Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Happiness index not a true reflection

Taipei Times Editorial

Believe it or not, Taiwan’s first national happiness index shows the country rating close to the middle among the 37 countries assessed, ranking higher than Japan and South Korea in Asia. However, upon reflection, one might ponder if the index reflects the true experience of people living here.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told officials in February last year to gauge the nation’s living conditions. On Friday, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released the results of more than a year of research on people’s degree of satisfaction with their wellbeing, with Taiwan taking 19th place among 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), plus Russia and Brazil.

Trade agreement and the Internet

Liu Ching-Yi 劉靜怡

No one disputes that the government’s decision to sign the cross-strait service trade agreement was both arbitrary and crude. In response to this criticism, however, the government — apart from attempting to co-opt anyone who would potentially stand to benefit from the agreement and answering their concerns with a lot of empty talk — does nothing to address the asymmetric access to information either side of the Taiwan Strait, and this is likely to create many problems for Internet users.

KMT2.0 has brought back the politics of the past

Chu Ping-tzu 祝平次

Taiwanese wrote another page in the history of the democracy movement at the weekend. However, some people seem to think that protests are “organized crime,” and that the protesters “should all be locked up.” This was the mentality of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians during the years of authoritarian rule, and in fact a core concept of KMT rule in general.

Egged on by New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明), Minster of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) — who did not come out to see what the protesters were saying — said that he would be seeking compensation for damage to property. It seems the law has become the weapon of choice for the KMT in its neo-authoritarian phase.

Defending the use of nonviolence

Chien Hsi-chie

Earlier this month, a group of young people staged a demonstration, throwing paint at the Executive Yuan building, writing slogans and staging an occupation of the Ministry of the Interior building.

Many people disapproved of their behavior, saying that it was an insult to a state institution and that the protesters had defaced public buildings and obstructed the normal operation of public services for people going about their everyday affairs. These people have described the demonstration as an unwarranted act of violence against the public, rejecting the idea that it could be regarded as a nonviolent protest.

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