Global warming has made the protection of the environment a moral ― even a near-sacrosanct ― issue in the developed world. Environmental concerns have reached such a level that the creation of plants or industries that may do Mother Nature damage is being put on the backburner by governments, even in the implementation of economic development projects. In a country like Taiwan, it’s a problem of choice between Scylla and Charybdis. President Ma Ying-jeou put Taiwan’s latest “development or environment” issue to an end last week not in the same way as Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot.

After six long years of review, a government environmental impact assessment committee couldn’t decide whether a $10 billion naphtha cracking complex should be built in the coastal wetlands in Changhua County in central Taiwan. Thereupon, President Ma called an unscheduled press conference to declare his decision to ask the state-owned Taiwan CPC Corporation to withdraw from investing in the ethylene plants, known as Kuokuang Petrochemical project. As Taiwan CPC owns a 43 percent stake in Kuokuang, the project was in effect killed. But he vowed Taiwan will not and cannot give up its petrochemical industry.

That did not satisfy the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and the environmentalists who had taken to the streets in droves to bring pressure to bear on the president to rid Taiwan of all its highly polluting naphtha crackers, large or small. Ma buckled under pressure, because he is afraid the Kuokuang project, if given an environmental OK to go ahead, might kill his chances for re-election and the Kuomintang’s hopes in the legislative elections come next January.

His fear aside, that’s the best that Ma, or any head of government for that matter, could have done under the circumstances. Sure, Taiwan has to protect the environment. We should do what we can to keep Ilha Formosa, our Island Beautiful, just as, or at least nearly as, it was when J. H. van Linscotten, a Dutch navigator on a Portuguese vessel sailing along the Taiwan Strait, exclaimed when he saw the lush beauty of our homeland in 1592. It is true that we’ve done Mother Nature a lot of damage in bringing about the economic miracle of the twentieth century.

On the other hand, however, Taiwan needs to continue to create more jobs for more breadwinners, unless all of us plan to choose to live like the Buddhists of Bhutan, which has no environment-polluting industries. Don’t forget that they are the happiest people in the world. Unfortunately, none of us are like Buddha, who taught us that human misery results from “craving” or material desires to live better or more comfortably. As president, Ma has no option but to seek a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

Almost all the people, except hardcore environmental activists, agree that Taiwan cannot be without the petrochemical industry ― which, together with its downstream industries, makes up almost one third of Taiwan’s gross domestic product ― for the next decade or two if it wants to keep unemployment under control. That’s the very reason why the Democratic Progressive Party government under President Chen Shui-bian chose the wetlands in Changhua as the location for the now hated Kuokuang project in the first place.

One strange thing is that no environmentalists raised any objections about the Kuokuang project in Changhua while the Democratic Progressive Party was in power. One reason is that the now opposition party, which vows to make Taiwan green, is on very friendly terms with them. Campaigners against Kuokuang began to feel agitated after the latest change of government in 2008. And they promise to continue to fight until Ma rejects the entire petrochemical industry. If he does, they will then go on to pressuring him to get rid of the steel industry, which pollutes the environment just as terribly, and then the nuclear power plants, which could be crippled like the plant at Fukushima in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. Tsai Ing-wen wants to de-commercialize Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant when it is completed far behind schedule and decommission the other three by 2025.

The trouble is that Taiwan cannot, even if it goes all out, hope to create new industries and acquire enough nonpolluting energy to take the place of the petrochemical industry and the nuclear power plants in the foreseeable future. A compromise is unavoidable, regardless of who rules Taiwan.

The environmentalists and the opposition party should be satisfied with the demise of the Kuokuang project. With the elections less than nine months away, they are more likely to continue to push for an end to the petrochemical industry, but if they overplay their hand, they will alienate swing voters who know full well that their homeland can’t be just as green as President Chen said he wanted it to be.

(The China Post, May 2)