Richard Chang (
We believe that apart from such business scum, there are also decent businesspeople and conglomerates who abide by the law and cherish their reputation. Taiwan's government and media should uncover the vicious deeds of such opportunists to stop them from succeeding and make them the laughingstock of businesspeople around the world.
However, the biggest problem for Taiwan's high-tech companies is that tycoons such as Chang and Robert Tsao (曹興誠), founder of United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), do not even have the courage to admit their wrong-doing. Instead, they have tried to argue, and publish newspaper ads accusing the government of political persecution in order to shirk their moral and legal responsibilities. Being such bad examples, one wonders how they can possibly ask their employees to obey company rules and discipline.
The government has always given preferential treatment to high-tech companies in the Hsinchu industrial park to nurture their development. Rents are lower than for the average citizen, cost for water and electricity are far lower than for companies outside the park, and annual taxes amount to next to nothing. Because the government over many years has adopted several measures to promote "star" industries, employees in these industries today get substantial year-end bonuses. Some companies even have enough money to take funds from their profits to set up educational funds giving them an outsanding image in the eyes of society at large. Now that the government is asking them to cooperate, it should only be natural for them to assist. People like Chang are shameless to the point where they reject our country.
The US, Japan and South Korea have already tightened legislation to stop high-tech companies from moving abroad -- to China in particular -- in order to prevent China from growing militarily stronger. But in Taiwan, the country most urgently needing to block high-tech and military components from entering China, government and civil society seem to care only about money, and ignore national security and survival as if it were some other country's problem. They seem to think that China never will understand how to use the products manufactured by Taiwanese high-tech companies in China for military purposes. It would surely be ironic if it could be proven that the missiles China now has aimed at Taiwan contain chips or other components manufactured by Taiwanese companies.
We might also ask why companies such as Nokia still invest in Northern Europe, rather than just shifting all of their operations to China, when Taiwanese businesspeople claim that moving to China is crucial for the next phase of high-tech industries. Also, why has Taiwan's Uni-President Enterprises Corp, after several decades there, decided to recall hundreds of Taiwanese employees from China? It is about the human factor -- investing in China is not the only way to make a profit.
Today, many companies sell out Taiwan for their own benefit as the result of the government's past industrial policies being too lax. The government should control capital, talent and technology to punish businesses investing in China illegally. This is the only way to make Taiwan's corporate tycoons consider basing themselves in Taiwan and finding more reasonable and effective ways to reform their businesses to increase competitiveness instead of being taken in by the myth about cheap Chinese labor.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS