China on Wednesday last week announced 31 measures that it said would benefit Taiwanese enterprises, civic groups and individuals interested in studying, working, living or starting a business in China.
Given China’s abiding ambition to bring Taiwan into its fold, there is obviously more behind the benefits and subsidies than meets the eye.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman An Fengshan (安峰山) gave away Beijing’s hidden agenda when he said that the slew of economic incentives “represent the implementation of the vision of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) regarding Taiwan.”
What is Xi’s vision for Taiwan? One needs to look no further than his speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress in November last year, in which he spoke of “[quashing] pro-independence forces in Taiwan and [realizing] China’s ultimate dream of unification.”
The Mainland Affairs Council said the measures are “just another effort to offer benefits [to Taiwanese] in exchange for political loyalty toward Beijing.”
It comes as no surprise that China is once again using money to lure Taiwanese and undermine Taiwan’s economy.
However, while people might criticize the measures as just another “united front” tactic, such incentives do have their draws.
Given the problems plaguing the nation — such as stagnant wage growth, widening inequality, a lack of research grants, slow industrial transformation and an investment environment characterized by businesspeople as “unfavorable” — the government cannot really blame businesses, civic groups and individuals for seeking more opportunities and a better environment elsewhere.
Instead of calling out China for seducing Taiwanese with benefits and urging people “not to be bought,” the government needs to be more active and approach the matter pragmatically.
One thing the government could do is study the 31 items carefully and analyze how Taiwan fares in comparison to China in those areas.
According to information published on the TAO’s Web site, 12 of the 31 incentives involve allowing Taiwanese companies to take part in the “Made in China 2025” program and infrastructure projects, and to enjoy tax cuts and investment capital. The other 19 incentives involve relaxing restrictions on certification for 134 professional aptitude examinations allowing Taiwanese who study or work in China to become members of local professional associations, and giving Taiwanese films, TV programs and books greater market access in China.
Preferential treatment is to be offered in sectors ranging from high-tech, agricultural and infrastructure to academia, culture and entertainment; and unlike in the past, when China focused on Taiwanese businesspeople, the latest measures target a swath of professions, including teachers, doctors, academic researchers, artists and entertainers.
In areas where China obviously offers more attractions than Taiwan’s, the government needs to engage in introspection and come up with solutions to improve Taiwan’s environment and policies to promote various industries and professions.
In other words, the challenge facing the government is not so much “stopping Taiwan’s brain drain to China,” but rather an urgent need to examine the nation’s own regulation of industries and labor, as well as other domestic policies.
The government needs to think about how it could improve policies to create an environment favorable to sustainable and exciting development that caters to the nation’s industries and highly educated workers.
As long as Taiwan could do that, it would have nothing to fear from China, or any other country, in the ever-intensifying battle for talent.
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
On today’s page, Masahiro Matsumura, a professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka, questions the viability and advisability of the government’s proposed “T-Dome” missile defense system. Matsumura writes that Taiwan’s military budget would be better allocated elsewhere, and cautions against the temptation to allow politics to trump strategic sense. What he does not do is question whether Taiwan needs to increase its defense capabilities. “Given the accelerating pace of Beijing’s military buildup and political coercion ... [Taiwan] cannot afford inaction,” he writes. A rational, robust debate over the specifics, not the scale or the necessity,
RSS