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Taiwanese to blame for harmful SEMI claim

At a recent news conference in Beijing, Stanley Myers, the president of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), stated clearly that the organization supports the "one China" principle and that Taiwan is a part of China. It is utterly exasperating in light of this to learn that SEMI has only five members of the association from China, with 144 from Taiwan. So its position, which risked offending Taiwan was, at first, difficult to understand.

But a little probing beneath the surface reveals that Taiwanese are to blame. Most of our SEMI members have factories in China and are, for the most part, already producing more in China than in Taiwan. Because Taiwanese businesses account for more than 70 percent of the value of China's IT hardware and because SEMI enjoys close ties with Taiwanese manufacturers, Beijing pressured the organization to state its political position.

As Taiwanese businesses have invested heavily in China, the cluster effect of Taiwanese investors in the suburbs of Shanghai has gradually broadened. Step by step, China has acquired the chips to target Taiwan or the world politically, economically and militarily.

It is undeniably Taiwanese investors' transformation of China into a global manufacturing hub that has given Beijing the means to restrain Taiwan in the international arena. SEMI was certain that its Taiwanese members who have their bases in China would not dare to register any protest against its statement, much less withdraw. Both Beijing and SEMI already take it for granted that Taiwan is an easy target for Beijing.

The SEMI president's shift of allegiance sends a very clear message. If Taiwan ceases to be the base for our own key manufacturers' operations, any schemes for the nation to become an Asia Pacific center for operations, not to mention those of planning and management, research and development and supply, will come to nothing. Any investments in operations headquarters that we are able to solicit by means of preferential measures will disappear from Taiwan overnight if Beijing shows the slightest displeasure. China is seen as more lucrative because it has clusters of manufacturing plants and more Taiwanese investors. Not only will they wish to pander to Beijing, but few investors will be prepared to forego the profits and business opportunities that they believe will follow if they withdraw from Taiwan and invest in China.

Do those scholars and government officials who advocate "production in China, planning and management in Taiwan" not realize the dangers and the lack of realism in such a policy? No. They have their hearts set on a "Greater China." They use the slogan to mask the trend of "moving westwards" in order to help China to accomplish its goals. Because a large number of Taiwanese investors have left for China, they aim to provide a smoke screen for the adverse effects on Taiwan's economy -- the diminution of domestic investment, the shrinking of wealth, the debts left behind in Taiwan and the increase in unemployment. They encourage the "westward" trend, further anesthetize the Taiwanese people and, finally, blame Taiwan's economic downturn on others.

If our people can learn from the damage done by SEMI to Taiwan, they will understand that no center of planning and management will survive without manufacturing and that no center of research and development can exist without production. They must ignore the treacherous schemes of those who advocate "production in China, management and research in Taiwan." When they do so, Taiwan and its swelling ranks of unemployed will regain optimism about their prospects. Then, Taiwan's economy will promptly haul itself out of the doldrums.

Huang Tien-lin is a national policy adviser to the president.

Translated by Grace Shaw
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