Reflections on how 8-8-8 impacts Taiwan and U.S.

It’s painful to mention Taiwan’s medal count: four bronzes. Medals are not everything, of course. Our taekwondo athlete Su Li-wen, for example, won a lot of respect and applause for her tenacity in not giving in or giving up. But there was a paradox. Medals are still symbolic and much sought after. Otherwise Michael Phelps wouldn’t have become a legend for winning an unprecedented eight gold medals. There is no substitute for victory.

We should reflect, as Friedman did, on what has happened in the past seven years, and what might happen in the next seven years. In America, its next president, Barack Obama or John McCain, must devote the next seven years to nation-building, just as China did, according to Friedman. “It’s our time to get back to work on the only home we have,” he wrote.

The same sense of awakening should be found on this island, which has squandered the past seven years squabbling over ideology at home and making trouble internationally to gain publicity for domestic consumption. The economy was virtually put on hold. In 2001, Taiwan’s GDP per capita was US$13,000. It was US$16,000 in 2007. In contrast, China’s GDP per capita tripled during the same period to US$2,500 in 2007.

The stark contrast goes far beyond the economy. Taiwan has been increasingly marginalized during the period when China was taking center stage on the international arena. More than 80 heads of state converged on Beijing for the Olympics, the largest congregation of its kind outside the United Nations. The contrast was disheartening when we saw smiling volunteers in Beijing, more than one million strong, welcoming foreign friends with undisguised pride, while in Taiwan, the erstwhile industrious people and just society have lost their traditional values. This moral crisis is even more dangerous for the country’s future.

The majority of the people in Taiwan have placed their hopes on President Ma Ying-jeou for national revival, just as many American voters are pinning their hopes on Obama, the young, Lincoln-esque presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, for American renewal. “Yes, we can,” was Obama’s rallying cry. If the mainland Chinese can, why can’t the Americans? Why can’t we in Taiwan?

The 2008 Olympics were an inspiration, a stimulus, a bludgeoning (what the Buddhist called “banghe”) that would spark an epiphany on what people should do from now on. History will record 08-08-08 as a milestone, a signpost, a turning point in the 21st century for the changes it has set off in China and elsewhere in the world.

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