News that former minister of agriculture Paul Sun (孫明賢) has taken up a consulting position with a Chinese government agricultural enterprise caused a furor this week.
In accepting a three-year job at the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture-funded Taiwan Agricultural Entrepreneurship Garden, Sun became the latest in a long line of former officials to spark conflict of interest concerns.
A bigger concern, however, was that Sun’s appointment would lead to valuable domestic agricultural technology and know-how being leaked to farmers in China.
Sun is also the chairman of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center, an institute partly funded by the government and headquartered in Shanhua (善化), Tainan County, that develops new seed strains and agricultural technology.
It is no secret that China has long coveted access to Taiwan’s advanced agricultural technology, an aim that Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Deputy Chairman Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中) elaborated on during a visit this week to farmers in Tainan.
“China’s government attaches great importance to its agricultural development,” Zheng was quoted as saying in news reports, adding that Tainan County should capitalize on its competitive edge in the high-quality subtropical fruit sector to cooperate with China and “strengthen the division of labor across the Taiwan Strait” — a sentence that roughly translates as “give us your agricultural secrets.”
Academics and politicians have repeatedly warned of the grim future facing Taiwan’s farmers should Chinese farmers gain access to their advanced techniques.
Taiwan’s agriculture sector remains far ahead of its Chinese counterpart and this advantage helps farmers increase their income by promoting export of their high-quality produce to countries such as Japan and Australia.
But once Chinese farmers gain access to this know-how, that competitive advantage will be lost and China’s much larger agricultural sector will be able to take advantage of cheaper labor to flood regional markets with cheaper produce of a similar quality.
This could deliver a lethal blow to many of Taiwan’s small-scale farmers already struggling to cope with increased foreign imports following accession to the WTO.
China has already shown itself to be disrespectful toward intellectual property laws, and there are numerous cases of Taiwanese investors complaining about Chinese partners reproducing their seed strains without paying royalties.
Faced with these questions, Sun defended himself by saying: “We shouldn’t see agricultural technology as sensitive material. Instead, it should be a public asset. China has large stretches of land and good plant diversity, and can be seen as an extension of Taiwan’s farmlands.”
That may be the case for larger, wealthier farmers who can afford to invest in China, but it is small comfort for the thousands of small-scale farmers who eke out a living from small plots of land.
Aiding Taiwan’s allies with agricultural know-how to help them alleviate poverty and malnutrition is one thing, but doing the same with China in the face of its overarching desire to annex Taiwan is tantamount to agricultural ruin.
While Taiwan cannot afford to ignore its giant neighbor, presenting officials like Sun with the opportunity to sacrifice the goose that lays the golden egg in the name of improved relations is unforgivable.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS