President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government views investments by local businesses in China as one of the solutions to the economic uncertainty and is making every effort to push for the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China.
In a related but preposterous decision, the legislature’s Finance Committee has passed a resolution demanding that the Cabinet’s Financial Supervisory Commission make the approval of applications from local financial institutions seeking to establish branch offices in China conditional on their support for an ECFA.
Foreign enterprises in China, meanwhile, are increasingly concerned about the neo-protectionism of a powerful China. Some are even planning to leave the country and invest in other Asia-Pacific countries.
Recently, Google, the world’s largest Internet search engine, chose to give up an almost 40 percent share of the market in China rather than accept online censorship and has now brought matters to a head by redirecting search traffic from China to Hong Kong. The move adds yet another variable to the tense trade relations between China and the US.
China’s economic growth over the past few decades has often been exaggerated, so much so that its economy is sometimes compared in size to that of the US.
However, the skittishness of foreign enterprises and the Google case are indications that the international community has perhaps attained a better understanding of China. A closer analysis shows that China’s economic growth has largely been based on three factors: cheap labor, a population that accounts for one-fifth of the world’s people and an authoritarian government’s sacrifice of the environment.
When paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) adopted the policy of reform and opening in 1978, China was a poor country with an endless supply of manpower able to meet the demands of labor-intensive industry.
With lower wages relative to developing and developed countries, China attracted investment from processing-oriented companies and set about transforming itself into the world’s factory.
The Chinese economy has experienced near-double-digit growth for the past 30 years because of its population of 1.3 billion people, which means that even though GDP per capita is quite low, the national figure is astronomical.
In the past, people often preferred to focus on headline totals rather than probe the huge disparity in per capita figures. This is the truth behind the myth of China’s economy.
More importantly, China is an authoritarian state and a majority of its citizens have not shared in the fruits of economic development.
The benefits are concentrated in the hands of the ruling class, which uses this huge resource to influence international politics and economics. To maintain economic growth and political control, Chinese leaders have started to exclude foreign companies while promoting local business.
In other words, after foreign businesses have helped develop the Chinese economy, Beijing is now burning its bridges with them to ensure local enterprises pocket all the economic benefits.
China has also implemented a strict monitoring system to eliminate all calls for human rights and democracy. To achieve this, it strictly monitors the flow of information, which undermines the freedom and transparency necessary for the efficient circulation of information.
Google and Yahoo are two good examples of this phenomenon.
Beijing instructed both companies to hand over personal data on human rights activists and even launched hacker attacks against them. To safeguard its business philosophy and democratic values, Google is now withdrawing from the Chinese market.
Despite the international media coverage it has attracted, China’s unreasonable demands and interference in the operations of Google are insignificant when contrasted with the negative impact created in Taiwan by Beijing’s sugarcoated but ill-intended economic dealings.
Once China establishes an economic foothold in Taiwan, it will be used to either co-opt or divide the public.
In future, it is inevitable that some local enterprises will do exactly what Beijing says to safeguard their commercial interests, while others will second-guess the Chinese leadership.
This will give China direct control over the domestic political situation in Taiwan. In other words, the strong pro-China leanings of the current government and the way it is blindly paving the way for Chinese capital will allow China to put political pressure on Taiwan through economic means.
The disputes between Google, other foreign enterprises and China are of a purely commercial nature, while the exchanges between Taiwan and China involve the lives and property of 23 million Taiwanese.
Today, Google and some other foreign companies have realized that China is not the promised land of sustainable development they believed it was; rather, it can be quite an unpredictable — and even dangerous — place.
In the face of these developments, the Ma administration has stayed the course on its pro-China policies and is ignoring the wishes of Taiwanese as it inches towards the precipice.
Despite its claim to have access to an endless number of talented people, many of whom are academics and experts, the Taiwanese government falls far short of Google in its vision, scale, boldness, and insistence on democracy and freedom.
In the current situation, the Taiwanese public’s only recourse is a national referendum to stop this disaster in the making.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to