Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) is no doubt one of the most successful businessmen in the world.
It would, however, be an overstatement to say that Gou built his entire fortune by exploiting cheap Chinese labor, as some academics have accused him of doing. In a bout of name-calling, these academics have called him “the disgrace of Taiwan” after a string of suicides at his Shenzhen factory.
It is in the nature of business to seek to maximize profits by minimizing overheads, including the cost of labor and land, and some internationally recognized Taiwanese businesses have relocated their assembly lines from China to Indonesia to take advantage of the even cheaper labor there, where wages are so low that factory owners are too embarrassed to disclose them.
However, this isn’t to say that Gou and his Hon Hai Group, although a big contributor to the local economy, are entitled to any preferential treatment in Taiwan.
In the case of the Dapu (大埔) farmland controversy, the Miaoli County Government has obviously sided with Innolux Display Corp — which Hon Hai has invested in — and seized five hectares of farmland in Jhunan Township (竹南) without the consent of the 24 families who own the land.
The county government’s move is aimed at speeding up the planned expansion of the Hsinchu Science Park, where Innolux Display originally planned to build its high-end, newer-generation fabs with an initial investment of NT$120 billion (US$3.73 billion).
The investment and expansion plan sound like good news for both the county’s and the nation’s economic development and employment.
However, it now seems that the county government’s drive to expropriate that land may have been in vain, as Hon Hai threatened on Wednesday to re-evaluate its investment in Taiwan.
All the blame should be on the Miaoli County Government, since Taiwan, unlike China, remains a country where the property rights of its nationals are enshrined in, and protected by, the Constitution.
Accordingly, the Control Yuan should involve itself in the controversy and launch investigations into alleged negligence by county government officials and its Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻), who appears to have tried to skirt his responsibilities with excuses, including a plea that he “really didn’t know there were rice paddies there.”
That is an absurd excuse for a county magistrate, a person who is supposed to know the county he is in charge of better than anyone else.
As for Hon Hai, any threat to leave Taiwan because of the land controversy will not make its corporate image more liberal and democratic. Leaving would only inflict new wounds on the farmers, who have already suffered great losses and may now have to unfairly bear the brunt of the county government’s inability to attract business.
Hon Hai should remain neutral in the land controversy and keep its faith in Taiwan, a nation where wrongs can be righted, and which must ensure that businesses do not act immorally or exploit the less powerful.
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