The Labor Party (Laodongdang), Taiwan
To begin with, on behalf of the organizations to which I belong - the Labor Rights Association and Labor Party of Taiwan, I would like to express our gratitude to the comrades of the AWC for the support you have given to the anti-imperialist movement in Taiwan over the years.
Over the last two years, we have really seen a lot of changes in Taiwan. Most importantly, Chen Shuibian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which includes Taiwan "independence" in its party program, was elected in the "presidential" elections of 18 March 2000. The DPP represents the native Taiwanese bourgeoisie which developed under Cold War and civil war conditions and is dependent on US and Japanese imperialism. Consequently, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) handed over the political power which it had held over Taiwan for half a century. This surface change, however, has not brought about any fundamental changes in Taiwan's society. Chen Shuibian's regime, representing as it does neocolonial capitalist society in Taiwan, plays the role of a political tool of US imperialism just like its predecessor. Taiwan is acting as a pawn of US imperialism whose function is to hinder China's socialist modernization, promote its "westernization" (i.e. capitalism,) and divide it (i.e. interfere in China's internal affairs and hindering the completion of its unification and national liberation.) The whole island of Taiwan is a strategic base of US imperialism in East Asia, and is still seen by the US as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" on the West Pacific front. Like his predecessor Li Denghui (Lee Teng-hui), Chen Shuibian is dependent on US and Japanese imperialism and is still pushing Li's notion of a "special state-to-state relationship" between Taiwan and China, also known as the "special two-states theory."
These problems have been exposed all the more clearly since the election of the openly pro-"independence" Chen Shuibian, and the Taiwan independence movement's reactionary nature and its dependence on US and Japanese imperialism have become even more obvious. Notably, since Chen Shuibian took office, the US has made a series of massive arms sales to Taiwan, and the US, Taiwan and Japan have made a number of moves towards closer military alliance, encouraging the anti-unification and pro-independence forces in Taiwan. As well as showing their approval for the "New Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation," the Taiwan independence forces and the Chen Shuibian regime seek to gloss over the history of Japanese colonialism, spreading the idea of "beneficial invasion," inviting Japanese right-wingers to Taiwan and praising the writings of right-wing Japanese authors. Thanks to their machinations, the threat of war has not receded from Taiwan, and has indeed become more serious. Besides, during the year since the handover of political power, Taiwan's economy has sunk into deep recession. Taiwan's GDP growth, which stood at 5.86 per cent last year, is projected to plummet to a negative value this year - perhaps minus 2 per cent. Unemployment has risen above 5 per cent, indicating that Taiwan's neocolonial capitalist development is now in crisis.
The following are some of the main ominous signs hanging over Taiwan's economy:
1. The government has a serious fiscal deficit. The government's debt stood at two hundred billion New Taiwan dollars (NT$200,000,000,000) in 1990. By 1999 it had risen to two point seven trillion (NT$2,700,000,000,000). Since the DPP came to power, is has reached three point six trillion New Taiwan dollars (NT$3,600,000,000,000).
2. There has been a big drop in the stock market. In March 2000, after the presidential election results became known, Taiwan's stock market index was close to 10,000 points. Since then it has fallen to between 3,000 and 4,000 points. During the intervening period, in order to support the stock market, the government has invested several hundred billion New Taiwan dollars taken from the so-called "four big funds" - the Pension Support Fund, the Labor Insurance Fund, the Workers' Pension Fund and the Post Office Savings Fund - and from the National Security Fund. This inpouring of money has, however, failed to stop the stock market from tumbling, and has caused these funds to incur losses amounting to several hundred billion dollars.
3. The structural adjustment, upgrading and transformation of Taiwan's manufacturing industry have not gone according to plan. Factory closures have occurred both in the traditional manufacturing sector and in the high-tech information and electronics industries. There have been over 4,000 permanent or temporary factory closures during the third quarter of this year, a rise of 16 per cent over the same period last year. In addition to existing problems in its economic structure, Taiwan's industrial upgrading and transformation have been adversely affected even more by the government's hostile attitude in dealing with cross-straits relations with mainland China. They have thrown away the opportunity to stimulate industrial upgrading by relieving economic and trade tensions between the two sides, which could have been achieved by political negotiation and trade cooperation within a one-China framework.
