China used to call the investments and marketing activities of multinational corporations in other nations an “economic invasion.” However, the real economic invasion is the current international expansion of Chinese corporations, with the Chinese government pulling the strings behind private businesses.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd chairman Jack Ma’s (馬雲) recent acquisition of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd is considered by some to be an attempt to help Beijing improve its image.
When China employs this tactic against Taiwan, it is working toward annexation. It has long been China’s understanding that buyiing off Taiwan is less costly than an all-out military offensive.
For the past seven years, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made a complete mess of the economy. He has used the capital gains tax to destroy the stock market, causing an outflow of Taiwanese capital and keeping the market’s price-earnings ratio low, thus making it convenient for China to acquire vital Taiwanese industries.
There is reason to question whether Ma is collaborating with Beijing.
Chinese company Tsinghua Unigroup Inc’s bid to take stahes in Siliconware Precision Industries Co and MediaTek Inc — the threat to ban imports of MediaTek products into China says it all — and Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng’s (鄧振中) comments on deregulating Chinese acquisitions seem to reflect what Ma has in mind.
The Chinese acquisition campaign could seriously affect Taiwan’s national security, but Ma has not said anything about that, which also says something.
Having discovered the intent behind the Chinese acquisitions, the US, South Korea and Australia have taken measures to restrain such investments. However, Taiwan, which has long been the prey of the Chinese, finds its government willingly opening its doors to welcome the predator.
Taiwanese must keep an eye on a traitorous government like this.
China stops at nothing in its invasive foreign economic expansion, as evidenced by Indonesia’s choice for its high-speed rail project. Since 2008, Japan had been in talks with Indonesia on building a high-speed rail line connecting Jakarta and Bandung, and had begun comprehensive preparations for the preliminary engineering and submitted a geological map. In early September this year, the Indonesian government rejected China’s bid, which was submitted only half a year ago. However, after Beijing treated several Indonesian officials to a trip to China, it was awarded the project later that month, despite not having made any preparations for preliminary engineering.
Some Japanese media outlets speculated that Beijing had bribed the Indonesian officials to hand the Japanese studies to China. In return, China would not require the Indonesian government to offer any debt guarantees. It would be a deal between the two nations’ private sectors, which means that if in the future the Indonesian company defaults on its payments, China would have a hard time holding Indonesia accountable.
Is an engineering project like this viable or is there a risk that it will be left unfinished?
Tsinghua Unigroup, which aims to grab control of Taiwan’s core industry, is a corporation under China’s Tsinghua Holdings, and Hu Haifeng (胡海峰), the son of former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), was secretary of Tsinghua Holdings’ branch of the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2009, Tsinghua Tongfang Co, a major Chinese computer maker, was placed under investigation for alleged fraud and bribery in Namibia. Two Namibians and one Chinese were arrested in the African nation, and Hu Haifeng was to be investigated as a witness, prompting his dismissal by Tsinghua.
Ma administration officials and some Taiwanese businesspeople have a tendency to shake in their boots when they have to deal with China. Do they have the nerve to stop the Chinese economic invasion?
Even if Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co puts in a considerable effort to prepare to invest in Nanjing, will the company be able to hold its ground when the Chinese government makes threats by arresting its senior managers, as it did years ago to Chimei Innolux Corp, Taiwan’s largest LCD panel maker?
If Ma abruptly decides to sell Taiwan out to China so that China will care for him after he retires from his presidency, Taiwanese must take immediate action to stop him.
Slacking off now could result in regrets that could last for centuries.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan. For decades,
In 1976, the Gang of Four was ousted. The Gang of Four was a leftist political group comprising Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members: Jiang Qing (江青), its leading figure and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) last wife; Zhang Chunqiao (張春橋); Yao Wenyuan (姚文元); and Wang Hongwen (王洪文). The four wielded supreme power during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), but when Mao died, they were overthrown and charged with crimes against China in what was in essence a political coup of the right against the left. The same type of thing might be happening again as the CCP has expelled nine top generals. Rather than a
Taiwan Retrocession Day is observed on Oct. 25 every year. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government removed it from the list of annual holidays immediately following the first successful transition of power in 2000, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led opposition reinstated it this year. For ideological reasons, it has been something of a political football in the democratic era. This year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) designated yesterday as “Commemoration Day of Taiwan’s Restoration,” turning the event into a conceptual staging post for its “restoration” to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Mainland Affairs Council on Friday criticized
A Reuters report published this week highlighted the struggles of migrant mothers in Taiwan through the story of Marian Duhapa, a Filipina forced to leave her infant behind to work in Taiwan and support her family. After becoming pregnant in Taiwan last year, Duhapa lost her job and lived in a shelter before giving birth and taking her daughter back to the Philippines. She then returned to Taiwan for a second time on her own to find work. Duhapa’s sacrifice is one of countless examples among the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who sustain many of Taiwan’s households and factories,
RSS