Digging to China

China’s Stock Market Tumbles and Post-Election Taiwan

Segment 1: China’s Stock Market Makes History

If you think you’ve got it bad because of the recent market decline in the U.S., you should take a look at Chinese stock investors. By the end of the first quarter, China’s main market, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, had tumbled about 43% since its peak in October of last year. That’s quadruple the decline over the same period for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, which has lost 11%. Worse yet, China’s markets are relatively new, and investors are inexperienced. Many of those losing money got in just in the past year, buying near the peak and now suffering deep losses. What is going on?

Guest: Robert Sherretta, President, International Investors, Inc.

Segment 2: Post-Election Taiwan, DPPs future

On Sunday, March 22, 2008, Nationalist party nominee Ma Ying-jeou won Taiwan’s presidential election, with 58% of the vote, ending eight years of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rule. Along with the 2008 legislative election, Ma’s landslide victory brought the Nationalist Party back to power in Taiwan. The DPP has made indelible contributions to Taiwan’s democratization. Without its forceful appeal, Chiang Ching-kuo’s democratization from top down could not have gotten under way. Democracy triumphed in 2000 when Chen Shui-bian was elected president, completing the first transfer of power in Taiwan to end more than five decades of one-party rule by the Nationalist party. The DPP was and still is, at least, nominally, a revolutionary party. Will DPP come back as a credible and viable political group which is needed for checks and balances in the face of the now all-powerful Nationalist party for the good of Taiwan’s democracy?

Guest: Michael Fonte, Democratic Progressive Party Liaison