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Sunday, May 11, 2014

Talking about my... generational issues

Towering.

Why don't you all fade away
And don't try to dig what we all say
I'm not trying to cause a big sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my generation

Popped over to Thinking Taiwan.com, where you should really be going, and read a lot today. One point that is made in various forms by many commentators there, and everywhere else, is that this generation of kids is different: it's the first to grow up under democracy.

Well, that's true, yet this generation is different in another way too: it is the first to face economic prospects worse than those of its parents. This generation is suffering under years of worsening income inequality (Gini coefficient), stagnant incomes, and slowing growth:

Year Growth Rate
Gini 


1990

6.87

0.308

1991

7.88

0.312

1992

7.56

0.315

1993

6.73

0.318

1994

7.59

0.317

1995

6.38

0.317

1996

5.54

0.320

1997

5.48

0.324

1998

3.47

0.325

1999

5.97

0.326

2000

5.80

0.350

2001

-1.65

0.345

2002

5.26

0.343

2003

3.67

0.338

2004

6.19

0.340

2005

4.70

0.339

2006

5.44

0.340

2007

5.98

0.341

2008

0.73

0.345

2009

-1.81

0.342

2010

10.76

0.342

2011

4.19

0.308

2012

1.48

0.312

2013

2.1


Source: DGBAS

Cruelly, this generation's growing environmental awareness confronts an environment increasingly traumatized by the construction-industrial state, while many of its best management and engineering prospects must look for work in China.

To put this in historical perspective, between 1895 and 1938, Taiwanese knew solid economic growth driven by Japanese subsidies for rice and sugar production which paid above-world-market prices for those items. For a brief period around 1936-37, per capita incomes in Taiwan may have exceeded per capita incomes in Japan proper. Thus the great-grandparents of this generation knew a land whose wealth and stability steadily grew.

The war intervened and trade with Japan collapsed after 1943 with the US sub blockade. When the war ended, Japanese were largely repatriated, and the island was catastrophically looted by the KMT. Incomes plummeted and with the advent of a million or so extra mouths to feed in 1949, per capita incomes probably did not recover until the mid-1960s (Mendel discusses this in the classic The Politics of Formosan Nationalism). The KMT, probably deliberately, marks the beginning of its records in 1950, which shows steady growth (experienced by the locals, until about 1965, as recovery) throughout the 50s to the 80s, with a few blips. Hence, until 1990, two generations came and went under steady GDP growth and constantly increasing economic prospects.

But the second of those two generations is still around, and it views things rather differently than the young. In its late 40s to early 60s, it is the true Strawberry generation, consolidating its gains, keeping its head down, not taking risks, deploring the action-oriented youth, and not taking to the streets to protect the future of its children. When their children took to the streets, they faced resistance from above: their parents cajoled, threatened, and forbade them from taking such action, according to many students I spoke to. When Hon Hai Chairman Terry Gou denigrated democracy the other day, saying that it didn't put food on the table, he was speaking as one in that older generation and many must have quietly agreed. Their experience is that democracy has brought slumping economic prospects and rising prices. What good can it be?

But there's another generational change quietly taking place: when Ma Ying-jeou finally steps down from the Presidency, he will likely be the last mainlander president born in China. The current generation of mainlander candidates for presidency were all born in Taiwan, the place where their faux mainlander identity was created, a true-born Taiwan identity even though it regards the island as an inferior place of exile. Their children, now in their 20s and 30s, are either emigrating, mostly to the US (like Ma Ying-jeou's daughters), or quietly adopting the rapidly evolving Taiwanese identity, which has both democracy and the island itself at its core. This generational change is happening within the KMT even as the DPP is finally handing off the torch to the generation that came of age after the democracy activism of the 70s and 80s.

While people note that the young are quite different than the old, in fact all the actors are in a place where no generation has ever been. What new Taiwan will they create? Stick around and see... because things are going to get real interesting...
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9 comments:

  1. I'm in my 20s in Taipei and I'd conservatively estimate that at least 80% of my Taiwanese friends have participated in the protests, and over 10% are daily activists. The only ones who are pro-KMT already had personal connections to the hierarchy. If the KMT leadership isn't panicking they're either (A) hearing only what they want to (B) betting that because the birthrate has been so low, even an entirely green millenial generation wouldn't be big enough to outnumber their elderly hard supporters anytime soon or (C) planning to finish things off here before this group comes of age anyway.

    Another interesting possibility is that the youth are nudging their parents toward the left during daily interactions, shifting the center without pollsters or politicians even realizing it yet.

    Absolutely agree with your statement that 3rd-generation mainland descendants identify with Taiwan and their benshengren friends rather than their parents and grandparents.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This looks like the right time to push the Executive Yuan's proposal to allow people to vote in a city or county besides that of their registered household address. Letting all the students and blue collar workers in Taipei vote in its mayoral election could change the complexion of the race.
    http://www.ey.gov.tw/en/Link_Content.aspx?n=6EBEA92B45F475D0&s=A871D7D962496310

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice article, I agree with you! Seeing this generation gap everyday around me.

    By the way thanks for putting a link to my post on litanies,I usually don't comment on the news, but since I feel the choice of a clean energy for Taiwan is so important, I went to look for more in depth information!

    Benoit

    ReplyDelete
  4. Agree with you on who the real strawberries are. Projection's an interesting phenomenon, eh?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Benoit, your post got picked up by the Google alert, which is how I found it.

    Michael

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  6. Slight correction - Ma was born in Hong Kong which, in 1950, was a British colony. It's not accurate to state that he was born in China.

    ReplyDelete
  7. What is the cause of the growing income inequality?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Slight correction - Ma was born in Hong Kong which, in 1950, was a British colony. It's not accurate to state that he was born in China.

    On his application to Harvard he put that he was born in Shenzhen. There's something funky about his birth story, probably something local and now lost.

    In any case, Hong Kong is now part of China, sooooo.....

    ReplyDelete
  9. I agree with your thoughts and sentiments exactly. Everyone used to say that time was against Taiwan, but I'm not so sure because Taiwanese are undergoing a societal change where everyone identifies with Taiwan. More and more the distinction between pun-toe-lang and oa-sin-lang is disappearing. I definitely think it's going to get interesting.

    Also, I do want to say that I've been reading your blog as well as others such as J. Michael Cole and Ben Goren for a little while now. I am very touched that "immigrants to Taiwan " or "new Taiwanese" (however, you describe yourself) would continue to care enough to publish Taiwan's plight.

    ReplyDelete

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