Guangxi, a province in southern China previously unable to grow grapes, has now turned into the biggest grape producer in the country and is very likely to subject Taiwanese grape farmers to intense competition in overseas markets, a legislative report said.
Grapes are only one of many kinds of agricultural products in which Taiwan is losing its competitive advantage to China in foreign and even in domestic markets, the report said.
“And it all happened thanks to an outflow of Taiwan’s agricultural expertise, including professionals, plant seeds and planting techniques, to China,” it said.
Among other examples cited in the report was the raising of eels and Taiwan Tilapia.
In the 1980s, Taiwan-raised eels enjoyed a significant market share in Japan, but it fell from a 74 percent market share in 1992 to 43 percent in 2005 and to 4.47 percent in 2009, while China saw its market share in Japan’s imported preserved eels market jump from 21 percent to 95 percent.
Since China overtook Taiwan in 2000 with its exports of Taiwan tilapia to the US and European markets, where Taiwan had been a dominant force, China’s exports of the high-value product are now 20 times higher than those of Taiwan, the report said.
It added that some Taiwanese strains of agricultural products grown or raised in China have also dealt a blow to Taiwanese farmers, as the farmers’ products have been sent back to the country because they were still prohibited from entering China. They included red carrots, pineapples, groupers, black tiger shrimps, abalone, butterfly orchids, carnations and mushrooms.
In the six years since 2006, China has acted “in a more systematic way” to lure Taiwan’s farming sector, with a total of 29 “Development Parks for Taiwan Farmers” established in 14 provinces as of this year, in addition to nine “Cross-Strait Agricultural Cooperative Experimental Zones” that have been set up since 1997, according to the report.
China not only offers Taiwan-funded enterprises in the agricultural parks a set of incentives in land acquisition, tax credits and lending, but also encourages and invites award-winning Taiwanese farmers to visit China through organized tours, or offer them money in exchange for seeds and techniques, the report said.
The report said that the 3,000 hectare Zhangping Yongfu Development Park for Taiwan Farmers, one of six in Fujian Province in southeast China, is being planted with oolong tea, all by Taiwan farmers from Nantou County, a famous tea-producing area, and is being developed into what China calls the “Alishan (阿里山) of China.”
It was estimated by Chinese research institutes that their annual production of oolong tea, which is under cultivation in the Zhangping Yongfu park, could be as high as three-fifths of the amount of high mountain oolong tea produced in Taiwan annually, the report said.
According to the report, based on data from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, the investment made by Taiwan-funded enterprises in agricultural production in China amounts to US$6.7 billion, far higher than the figure provided by the Investment Commission at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which was US$4.3 billion.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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