(Author/Stan Chen) Everyone who claims to love Taiwan should carefully read July’s white paper from the Federation of Taiwan Industries; after reading, if you don’t feel a chill run up your spine or decide to fulfill your civic duties, then please stop pretending you genuinely care about this land.
This is a rare statement of serious principle from an organization that has existed for over 70 years, speaking directly to the government, political parties, and all sectors of society about Taiwan’s true situation: ‘A nation trampled and distorted by politicians who only want to please voters, secure their interests, and ignore justice; a nation that only emphasizes ‘distribution’ without anyone caring about ‘production,’ gradually heading toward universal poverty; a nation facing ‘water shortage, power shortage, labor shortage, land shortage, talent shortage’ while suffering from ‘government incompetence, social disorder, legislative dysfunction, economic imbalance, generational loss, and loss of national vision’—five deficiencies and six losses.’
Rather than calling the white paper a wake-up call at dawn and a sobering bell at dusk, I’m more afraid this is a final flicker of light from an island about to sink.
What exactly has caused Taiwan, which hoped to emulate Israel or Singapore over the past twenty years, to put in ‘effort’ only to have the direction of society become more similar to Greece, the Philippines, or even China during the Cultural Revolution?
I think of the passage in the Analects where Zigong asked about governance, and Confucius believed the way to govern and bring peace to the people lies in ‘sufficient food, sufficient military, and the people’s trust.’ In extreme circumstances, one can ‘remove the military’ or ‘remove food,’ but cannot ‘remove trust’—because ‘without faith, the people cannot stand.’ Many interpret ‘the people’s trust’ as the people’s trust in government, but I believe what Confucius meant by ‘the people’s trust’ is closer to faith—and this faith isn’t about superstition but refers to the central ideology that holds a nation and people together. In short, it’s morality and virtue.
‘Dao’ means the right path, ‘de’ means all people working together toward progress. A people with moral ideals will have a beautiful future of continuous progress; Founder Sun Yat-sen also said: ‘There can be no nation without morality and virtue; there can be no world without morality and virtue.’ The Confucian moral ideals of traditional Chinese civilization were far more profound and expansive than those of foreign peoples, so although Mongols and Manchus could conquer territory through military force, they could never shake the unity and continuity of Chinese civilization. The result was that invaders were transformed into the invaded, eventually assimilated. Similar examples can be found with Israel, which maintains a dispersed ethnic group that fled the country millennia ago through faith in Jewish religious teachings as the core spiritual belief.
The biggest reason Taiwan has evolved into today’s ‘Five Deficiencies and Six Losses’ is twenty years of educational reform that undermined our own foundations and ethnic polarization, which from the education system to social consensus have eroded Taiwan’s original Confucian moral ideals and principles. As a result, in Taiwan, former presidents convicted of corruption can receive sympathy; former presidents who deny the nation can be tolerated; high school students who haven’t even understood what learning means can stage curriculum protests and be permitted; presidents lacking dignity and unable to express clear positions can gain support; elites with air conditioning, refrigerators, and everything at home can march against Nuclear Four and petrochemicals without self-consciousness; the louder and bolder the public figures who speak without restraint and invite controversy, the more they capture public attention; politicians who only care about factional interests, ignore the people’s welfare, and publicly distort truth while engaging in lobbying will continue to thrive for generations.
Everyone mentioned above—who doesn’t claim to love Taiwan? Yet they act in the name of ‘loving Taiwan’ while doing things both ‘contrary to the way’ and lacking morality and virtue, directly leading to today’s crisis of five deficiencies and six losses. The Federation of Taiwan Industries’ white paper advocates a Taiwan 4.0 strategy. Actually, beyond technological, industrial, economic, and political 4.0, Taiwan urgently needs 4.0 transformation in moral education and cultural thinking—only then do we have a chance to return to the stability and prosperity of Taiwan’s post-economic takeoff period and open a new chapter. Otherwise, with the current way ‘everyone loves Taiwan,’ in the not-too-distant future, regardless of which party is in power, I fear we can only love a Taiwan impoverished and losing everything.
Author Stan Chen is founding director of the Asia-Pacific Cultural and Creative Industries Association and founder of the international Taiwan brand—the luxury porcelain company “Franz.” The original article was published on UDN on 2015-09-12.