WITH BEIJING WINNING the rights to host the 2008 Olympic Games, China was given a rare opportunity for positive international exposure, and, for a time, China fever once again became an international topic.
As far as Taiwan is concerned, a couple of different collective moods are hidden in this wave of China fever. Before China's successfully winning the rights to host the Olympics, China fever in Taiwan hinged on the economy. After China won the rights to host the Games, Taiwan's China fever included not only the business opportunities offered by the hosting of the Olympics, but also the emotions of different groups toward China.
Compared to the previous couple of waves of Taiwan's China fewer, the largest difference this time around is the government created by the transfer of power in Taiwan, and the global economic downturn. With the problems of the DPP minority government and the downturn of Taiwan's economy, the continuous growth of the Chinese economy is creating a worry in Taiwan that China is like the Taiwan of the past, while Taiwan is more like the Philippines of the past. It is also because factors external to this wave of China fever are different from before that we need to consider even more coolly how this wave of China fever should be handled by Taiwan.
Looking at it from the point of view of the domestic Taiwanese debate over cross-strait policies, there are some traditional points of comparison, such as the "no haste, be patient" concept as opposed to the "boldly march west" concept. This includes the debates over which is more important of national security and economic development, whether the "one China principle" should be accepted, and differences in the assessment of China's future development. What Taiwan needs to reflect over today is how to bridge the different views in the traditional cross-strait policy debate and find a way out for Taiwan in today's global economy.
If we look at it from the economic aspects of Taiwan's relatively urgent industrial transformation, the trend towards globalization exposes Taiwan to highly intensive competition. Even though the Taiwanese IT industry ranks quite highly on international markets, the distribution of labor is becoming clearer and clearer, with Taiwan design, Hong Kong services and Chinese manufacturing. We therefore need to consider carefully two problems.
The first problem lies with the westward march of Taiwan's hi-tech industry: since the government enforces an upper limit on investment for companies investing in China, many a company still boldly marches west without having received the approval of the relevant government authorities. As a result, there is no way of controlling the business behavior of these companies in China, let alone the return of profits to Taiwan, turning these investments into an economic black hole beyond the reach of Taiwan's government. To fully understand Taiwan's capital flows, the government must therefore implement more liberalization measures. The Taiwanese economic system of the past operated in a protective and restrictive environment. Today, due to cultural differences and other factors, many foreign investors want to join up with Taiwanese capital to march west together, but they are restricted by the Taiwanese regulations on foreign investment that makes it impossible to react swiftly in order to gain an advantage in a rapidly changing market.
RSS