In a televised policy presentation, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), said he opposed the Ministry of Labor signing a memorandum of understanding with India that would allow 100,000 Indian workers to come to Taiwan.
This would take away employment opportunities from Taiwanese workers and lead to social unrest, Hou said.
Even though the ministry has repeatedly said the agreement would not allow 100,000 Indian workers to arrive at the same time, Hou’s camp continues to present a false narrative of the nature of the deal. His campaign is trying to cast the Indian workers in a bad light, scare Taiwanese and add stress to the otherwise friendly ties between Taiwan and India.
It has been 32 years since Taiwan opened its doors to migrant workers, with the total number reaching about 750,000. Although the government’s policy has not kept pace with the times, and the old-fashioned laws and regulations are highly criticized, the government has never had the power to tell Taiwanese employers which foreign workers to employ, and it is certainly not able to designate which countries they should come from.
The claim that the policy would lead to 100,000 Indian workers arriving in Taiwan in one fell swoop is therefore quite absurd.
Look at a similar situation: the opening up to Vietnamese workers more than 20 years ago. Even with Hanoi’s annual quota for workers in Taiwan, it took more than a decade for the total number of Vietnamese workers to reach 100,000.
Therefore, Hou’s claim of 100,000 Indian workers immediately coming to work in Taiwan proves that his team is incapable of putting forward an effective policy on foreign labor, and that they are using the rumor to confuse the public and scare voters.
In addition to smearing the Ministry of Labor for seeking new sources of migrant workers, Hou has proposed restarting the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement with China, which would allow Chinese students to study and work in Taiwan.
That is even more worrying. The restart of negotiations on the service trade pact and the idea of signing such an agreement would allow Chinese families to move to Taiwan as “investment immigrants” for as little as US$200,000. With China’s current economic strength, it would not be too difficult to send millions of people to Taiwan.
If the government opens Taiwan up to low-paid Chinese workers as investment immigrants, migrant workers from other countries would find it difficult to compete with them in every industry.
Moreover, allowing Chinese students to study and work in Taiwan would affect employment opportunities for young Taiwanese. This issue should indeed be taken seriously.
Steve Kuan is a former chairman of the Taipei and New Taipei City employment service institute associations.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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