4. The domestic market is shrinking and banks' bad debts are increasing rapidly. Due to the heavy fall in the stock market, company capital has shrunk considerably and the proportion of overdue loans recorded by financial institutions has risen with each passing quarter. In the first quarter of last year (2000), the proportion of overdue loans stood at 5.68 per cent. By the third quarter of 2000 it was up to 6.25 per cent. This year, the proportion for the major banks is over 7 per cent. Investment by the public is estimated to have fallen by at least 50 per cent over the past year. The public are already seeing their savings shrinking and are reducing their consumption. Real estate is in the doldrums with about 500,000 empty properties on the market. The government's attempt to stimulate the market with a low mortgage rate of 3.45 per cent has failed to turn things around.
5. Unemployment is rising fast. The working class has suffered directly from the economic crisis in the form of unemployment, which has being going up one month after another. The unemployment rate in 2000 was 2.99 per cent. By September 2001, the official unemployment rate had risen to 5.26 per cent (with unemployment in the broad sense standing at 7.22 per cent.) That means that there are now nearly a million unemployed people in Taiwan, influencing nearly three million people when the workers' families are included. Since this is mostly structural unemployment resulting from factory closures, middle-aged and older workers who have lost their jobs have little hope of finding new ones. Since Taiwan's labor security system is poorly developed, problems such as the impoverishment of unemployed workers and their families, suicide by unemployed people and their inability to keep their children in school are now coming to the fore. (The government estimates that at least 120,000 families will be unable to pay their children's school and college fees this year.)
Continuing privatization is another factor contributing to the rise in unemployment. Also, Taiwan's electronics and information industries are overly dependent on the US market. Now that the boom days of the US economy are over, this sector has recently seen large-scale staff cuts and redundancies. In the Xinzhu (Hsinchu) Science-Based Industrial Park alone, out of over 100,000 workers employed there at the beginning of this year, over 10,000 have already lost their jobs. Over the past few years, businesses have been continually streamlining themselves by cutting personnel, and Taiwan's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) is expected to put 150,000 out of work in agriculture alone. Clearly, Taiwan's workers will be living in the shadow of high unemployment for a long way into the future.
Chen Shuibian's government originally announced its intention to uphold certain macroeconomic indices, including an annual growth rate of between 5 and 6 per cent, an exchange rate of 32 to 33 New Taiwan dollars against the US dollar, unemployment between 3 and 4 per cent and a stock market index between 5,000 and 6,000 points. However, due to the continuing downward trend of Taiwan's economy, none of these targets has been achieved. Consequently, public support for Chen Shuibian has tumbled from around 80 per cent when he first took office to under 40 per cent now. In addition to these economic difficulties, the establishment of Chen Shuibian's pro-independence DPP government has sharpened the conflict between the pro- and anti-independence trends and parties of Taiwan's ruling class, causing general political instability. This has caused a crisis of confidence in the Chen Shuibian regime among the majority of people in Taiwan, as borne out by numerous public opinion surveys.
In August 2001, faced with the grim situation outlined above, the Chen Shuibian regime called an Economic Development Advisory Conference (EDAC), whose theme of "economy first, investment first, Taiwan first" indicates that as well as dealing with the urgent need to revive the economy, it had a certain political purpose as well. The conference was attended by representatives of Taiwan's major ruling class political parties and of the government, capital and labor.
Given the extent of the economic crisis, all sections of society had great expectations of the EDAC. However, the government's bias in favor of capital interests was quite obvious both from the theme of the conference and from the choice of delegates. Among those appointed as conveners of working groups, there was only one labor delegate - (the President of the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, who is a member of the DPP). Among the over one hundred delegates, although there were quite a lot representing political parties and academia, there were only four labor representatives, three of them members of the Taiwan Labor Front, which is allied to the New Tide faction of the DPP. The fourth, the President of the Chinese Federation of Labor, was put forward by the Nationalist Party (KMT). This illustrates the extent to which the two major trade union federations are dependent on the government and political parties, and the problems which this has caused in the line they take in negotiations between labor, capital and the government.
As to the tasks allocated to the six main working groups, although there was an employment promotion working group set up to deal with the problem of rising unemployment, its agenda was mainly concerned with legislation and adjustment of industrial relations designed to pave the way for the complete liberalization of the labor market.
Among the over 320 conclusions arrived at by the EDAC under the strong influence of business forces, there were precious few concrete and constructive plans, and all too many short-term band-aid subsidiary measures. In attempting to resolve the economic crisis, the new government is leaning far over to the side of the capitalists. Well before the conference, Chen Shuibian had already come up with the slogan of "putting the economy first and letting welfare wait," putting all the stress on raising business competitiveness by cutting costs. This entails slashing capital gains tax, cutting workers' welfare and relaxing the labor security system - in short, going along with the demands of capital with scant regard to the erosion of social justice. It can be said that the EDAC was no more than a tool for the government in its attempts to consolidate its hold on power by reallocating political and economic resources. However, the EDAC completely exposed the DPP's close relations with Taiwan's capitalist plutocrats, and this is bound to affect the working people's identification with and support for the DPP from now on.
