MAY 2010
DEMOCRACY & PROGRESS
DPP nominates Big-5 candidates
DPP Big-5 candidates (from left to right): Lai Ching-te for Greater
Tainan, Chen Chu for Greater Kaohsiung, Tsai Ing-wen for Sinbei
City, Su Tseng-chang for Taipei City and Su Chia-chuan for
Greater Taichung.
On May 25, the DPP Central Ex-
ecutive Committee approved the
list of candidates for the Novem-
ber Big-5 city elections.
The DPP then organized a
promotion ceremony, presenting
the nominated candidates and
displaying the DPP’s unity reso-
lution to battle against the KMT
in these elections.
DPP Chair Tsai Ing-wen will
be the party’s candidate for the
new Sinbei City district while
former Premier Su Tseng-chang
will run for mayor of Taipei City.
In Central Taiwan, DPP Sec-
retary General Su Chia-chuan
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
DPP nominates Big-5
candidates
- Pg. 1
Tsai Ing-wen re-elected
as party chair
- Pg. 2
Taiwanese public take to
the streets against ECFA
- Pg. 3
will run for the Greater Taichung
combined district. Su Chia-chuan DPP Chair Tsai Ing-wen:
will offer both local and central “Taiwan’s Economic
government experience, having
Policy under
served as former Pintung County
Globalization
Governor, Minister of Agricul-
ture and Interior Minister. - Pg. 4
In southern Taiwan, Chen
Chu is the nominee for Greater
Kaohsiung while current DPP
Legislator Lai Ching-te will run
as the Greater Tainan candidate.
Chen Chu is currently serving as
Kaohsiung City mayor, and has
already achieved wide popularity
and support from the Kaohsiung
public.
... continued on the next page
PAGE 1

MAY 2010

DPP nominates Big-5 candidates ... continued "om the previous page

At the promotion ceremony, the DPP inaugurated
the election theme: “Power and Renewed Unity
for the Five Cities”. The candidates delivered
their platforms for this election, with each of
them highlighting the DPP’s experience in local
government as most of these candidates have
wide experience in serving the public. The Big-5
cities have a combined population of approxi-
mately 13.7 million people. This election will be
an important one for Taiwan as it will determine
the future welfare and growth of these cities. The
DPP has provided long-term service from north-
ern Taiwan to the south, and it will continue dis-
playing a show of unity to win the people’s sup-
port in these districts.

Tsai Ing-wen re-elected as party chair

Current DPP Chair Tsai Ing-
wen was re-elected as party
chair through direct voting by
DPP party members. The elec-
tion was held at DPP branches
nationwide on May 23.
The turnout rate for this
election was 58%. Besides Tsai
Ing-wen, there was also Former
Taipei County Governor You
Ching who also ran for the party
chair position.
Chair Tsai Ing-wen garnered
90.29% of the votes while You
Ching polled 9.71%.
Along with the party chair
election, the DPP also organized
the election of chairs for each
branch across the country, in-
cluding the DPP’s international
branches.
Soon after the election re-
sults were reported, Chair Tsai
announced her decision to run
as candidate for the race of
mayor in the new administrative
district of Sinbei City. Follow-
ing her confirmation of party
members to continue the party
chair position, she held a press
conference the next day, high-
lighting her desire to put “ideas
into action”.
“My focus as DPP chair has
been on promoting the Ten Year
Policy Manifesto over the past
six months, hoping to promote
the reform and transformation
of Taiwan,” Chair Tsai said at
the press conference. “During
this process, I was able to gain a
deeper sense of the importance
of vision to propel a nation or a
region to future successes.”
“With a population of 3.8
million, the new district of Sin-
bei City is a microcosm of Tai-
wan. It combines rural, indus-
trial, commercial and agricul-
tural services in need of preser-
vation and care, and this is the
perfect place to set into practice
the DPP’s values. This opportu-
nity is the biggest reason for my
decision to participate in this
election,” she said.

PAGE 2

Taiwanese public take to the streets against ECFA
The DPP has joined forces with eight civic
groups in Taiwan to push for a referendum on
ECFA, holding sit-ins and a major rally on May
20 to show the public’s concern over the gov-
ernment’s drive to sign an ECFA and calling for
more government transparency in the ECFA
process.
President Ma Ying-jeou has said that it is im-
perative for Taiwan to sign ECFA, but has not
explained to the public the reasons why such an
agreement is beneficial for Taiwan. Research
conducted by the DPP and think tanks have
shown that signing an ECFA with China will
cause major damage to Taiwan’s manufacturing
companies and the labor market, including bring-
ing great political and social impact on Taiwan-
ese society.
The DPP believes in allowing the Taiwanese
public to decide whether they need ECFA. How-
ever, the KMT-majority in the legislature has
blocked all attempts by the DPP to push for a ref-
MAY 2010
erendum. Through the public taking to the streets
and through holding signature drives to reach the
referendum threshold, the DPP and civic groups
also organized a series of sit-ins and rallies to
push for the ECFA referendum during the month
of May.
Frank Hsieh, former premier of Taiwan and
former DPP chair, initiated a sit-in in front of the
legislature, which lasted for several days. The sit-
in ended with a rally on May 20 where thousands
of people from all aspects of society participated.
Additionally, the ECFA referendum drive also
involved an online campaign for people who
weren’t able to physically participate in the sit-
ins and rallies. Online participants were able to
leave their opinions through online forums as
well as discuss their views at online chats. The
website www.noecfa.tw was created for this
campaign to post articles and videos of the ECFA
referendum campaign.
PAGE 3

