China hopes to rebuild its supply chain by wooing Taiwanese businesses at this year’s Cross-Strait CEO Summit (CSCS) to be held today in the Chinese city of Xiamen, a source said yesterday.
This year’s summit would focus on “building a cross-strait industrial chain in the new era and promoting cross-strait economic integration and development,” promotional materials for the event said.
The aim is to encourage Taiwanese businesspeople who have exited the Chinese market to return and invest there as a means of countering various technology export controls that China has been encountering, the source said.
Photo: AFP
Former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) and former Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong (郭金龍), the summit’s co-chairs, are expected to deliver speeches at the event’s opening ceremony.
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Huning (王滬寧) attended the event last year, during which he read a letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and delivered a speech. However, it has not been determined whether he would attend this year, the source said.
Other Taiwanese attendees include former vice-premier Woody Duh (杜紫軍) and former minister of economic affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘), both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members, as well as former KMT vice chairman Steve Chan (詹啟賢).
However, Third Wednesday Club (三三會) chairman Lin Por-fong (林伯豐), who is known to be close to Beijing, pulled out of the event at the last minute saying he had “something else” to take care of, sending the organization’s secretary-general in his place.
Some Taiwanese industry leaders had not initially planned to attend, but later agreed to do so after Beijing threatened that they should “carefully consider the consequences of non-attendance,” the source said.
“They were worried that investments and company offices in China might be put under pressure, and in the end, they had no choice but to attend the summit in a low-key manner,” the source said.
Beijing has also recently used “soft and hard tactics” to pressure Taiwanese businesspeople not to withdraw from China, the source said.
“At the same time, Taiwanese businesspeople are being invited, through contacts in China and Taiwan, to participate in investment events in Xinjiang Province, Tibet and other places,” they said.
Citing an example, the source said that a former Mainland Affairs Council official who is a member of the KMT had been scheduled to lead a delegation of Taiwanese investors to Xinjiang in September, but the plan was canceled after it was exposed by the media in Taiwan.
The government has warned Taiwanese technology investors who enter the Chinese market that doing so could impact their future prospects.
This is particularly the case for investors who are found to be an accomplice of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which China has been found to be supporting through trade, the source said.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS