the predicament clearly from the difficulties Chen had in choosing a new premier and Cabinet.
I don't think that cross-strait relations can get any worse. But as long as the DDP insists on its ideal of Taiwan independence, the normalization process between both sides will go nowhere. I believe the DPP could play a more active role in smoothing the relationship with Beijing.
Finally, the advent of a whole new team really does give the Taiwanese people an opportunity to examine the true meaning of party politics. People need to make an effort to find out whether the politicians they favor are really trustworthy, since at present most voters go for a particular party or candidate for no good reason. They don't stop to think. So this is going to be a whole new learning process for them. They'll have to learn how to take responsibility for their political choices, and that's even more important than having genuine party politics.
Taiwan Labor Front
Robert Kuo, secretary-general of the Taiwan Labor Front, has served in the association since 1993.
This was the first organized labor movement group. It was founded in 1984. At first, its main purpose was to provide free legal representation for workers whose rights had been infringed. But now our goals have been refined, and we're trying to mobilize people power as a means of making Taiwan a more equal and prosperous society where citizens treat one another with mutual respect.
The Cabinet's Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) is the agency in charge of labor affairs islandwide. It has done very little since it was founded in 1988, and in some aspects it has even regressed. For instance, the Employment Service Act of 1992 was a legislative breakthrough that regulated the import of overseas laborers. But the main function of the CLA now seems to be determining how to import foreign labors, which impacts seriously on the domestic labor market. Then there's unemployment insurance, which is hedged around with restrictions. Only around 10,000 people have received that benefit, although Taiwan has some 300,000 unemployed. It's a tiny percentage. Taiwan really has done very little, whether as regards legislation or improving working conditions by other means.
The most serious issue in recent years has been the rise in unemployment. Last year, it was 2.92 percent. This is the cumulative effect of a number of wrong-headed policies followed over a lengthy period. The government needs to solve this problem by reexamining the entire structure of employment. The last administration did little to protect employees in terms of working hours and conditions. Taiwan has the world's fourteenth largest trading economy, but its working conditions lag way behind those of advanced nations. It's ridiculous.
This election will bring about some changes. It's also going to create some challenges for the new administration. We've dealt with Chen Shui-bian before, when he was mayor of Taipei. His attitude was friendly, and he did a good job of freeing up labor unions and improving working conditions. For example, he issued an executive order allowing bank employees to form a single labor union. I don't know whether he'll be the same now he's president. Only time will tell. But I believe that the DPP will do more for us than the KMT ever did. The big challenge now is bringing down unemployment, especially after we enter the World Trade Organization. The new president needs to think hard about this.
The incoming administration has got to be different from the KMT. It must play an active role in strengthening Taiwan's work force, so that we can negotiate with bosses as equals. That's what we're hoping for.