As the EDAC closed on 26 August, there was a marked contrast between the all-round applause from business circles and the unanimous condemnations coming from social activist groups in general and the labor movement in particular. The policies forced through by the EDAC for revised labor system legislation, based as they are on neoliberal guiding principles, combined with the upward trend in unemployment, make the EDAC a watershed in Taiwan's industrial relations. A period of sharpened contradictions lies ahead. The "84 Hour Alliance," which was formed last year to fight for reduced working hours and includes labor unions, labor activists, progressive youth organizations and other groups, mobilized a protest demonstration outside the venue of the EDAC on 25 August.
The agreements and conclusions of the Economic Development Advisory Conference will affect the labor security system in a number of ways, as outlined below:
1. Amendments to the Labor Standards Law include relaxation of restrictions on flexitime, whereby flexible working hours can be spread over two weeks, eight weeks or a year. This paves the way for flexible labor practices designed to cut employers' personnel costs, but which will seriously infringe on workers' lives, job security and other rights. During the EDAC, employers' representatives even suggested freezing the Labor Standards Law and scrapping the basic (minimum) wage, even though the minimum wage in Taiwan has not been raised for four years.
2. Articles in the Labor Standards Law protecting women workers are to be amended. As well as relaxing restrictions on night work, these amendments mean that the amount of extra work women may be asked to do each month will go up from 24 to 46 hours, the same as for men, regardless of what kind of work is involved.
3. The workers' pension system stipulated in the Labor Standards Law will be changed to an individual accounting or annual fund system, working on the principle that it will not add ti the government's financial burden. The amount deducted and paid into the pension fund by the employer will increase in increments from 2 to 6 per cent. Although this system, if implemented, would be relatively favorable to the majority of Taiwanese workers who are employed in small and medium scale private enterprises, it will mean a cut of at least a third in existing workers' pensions relative to the current regulations.
4. The structure of foreign migrant contract workers' wages is to be changed so that they will have to pay for their food and accommodation out of their wages, thereby reducing the cost to businesses of employing migrant workers.
5. Proposed amendments to the Labor Union Law, Collective Agreement Law and Settlement of Labor Disputes Law will adjust industrial relations, severely restricting labor unions' rights of organization and bargaining and their room to maneuver in industrial disputes. Notably, the proposed amendments outlaw strikes in the electricity generation, water supply, air traffic control and medical care sectors and stipulate cooling-off periods for strikes called by unions in the telecommunications, public transport, public sanitation, oil refining and fuel gas industries. Moreover, they forbid teachers and armament industry workers from forming unions. They seek to use the two collaborationist labor union federations to form a labor-capital-government triumvirate to negotiate policy and suppress the development of the labor movement.
6. Formulating a "Law for the Protection of Workers in Case of Mass Redundancies." This proposed law actually lays out the process and regulations by which employers could legally lay off large numbers of workers. On the other hand, the government has shown no interest whatsoever in the labor movement's strong demands for formulating a "Redundancy Limitation Law" and amending the Labor Standards Law's restrictions on employers' rights to dismiss workers.
4. The "Taiwan Relations Act" and Arms Sales to Taiwan are Important Means to Establishing a Concrete US-Taiwan Military Alliance. US Imperialism's New Asia-Pacific Strategy and the US-Japan Military Alliance are an Impediment to the Taiwanese People's Anti-Imperialist Movement and the Movement to Reunite the Motherland.
Following the break-up of the Soviet Union at the start of the 1990s, US imperialism, as the single superpower, has seen China as a strategic threat. Taiwan's role in the US's East Asian strategy has, therefore, received a great deal of attention. Starting from 1991, George Bush Senior's government hardened its Taiwan policy. The US's 1991 National Strategic and Security Report was the first such report to consider US-Taiwan relations, proposing that the US should maintain "strong unofficial concrete relations" with Taiwan. In the following year, 1992, the Bush administration for the first time put forward the concept that was in 1997 amended by Bill Clinton to "winning two major regional contingencies (MRCs) or major theater wars (MTWs) simultaneously." In September 1992, the US sold Taiwan 150 F-16 fighters at a cost of US$6 billion, openly exceeding the limits laid out by the US-China communique of 17 August 1982, wherein the US clearly promised that "its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China."
