Written by Hiro Fu. Media personality Jaw Shaw-kong has taken Taiwanese media by storm with the consecutive announcements of his return to the Kuomintang (KMT), possible bid for party chairman, and intent to gun for the 2024 presidency. The daily coverage following Jaw’s return foreshadows his impact on the political landscape, but will he be able to, as he claims, “Make Taiwan Great Again” or even make the KMT great again, for that matter?
Written by Brian Hioe. The latest front on which the KMT has sought to attack the Tsai administration’s response to COVID-19 has been on the issues of vaccines. In particular, with the Tsai administration having enjoyed widespread public praise for its effective response to COVID-19, the KMT has tried to find ways to criticize or denigrate the Tsai administration’s response to COVID-19. In recent memory, this has included calls in January to lock down the city of Taoyuan in response to the Taoyuan General Hospital cluster.
Written by John F. Copper. Shortly before Donald Trump left office, a top government leader in Taiwan proclaimed that he was the best U.S. president for Taiwan ever. Taiwan’s residents felt the same. President Trump ranked extraordinarily high in local public approval ratings. He was considered pro-Taiwan. Most believed he liked Taiwan and would protect it from China.
Written by Bonny Ling. On 28 January 2021, public prosecutors in Taichung indicted four individuals on charges of human trafficking, violations of the Employment Services Act and forgery of documents for their role in exploiting Vietnamese migrant workers in Taiwan. The four involved worked at the Hong Yu Employment Service Agency Company (弘宇人力仲介公司) in Taichung to recruit migrant workers from Vietnam. Established in 2017, Hong Yu placed 126 Vietnamese migrant workers in the construction sector around Taiwan from July 2018 to August 2020.
Written by Lotta Danielsson. The Taiwan economy fared well in 2020 and continues to do so into early 2021. This is primarily due to strong domestic demand, robust technology exports driven by the global shift to remote work, and a rebound in export orders for industrial goods. According to recent figures released by its national statistics bureau, Taiwan’s economic growth in 2020 was 2.98%, outperforming China’s same-year growth of 2.3% for the first time in 30 years.
Written by Min-hua Chiang. With 2.98% of growth rate in 2020, Taiwan’s economy has outperformed many countries in the world. The moderate economic expansion was attributed to the surging external demand for information and communications technology (ICT) goods and the growing investment repatriation. The domestic consumption remained resilient thanks to the growth in domestic tourism and economic stimulus measures. After all, Taiwan’s success in containing the COVID-19 underpinned the whole economy well amid the ongoing global pandemic crisis.
