Beijing’s attempted economic charm offensive to woo Taiwanese is not working as more Taiwanese businesses are shifting to other countries and reducing the dependence on China, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Thursday.
A sign of the shift was that the US replaced China as the top buyer of Taiwanese agricultural products for the first time last year, and electronics firms including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) are also selling more goods to American and other non-Chinese buyers, the report said.
Citing Taiwan government data, the report said Taiwanese exports to the US in the first 10 months this year were more than 80 percent higher than in the same period of 2018.
Photo: Reuters
Taiwan’s outbound investment has also shifted from mostly to China in the early 2000s to now decisively toward other destinations, including Southeast Asia, India and the US, it said.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, internationally known as Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics giant that assembles iPhones in China, is expanding in India and Vietnam after Apple Inc began pushing its suppliers to diversify, but it was followed by tax and land-use probes, seen by some as Beijing trying to pressure Hon Hai into resisting decoupling with China, the report said
“Fully decoupling from mainland China’s economy likely isn’t possible, and would be disastrous for Taiwan,” the WSJ report said, adding that many major Taiwanese companies depend heavily on China for parts, testing and buyers, and that about 25 percent of Taiwan’s electronic parts imports still come from China.
However, many forces are pushing Taiwan to rewire its economic relations with China, including tariffs from the administration of former US president Donald Trump and export controls by the administration of his successor, US President Joe Biden, rising wages in China and long-running shifts in Taiwanese sentiment toward China (such as those triggered by China’s export bans on Taiwanese agricultural products), the report said.
Taiwan’s government is also encouraging closer economic links with Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia and New Zealand, as it rolled out the New Southbound Policy in 2016, the report said, adding that consequently, exports to countries covered by the policy have risen to US$66 billion in the first nine months of this year, about 50 percent higher than the same period in 2016.
According to CEIC data, the US and the six largest Southeast Asian economies together accounted for 36 percent of Taiwanese exports in the third quarter of this year, surpassing the percentage sent to China and Hong Kong on a quarterly basis for the first time since 2002.
Citing Taiwanese government data, it said Taiwanese foreign investment into China, which had been steady at about US$10 billion a year for most of the early 2010s, plummeted in late 2018 and has since been running at about half that level, and so far this year, 13 percent of Taiwan’s investment went to China; 25 percent went to other Asian locations, and nearly half went to the US.
Theaters and institutions in Taiwan have received 28 threatening e-mails, including bomb threats, since a documentary critical of China began being screened across the nation last month, the National Security Bureau said yesterday. The actions are part of China’s attempts to undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty, it said. State Organs (國有器官) documents allegations that Chinese government officials engage in organ harvesting and other illegal activities. From last month to Friday last week, 28 incidents have been reported of theaters or institutions receiving threats, including bomb and shooting threats, if they did not stop showing the documentary, the bureau said. Although the threats were not carried out,
‘GRAY ZONE’ TACTICS: China continues to build up its military capacity while regularly deploying jets and warships around Taiwan, with the latest balloon spotted on Sunday The US is drawing up contingency plans for military deployments in Japan and the Philippines in case of a Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported. They would be incorporated in a first joint operation plan to be formulated in December, Kyodo reported late on Sunday, citing sources familiar with Japan-US relations. A US Marine Corps regiment that possesses High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — a light multiple rocket launcher — would be deployed along the Nansei Island chain stretching from Kyushu to Yonaguni near Taiwan, Kyodo said. According to US military guidelines for dispatching marines in small formations to several locations,
As Taiwan celebrated its baseball team’s victory in the World Baseball Softball Confederation’s Premier12 on Sunday, how politicians referred to the team in their congratulatory messages reflected the nation’s political divide. Taiwan, competing under the name Chinese Taipei (中華台北隊), made history with its first-ever Premier12 championship after beating Japan 4-0 at the Tokyo Dome. Right after the game, President William Lai (賴清德) congratulated the team via a post on his Facebook page. Besides the players, Lai also lauded the team’s coaching and medical staff, and the fans cheering for them in Tokyo or watching the live broadcast, saying that “every
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday confirmed that Chinese students visiting Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation were almost all affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During yesterday’s meeting convened by the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) asked whether the visit was a way to spread China’s so-called “united front” rhetoric, to which MAC Deputy Ministry Shen You-chung (沈有忠) responded with the CCP comment. The MAC noticed that the Chinese individuals visiting Taiwan, including those in sports, education, or religion, have had increasingly impressive backgrounds, demonstrating that the
RSS