In 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), headed by the US, raised the "new Strategic Concept for the 21st century" and invaded Yugoslavia, basing its action on the concept that "human rights come before national sovereignty." There is nothing new about US imperialism using armed force to deal with international affairs, and its ability to fight regional wars has been strengthened considerably. The war of retribution launched by the US following the 911 incident (the suicide plane attacks on US targets on 11 September 2001) provides even clearer evidence of this trend. It may be that there is some pressure to amend the "two MRCs" concept under the influence of the 911 incident, and that there may be some changes in US national security thinking. However, in its new Asia-Pacific strategy aimed at maintaining its monopoly superpower status, the US long ago identified China as a "strategic adversary" - all the more so under President George Bush Junior, who came to power with the backing of the US military-industrial complex. The US's strategic center has shifted eastward, extending the area covered by the New Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, encouraging Japan to send troops overseas and amend its constitution, and inevitably taking advantage of Japan's military power. None of this is likely to change. Given this state of affairs, it is no surprise that the US should choose to strengthen its hand with the "Taiwan card." What is noteworthy is that, following many years of anti-imperialist education work, progressive organizations in Taiwan have mobilized on more than one occasion since the 911 attacks for meetings and demonstrations against vengeful war by the US and against racism.
The US established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China on 1 January 1979. Not long after that, in April of the same year, the US Congress passed the "Taiwan Relations Act," an American law which interferes in China's internal affairs and seeks to hinder national reunification between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits. One clause of the "Taiwan Relations Act" stipulates that the US should "provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character." In accordance with this Act, the US has again and again sold large quantities of weapons to Taiwan. The United States' behavior in this respect is in clear contravention of international law and United Nations regulations. Over the past two decades, the US has sold Taiwan fighter planes, warships, missiles and other high-powered weapons to a value of over 38 billion US dollars. In just six years, between 1994 and 1999, Taiwan imported 13.3 billion dollars-worth of armaments, making it the world's biggest arms importer - 95 per cent of those arms came from the US. In 1999, the US House of Representatives passed a law classifying Taiwan as a "non-NATO ally." On the tenth anniversary of the "Taiwan Relations Act," the "Taiwan Security Enhancement Bill" was put forward in the US Congress, and it was passed by Congress in 2000. The "Taiwan Security Enhancement Act" aims to further reinforce the United States' military sales relations with Taiwan and establish a legal basis for incorporating Taiwan into its defense zone as the next step. Should this bill be signed into law by the President, American arms sales to Taiwan will see a breakthrough in terms of both quantity and quality.
In its Taiwan strategy, the US sees its own interests as being best served by maintaining a situation of "no war, no unification and no independence." For the US, arms sales are an important means of perpetuating the existing national division across the Taiwan Straits and of encouraging the anti-unificationist and separatist forces.
US Arms Sales to Taiwan Since Chen Shuibian Became President and US-Taiwan Military Relations During the Last Few Years
On 20 May last year (2000), the DPP won the presidency, posing an open challenge to the "one China" principle. Half a month later, the US government approved the sale to Taiwan of F-16 fighter weapons systems, including advanced guidance and electronic warfare systems, valued at US$356 million. In July, Chen Shuibian proposed his idea of a "decisive battle outside our borders." Subsequently, on 28 September, the US made a further sale to Taiwan of advanced weaponry, including 200 AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, at a cost of US$1.366 billion. Above all, since George Bush Junior took over the US presidency, he has approved the sale of arms valued at US$5 billion. This means that Taiwan's annual military budget will have to be increased by NT$60 billion for at least ten years, pushing the total annual defense budget over NT$300 billion. This arms sale, which includes Kidd class destroyers, submarines and P-3 "Orion" submarine hunter aircraft, is the biggest arms sale to Taiwan in a decade. Chen Shuibian considers this purchase to be one of the big successes of his presidency so far. In July this year (2001), the US Defense Department stated that it was prepared to furnish Taiwan with 50 advanced Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) terminals worth US$725 million, in order to facilitate the integration of information flow between Taiwan's land, sea and air forces. This JTIDS system is currently in use by the US armed forces, and its adoption by Taiwan will allow tactical coordination between Taiwan's armed forces and those of the US. Taiwan academics estimate that every million Taiwanese people has already had to pay US$540 million towards the government's military expenditure, the highest Asia.