Taiwan’s Economic Policy Under Globalization
Statement by DPP Chair Tsai Ing-wen
Taiwan Unavoidable
Challenges Conference Series
May 8, 2010
Today’s conference, fourth in the series on our
Ten Year Policy Manifesto, refers to the devel-
opment of a national economic policy, and it
probably is the most important one. Economic,
industrial and employment issues all affect the
lives of people, and they also influence the con-
fidence of our community. The economic suc-
cesses of Taiwan in the past few decades brought
strength to state power and it also brought better
living standards, but today, we are facing
changes caused by both internal and external
factors. All these challenges and choices are re-
lated to policy adjustments and political values.
Our first challenge: Is economic growth our
only development objective?
In the former times of low-income and highly-
priced goods, economy and production were ef-
fective elements that influenced the standard of
living. However, an economic-oriented devel-
opment strategy produced a great number of so-
MAY 2010
cial costs, including for example, damages to the
labor market and the growing gap between the
urban and rural areas. This made us comprehend
that statistical values do not mean an improve-
ment in the standard of living. Meanwhile, the
social costs caused by the past generation’s eco-
nomic development are in fact bringing great
burdens to our current generation, already creat-
ing an occurrence of a “new generational injus-
tice”. Under this new trend, it is necessary for
Taiwan to re-evaluate the past strategy.
Our second challenge: Does economic com-
petitiveness stem from reducing capital or
from technological innovation?
While no one would object to industrial upgrad-
ing, our society continues to hold on to the tradi-
tional economic model, which is to keep labor
wages and benefits low, engaging foreign labor
and paying the minimum wage as well as reduc-
ing taxes and tariffs as a panacea. This not only
delayed the growth process, but it also didn’t
create stability and better quality of life for the
people. Taiwan is already a mature economic
country with an innovation-oriented economy. If
the government continues to use the past genera-
tion’s development strategy, encouraging com-
panies to save instead of investing in research
and innovation, our competitiveness will be lost
very quickly.
Our third challenge: Is the core of our eco-
nomic development focused on GDP growth
or in enhancing employment?
In the past, due to Taiwan’s growth model rely-
ing on foreign exports, vast employment oppor-
tunities were created. This was enough to sup-
port the living of 90% of Taiwanese families
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PAGE 4

Taiwan’s Economic Policy Under Globalization
while the government only needed to support
approximately 10%. Under the current globaliza-
tion trend, companies and capital have rapidly
flowed outside. Even though globalization has
brought greater wealth for these enterprises, the
wealth distribution has only trickled-down to
one-third of the population. Of the remaining
two-thirds, one-half stayed level in terms of their
economic status and one-half can be labeled as
the losers of globalization. This two-thirds of the
population is not capable of meeting the chal-
lenges of globalization, their real income has
stopped growing, and they may have even lost
their jobs due to recession, resulting today in the
rapid expansion of the wealth distribution gap.
The days of government supporting industries so
they can support labor are now over because to-
day enterprises are free to move capital outside
of Taiwan and create employment opportunities
for other countries. The remaining population is
now the responsibility of the government. There-
fore, either the government has endless resources
and is capable of generously providing for the
welfare of the remaining population or the real
task of the government now is to create new em-
ployment opportunities, rather than continuing to
invest its resources in the globalization winners.
Speaking of the government’s job to create em-
ployment opportunities, it makes us think back
MAY 2010
... continued "om the previous page
to the financial crisis one year ago. The DPP had
repeatedly urged the Ma Administration not to
simply throw government resources around
blindly but to create meaningful work opportuni-
ties that confronts the real needs of the commu-
nity. For example, the social welfare system
(which could have created at least 100,000 job
opportunities) and environmental conservation
(tens of thousands of jobs, especially a combined
mission to preserve and protect the aboriginal
population in the mountain areas). However, it is
regrettable that the Ma Administration did not
listen, and as a result, we have recently seen the
lack of manpower in our social worker system,
with no personnel prepared to prevent suicide
incidents among disadvantaged groups. We have
also seen nature taking a counter-attack to claim
precious lives simply because we did not have
the proper manpower to do the job.
These traditional, non-manufacturing sectors,
because they have often being overlooked in
economic significance, have even been catego-
rized as the tasks of government departments,
receiving a large amount of resources as a result
of the government’s planning in budget and per-
sonnel. For this reason, we see not only poor
quality, but also an extreme lack of public serv-
ices. If we were to redefine these needs in the
economic sense and transform these traditional
sectors, but not entirely privatize them, they will
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PAGE 5

MAY 2010

Taiwan’s Economic Policy Under DEMOCRACY &

Globalization PROGRESS
... continued "om the previous page
PUBLISHED BY:

Department of International
release an infinite amount of power, providing tens of Affairs Democratic
thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of real and Progressive Party
substantial jobs. These job opportunities are not lim-
ited to non-technical or lowly-skilled, white collar or 9F, No. 30, Pei-Ping East
blue collar workers, but they also involve the profes- Road, Taipei, Taiwan
sional and higher technical work force.
Tel: 886-2-2392-9989 ext. 306
As the government sets out to create job opportunities,
it must invest in developing a comprehensive service
delivery system. Even though this is a time-consuming Fax: 886-2-2393-0342
and laborious process, it is an unavoidable responsibil-
ity of the government. The current KMT government Email: foreign@dpp.org.tw
has kept emphasizing short-term political results, and
it has refused to focus on long-term benefits. If they Website:
only speak of ECFA without mentioning industrial re- http://www.dpp.org.tw
structuring, job opportunities and the wealth gap; and
if they only speak about long-term insurance without
mentioning long-term construction plans, this gov-
ernment is simply wasting our time and our national DIRECTOR:
budget, as well as allowing our country to lose its Bikhim Hsiao
foundation and vitality.
DEPUTY DIRECTORS:
Huang Chih-ta
Hsieh Huai-hui

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:
Michael J. Fonte

EDITOR:
Ping-Ya Hsu

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