In Taiwan, recycling is an important and praiseworthy part of the ROC government’s environmental policy. Unfortunately, some administration officials have taken this mantra a little too far, believing it should also be applied to bankrupt policies such as casino developments that lack sound business fundamentals and widespread public support.
For the 9,937 residents of Lienchiang County, the administrative region comprising Matsu islands, the government believes the only way for them to eke out a living in the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement world is to plunge headfirst into the casino business—a regional market crammed to the rafters with world-class competition that is already beginning to exhibit signs of diminishing returns.
The logic behind the government’s punt on casinos for Matsu is simple: As mainland China develops into a first-world economy, more members of its middle and upper classes will be seeking to indulge in games of chance and experience the “glamour” of Las Vegas closer to home. Matsu, located around 19 kilometers from mainland China’s Fujian province, is seen as the perfect location for this development.
The fact that Matsu possesses bare-bones tourism infrastructure, suffers acute water shortages, lacks sufficient waste management facilities and is largely a traditional fishing-based community unsuited to weathering the negative effects of the gambling industry matters not to the powers that be. Also of little importance are elaborate operations in Cambodia, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam frequented by mainland Chinese gamblers. The government believes Matsu is a lock to overcome these challenges and can succeed in sending a stream of money-for-nothing tax dollars rushing into the public purse.
If this story has an all-too-familiar ring about it, then that is because it does. Almost an identical fantasy was offered up as justification for casinos in Penghu County by the central and local governments until the deal was nixed by residents in a September 2009 referendum.
The effectiveness of the Penghu Anti-Casino Alliance campaign played a major role in convincing 17,359 versus 13,397 residents to vote against greenlighting major gambling developments in the county. But the group may have got some help from the unlikeliest of sources.
Bombarded with happily-ever-after government and ruling Kuomintang-issued news releases and plant stories in the run-up to referendum, voters seemingly accepted the casino fait accompli and stayed away in droves. Only 42 percent of registered householders participated in the referendum, a result that left many pro-gambling advocates questioning the wisdom of running such a PR campaign.
But with Matsu, there will be no such mistakes this time around. The central government has learnt a very important lesson from its failure to get casinos up and running in Penghu: Play one’s cards close to the chest at all times.
So far, government-issued Matsu news releases have focused on legislative changes and information about upcoming public hearings and the referendum. No red-hot favorites have been named to run the casino, at least publicly anyway.
Another major difference is the absence of big-name proponents involving themselves in the process. Unlike Penghu circa 2006, the Taipei City mayor has not flown to London to meet with the chairman of a frontrunner licensee, nor has he held any news conferences upon his return to Taiwan giving the company a “special mention.” In addition, the mayor of New Taipei City is not announcing grandiose promises of full assistance with “bureaucratic streamlining” to make the casino a reality.
Lienchiang County Commissioner Yang Suei-sheng is also playing nice, avoiding the farcical situation created by his counterpart in Penghu, Wang Chien-fa, whose credibility was undermined in many quarters by his overzealous drive to transform the archipelago into Taiwan’s first gambling outpost.
In fact, even Lin Pin-kuan, Penghu’s Non-Partisan Solidarity Union lawmaker who has made developing casino businesses on Taiwan’s outlying territories a life mission, is as quiet as a church mouse. This must be incredibly difficult for Lin given that in 1998 he resigned from the KMT over then ROC Premier Vincent C. Siew and the party leadership’s opposition to decriminalizing gambling.
For the residents of Matsu, it has been difficult to sit back and watch as the economy on Taiwan proper developed in leaps and bounds. Of course, a steady flow of tax dollars channeled into local infrastructure projects has eased this pain somewhat, but many of these initiatives are little more than stop-gap measures, symptomatic of the short-term thinking responsible for creating the conditions where a casino begins to look like a viable option.
Yet this situation is not unique to Taiwan. Many governments around the world face similar challenges when addressing the needs of their economically disadvantaged regions. Devising ways to deliver real prosperity is never easy and requires a willingness to think outside the box when it comes to policy formulation and implementation. It also demands one of the most precious of all qualities in any administration: political will.
—Tito Bacchus is a freelance writer based in Montreal, Canada. These views are the author’s and not necessarily those of Taiwan Today. Copyright © 2011 by Tito Bacchus
Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mail.gio.gov.tw