Furthermore, since 1998, US-Taiwan military sales meetings have been held once every four months in Washington, at which the two sides exchange views on arms sales items, prices etc. Since George Bush Junior became President, the Americans have said that this routine will be replaced by a "more normal relationship," whereby problems can be dealt with at any time through various kinds of regular contacts. The Americanization of Taiwan's armaments mean that not only its weapons systems, reconnaissance and early warning systems and command and control systems, but also its military actions will become more and more heavily dependent on the US. The US also uses the arms procurement process to train Taiwanese military personnel, reinforcing training for coordinated action with the US military, and so achieving its purpose of integrating Taiwan into the US combat and defense structures in East Asia. As well as expressing approval for the New Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation and welcoming Taiwan's inclusion into the "peripheral affairs" of the area covered by those guidelines, the Chen Shuibian regime is eager to purchase Aegis-type destroyers and to join the Theater Missile Defense (TMD) system in order to become part of a "US-Japan-Taiwan military alliance." Evidently, Taiwan has been, still is, and for the foreseeable future will remain an ace card in US strategy versus China.
Apart from US arms sales to Taiwan, over the past few years military alliance activities between Taiwan, the US and Japan have been getting closer and closer. As well as frequent visits to Washington by high-ranking Taiwanese military officers, Taiwan's Defense Ministry has about 120 international military exchange activities on its agenda for this year. The US alone accounts for 90 of these exchanges. It has been reported that Taiwan has also been having various official and unofficial exchanges with the naval arm of Japan's self-defense force and with Japan's National Defense Academy. Most noteworthy is that there is a project for military cooperation between Taiwan and the US, called "Lecheng," which has already been running for two years. "Lecheng" was the code name for Taiwan-US military collaboration in the past, so the revival of this name is quite significant, and strongly suggests an alliance. The main contents of this cooperation project are: assessment of the combat abilities of the army, navy and air force; command and control intelligence sharing and the establishment of information war forces, coordination of the three armed forces, the establishment of links in a digital chain of command with the US military, etc. Serving field officers of the US armed forces attended the whole of this year's Hanguang (Hankuang)-17 military exercises - the first time they have done so since the establishment of US-China diplomatic relations, the withdrawal of the US advisory corps from Taiwan and the ending of the "Mutual Defense Treaty" between the US and Taiwan in 1979. Taiwan's military believes that the US armed forces will eventually formulate a "combat scenario for the defense of Taiwan." It is against this background that Chen Shuibian expressed his desire, which was echoed by the "Ministry of Defense," to "strengthen military cooperation and conduct joint military exercises" with the US.
President George Bush Junior clearly intends to use the strong base built up during the years of economic prosperity under the Clinton administration in the US in the 1990s to achieve US imperialism's post-Cold-War objective of maintaining its status as the one and only superpower. At the end of March 2001, following the collision between a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter over the South China Sea which took place at the beginning of March, George Bush Junior approved the sale of arms to Taiwan and flatly stated that the US had a duty to aid Taiwan in case of attack by China and "would do whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself," remarks that could not but embolden the anti-unification and separatist forces headed by Chen Shuibian, encourage Taiwan's ruling circles to pursue their goal of "peaceful separation" and so delay the progress of China's reunification. The result has doubtless been to increase the danger of war across the Taiwan Straits.
Clearly, as Chinese people living in Taiwan, the present theme of the Taiwan people's anti-imperialist struggle is to take up again the new democratic revolutionary movement of the 1950s, which is a form of national democratic liberation struggle, and which could not be completed in the past due to the intervention of US imperialism. Our duty is to complete the great task of peacefully reuniting China and to get rid of the external forces which have interfered with and obstructed China's socialist modernization. In foreign relations this means in particular ending the interference in China's internal affairs by imperialist and hegemonist forces headed by the US and based on a scrap of paper called the "Taiwan Relations Act." At home, our task is to defeat the efforts of the Chen Shuibian regime, which represents a section of Taiwan's bourgeoisie, to go on refusing peaceful reunification and achieve peaceful separation with the support of US and Japanese imperialism.
Over the past year and a half, in response to conditions in and outside Taiwan, and especially with regard to the Democratic Progressive Party regime, the Labor Rights Association and the Labor Party have organized a lot of protests actions. The most significant ones are listed below:
Finally, in our mobilizations against US and Japanese imperialism in Taiwan, the Labor Rights Association and the Labor Party, as well as struggling for our own national reunification and social transformation, will continue to do all we can to achieve the common goals of international solidarity along the lines agreed by the comrades of the AWC.
The Labor Rights Association, Taiwan
The Labor Party (Laodongdang), Taiwan
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