Chen Shuibian's Green Silicon Island Dream

The following is a graphic I put together to illustrate President Chen's "Green Silicon Island" campaign theme. Chen's embrace of environmentalism along with his actual election in 2000 marked a transition for the environmental movement in Taiwan. Prior to this, concern over the environment also meant opposition to the government. Following Chen's election and his appointment of environmental activists to the Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency and a few other environment-oriented agencies, environmentalists were presented with somewhat of a dilemma. Though they held key positions, they did not have the power to change the structural position of the DPP government nor to greatly influence DPP economic development policies. The DPP for its part, headed a government that never held a majority in the legislature and, slammed by an economic crisis and threats by Taiwanese companies to move to China, soon found itself beholden to the same industries as the KMT had been (but without the KMT's influence). Environmental concerns were, again, pushed to the back burner and activists found it difficult to mount resistance to a party that they had grown close to.

On building a Green Silicon Island, excerpt from Chen Shui Bian's Presidential Inauguration Speech, May 20, 2000:

"Today, facing the impact of the fast-changing information technologies and trade liberalization, Taiwan's industrial development must move toward a knowledge-based economy. High-tech industries need to be constantly innovative, while traditional industries need to undergo transformation and upgrading. […] Apart from consolidating our democratic achievements, promoting government reforms, and raising economic competitiveness, the new government's foremost objective should be to adhere to public opinion and implement reforms, so that the people on this land can live in more dignity, more self-confidence and better quality. […] The government will have to bring up solutions for all issues relating to the people's lives, such as social order, social welfare, environmental protection land planning, waste treatment, cleaning up rivers and community-building. It will also have to implement these solutions thoroughly. At present, we need to immediately improve social order and environmental protection, which are important indicators of the quality of life. Building a new social order, we will let the people live and work in peace and without fear. Finding a balance of ecological preservation and economic development, we will develop Taiwan into a sustainable Green silicon island."

The graphic uses, in part, creative commons licensed (or public domain) photographs from the Wikimedia Foundation (Formosan Map), Wade Brooks (flickr, LED bulb), yellowcloud (flickr, microchip), Photo Mojo Mike (flickr, solar panels), and james4765 (flickr, LED chips on board). Check out Ho Ming Sho's 2005 and 2010 works for more on the changes in Taiwan's environmental movement following Chen's election:

Ho 2005: Weakened State and Social Movement: The Paradox of Taiwanese Environmental Politics after the Power Transfer

Ho 2010: Environmental Movement in Democratizing Taiwan (1980–2004): A Political Opportunity Structure Perspective

This graphic (most recently) by Matthew West is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License
due to its re-mix of similarly licensed photos.