Media: Health and Labor and Democracy in Taiwan

On NPR there's a very positive article on our health system.

So the patients are safe from bankruptcy. But the system itself is under strain. Chang says that Taiwan spends 6.23 percent of its GDP on health care, compared to 16 percent in America.

So the United States spends too much on health care, and doesn't even cover everybody. But the Taiwanese don't bring in enough money to pay for all the services they offer.

"So actually, as we speak, the government is borrowing from banks to pay what there isn't enough to pay the providers," Cheng says.

Taiwan's politicians are reluctant to increase premiums: they're afraid the voters will punish them.

So that's the problem here. And frankly, the solution is fairly obvious: increase the spending a little, to maybe 8 percent of GDP.

Of course, if Taiwan did that, it would still be spending less than half of what America spends.

Americans in Taiwan almost universally laud the health care system here.

Meanwhile the growth of indentured servitude in the world economy is discussed in a recent Newsweek article sourced in part from Jonathon Adams and Ron Brownlow here in Taiwan...

And national regulations on migrant labor often codify existing problems. For example, when Taiwan passed regulations on guest workers, its aim was to prevent them from qualifying for citizenship. Caps on what Taiwan-based labor brokers can charge have not stopped brokers abroad from charging up to $14,000 per recruit.

Indeed, funding pay-to-work schemes is now big business. Led by Chinatrust, Taiwan's largest private lender, several banks have begun extending credit to migrants at 19 percent annual interest. That's about what they would pay for credit cards, but labor
activists have attacked these loans as financial support for the exorbitant broker fees. A Chinatrust spokesperson says the loans are not only "fair and transparent" but also prevent workers from relying on "loan sharks in rural areas" who would charge much higher rates.

The article is long, detailed, interesting, and infuriating..... The failure of the DPP to implement more progressive labor policies here is just one of many examples of its general failure to embrace progressive policies across a range of issues...

Finally, a Japanese diplomat in the Online Japan Times muses on what KMT control of the executive and legislature might mean...

Previously, I had been apprehensive concerning the future of Taiwan's freedom and democracy. Democracy cannot be realized unless both the governing and opposition parties have a common vision concerning the ground rules for maintaining a democratic system.

Democratically electing a Nazi-like party that has a totalitarian view of the state means choosing to end democracy through democratic means. In Taiwan's case, as well, electing a government that consents to the one country, two systems arrangement means the end of freedom and democracy. Even though 10 years have passed in Hong Kong, a popular election has yet to be held. But that really is a trivial issue. The problem is that Hong Kong will enjoy freedom only for a duration of 40 more years. Whether the time that freedom is assured is 50 years or 100 years, it is still a promise to throw away the freedom of one's grandchildren.

I was concerned about a similar situation developing in Taiwan. Chinese President Hu Jintao made a proposal for peace talks with Taiwan. Whether such talks materialize through peaceful means (though inevitably under military and economic threat) or by the direct use of forces, Taiwan will eventually lose its freedom if, under such pressure, the president accepts the one country, two system solution. And I thought that a KMT president would be more prone to accept such compromise, and that a DPP government was a safer choice until that possibility completely disappeared. If the possibility of Taiwan accepting a one country, two system solution completely disappeared, I would not be concerned about Taiwan's future even if a change of government took place as a result of its democratic setup. The results of the latest presidential and legislature elections gives me hope that perhaps Taiwan might have already reached this stage.

[Taiwan]

Asia's Glass Houses

Asia observer Phil Deans, formerly of SOAS at London University, discusses Asia's glass houses in Newsweek. For those us who have noticed the irony of the CCP or the KMT complaining about Japanese murders, the article's theme will be a familiar one:

These attempts, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's prevarications on the comfort-women question, have understandably made Japan's neighbors nervous. But few of Tokyo's Asian critics have impeccable records themselves. The governments of China, both Koreas and, to a lesser extent, Taiwan have all glossed over the dark blots on their own histories.

Of Taiwan, he notes:

Of all Japan's neighbors, Taiwan has been the most open in confronting its past, though even there history has been politicized. When martial law was lifted in 1987, there was an explosion of efforts to address the abuses of early Kuomintang rule, especially the "2/28 Incident" of 1947, when up to 20,000 people were killed in intercommunal violence and in a subsequent crackdown by Gen. Chiang Kai-shek. As part of the democratization process that began 20 years ago, the brutalities of the martial-law period have been widely and publicly debated. Yet many pro-independence Taiwanese have begun to challenge the anti-Japanese history promulgated by the KMT and deny Japanese atrocities such as the forced conscription of prostitutes.

Do "many pro-independence Taiwanese" deny Japanese atrocities? There are no doubt revisionists out there -- but a substantial portion of pro-independence types? I'd need some serious evidence for that, Professor Dean.

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