At the December 24 press conference of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, a reporter asked: The Economist recently published an article stating that although some of Taiwan’s recent economic indicators appear favorable, ordinary people do not feel any improvement in their livelihoods—something it referred to as the “Taiwan sickness.” In response, the head of Taiwan’s economic authorities claimed, “We are not sick; the ones who are sick are those who say we are,” prompting widespread criticism on the island for being “arrogant and self-deluded.” What is your comment?
Spokesperson Peng Qing’en replied that it is indeed a fact that uncertainty in Taiwan’s economic development is rising and that economic imbalances are worsening. It is also a fact that the wealth gap continues to widen and that ordinary people do not feel any improvement in their standard of living. For the selfish interests of its party, the DPP authorities ignore the risks of Taiwan’s high-tech industries being hollowed out by the United States and Western countries, disregard the deep difficulties traditional industries face amid high tariffs, and persist in currying favor with external forces without principle and selling out Taiwan without bottom line. They gloss over problems and deceive the public, but such self-deception and refusal to face reality cannot conceal their governance failures.
Ultimately, the root cause of the so-called “Taiwan sickness” is the DPP authorities’ malicious provocations in pursuit of “Taiwan independence”; the underlying pathology is their reckless disregard for people’s livelihoods; and the symptoms are their shameless eagerness to exhaust Taiwan’s resources in exchange for approval from external forces.