Taiwan’s plans to promote universal basic income must focus on a single idea.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/19
By: David Green
Credit: Enno Schmidt
Taiwan’s unconditional basic income (UBI) movement is making progress, but still has a way to go if it is to realize its ambition of successfully promoting a national referendum.
Over the weekend, scholars, academics and advocates of UBI – the regular distribution of free money to all citizens as a form of social security – convened at National Chengchi University (NCCU) and National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei for the Basic Income Asia Pacific 2018 Conference (BIAP).
Speakers included Sarath Davala, the lead researcher of renowned UBI trials in India, Kuomintang politician Jason Hsu (許毓仁) and Enno Schmidt, the man behind Switzerland’s failed UBI referendum in 2016 (Schmidt prefers to focus on the 23 percent of people who voted in support of the idea.)
The event even received the blessing of Andrew Yang, the American entrepreneur and UBI proponent who is vying to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for President of the United States. “UBI Taiwan is fighting the good fight,” Wang said by remote link. “I was honored to contribute to the BIAP conference because job automation has the potential to seriously hurt Taiwanese workers – and American workers – if UBI doesn’t become a reality soon.”
