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Was speaking to a Taiwanese friend, and I don't think it's popular to say this, but Tsai Ing-wen's presidency has been like Obama's, in that she was elected on a message of hope and transformation, but her policies have been conservative. Instead of spiking up minimum wage, ...
... or strengthening unions, for example, she introduced the one mandatory day off/one flexible day off policy, public holidays were cut, annual leave and work hours were maintained, in other words, while promising workers and youths change, it didn't come, ...
... and this will only lead to further disenfranchisement. Han Kuo-yu's election as mayor in Kaohsiung was a major scare but it represents this disenfranchisement to some extent. His presidential bid did not come to pass because KMT's pro-China stance was a moot point ...
... But my Taiwanese friend said, had Taiwanese not witnessed Han Kuo-yu's pathetic performance in Kaohsiung and China's threats not been as severe, there was a chance Han could have won the presidency. But the current state of disenfranchisement has not been alleviated, ...
... which means that if another presidential candidate styles him/herself as a strongman leader, does not take an overt pro-China stance, and does not come from the establishment, he/she has a high chance of winning (e.g. Ko Wen-je), and if the person acts populist, ...
... and is likely not to take any firm action to address the above social stasis post-election, then the Taiwanese society will become more disenfranchised & divided, and Taiwan might possibly reach the state US is in today. And this is therefore the danger when Tsai Ing-wen ...
... focuses predominantly on pro-business and foreign policies, without a commensurate balance on enhancing equality in Taiwan. There is therefore the question of whether the DPP government is using the insecurity Taiwanese are facing from China's threat to therefore ...
... use China's threat as an excuse not to implement more progressive social policies in Taiwan. But this is kicking the problem down the road. My Taiwanese friend says this is why most Taiwanese have resigned to it, to accept the situation as it is, and to accept that ...
... Taiwan's government will keep undergoing polarized changes for the next few decades. To some extent, Taiwanese are unlikely to broadly protest against Tsai's government on the basis she's protecting the Taiwanese identity and therefore needs to be supported ...
... It also doesn't help that KMT is pro-China and therefore plays an ineffective role as opposition, and also because both parties are pro-business and there lacks strong competitive progressive parties in Taiwan. These tensions therefore create the underlying circumstances ...
... for cognitive dissonance. The question though is how to support the promotion of Taiwan's independence while objectively criticizing the lack of progressive policy action on the DPP government's part. Fact is, wealth inequality is high in Taiwan, ...
... Fact is, Taiwan's wages are not commensurate to the cost of living. Fact is, Taiwan's work hours are too long, holidays too little, #COVID19 has led to data privacy concerns, Taiwan's weak regulatory regime means poor ethics. And Taiwan cannot only be celebrated ...
... for its successes, it needs to be called out when it's not doing enough. Otherwise, Taiwan's so-called moderate route is only taking it further down the neoliberal extreme, which will have repercussions in the years/decades to come. The disenfranchisement will break.
