Taiwan faces many problems, primarily caused by the alarming number of Taiwanese businesses relocating to China. It is getting harder to earn a decent living in Taiwan; average income levels are lower than they were 12 years ago, unemployment is high, exports are falling and GDP per capita is now lower than that of South Korea. The government cannot keep using deregulation as an excuse while ordinary people suffer.
I have written about this countless times over the past decade, but have been largely ignored by the pan-blue camp and even many important decisionmakers in the pan-green camp. Now that even a media baron has said as much about Taiwan’s problems, perhaps they might start believing me.
The pro-unification media has been encouraging Taiwanese businesses to enter China for the past 12 years. Now many people think that this is the only way Taiwanese companies can make a profit. Those who think about establishing themselves in Taiwan by following the “no haste, be patient” policy are labeled as proponents of a closed-door policy.
Twelve years of businesses relocating to China have passed. The administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) embarked on a policy of proactive liberalization, while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has looked to total liberalization and the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement. However, all have failed to benefit Taiwan economically.
This is especially true of the past four years, during which the Ma administration was following its total liberalization policy. Instead of helping Taiwan’s economy, it caused great damage. South Korea invests much less in China than Taiwan, but is doing much better in many areas, such as its share of the Chinese market, growth in exports and increase in annual wages for workers.
The harm caused by Taiwanese businesses relocating to China goes beyond economics. It has also been damaging politically. The pan-blue parties know that rhetoric about relocation is a surefire way to keep their voter base: It certainly worked wonders in the week leading up to the Jan. 14 presidential election. The economic scaremongering employed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the CCP practically guaranteed them an extra 800,000 votes, turning the election in their favor.
This alone put Taiwan further down the path to unification with China. Some of the rhetoric used included: “Business is so great now between Taiwan and China and the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] is still talking about a Taiwanese republic.”
This speaks volumes about the impact the idea of relocation to China has had on Taiwanese politics.
The reason why a former KMT chairman had the gall to talk about “one country, two areas (一國兩區)” on a recent visit to Beijing was because of the huge amount of political capital the KMT has accumulated over 12 years of Taiwanese businesses relocating to China.
“One country, one system” is no hypothetical situation set in the distant future. If both sides of the political spectrum continue their policy of economic integration with China — essentially “unification via economic means” — “one country, two systems” is the only thing that can follow.
I really do not know when the pan-blue and pan-green leaders will wake up from this “China dream” they have been having for the past 12 years. I just hope it is sooner rather than later.
Huang Tien-lin is a former presidential adviser.
Translated by Drew Cameron
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS