On March 8, the US imposed punitive tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 due to national security concerns, while offering some nations the opportunity to be exempted from the tariffs. Countries such as Canada, Mexico and the EU states are temporarily excluded from the list, and Taiwan sent officials to the US to make its case for exemption.
There were reports that the US asked Taiwan to detail the portion of Chinese content in Taiwanese steel exports.
However, Taiwan does not track these data, and so the government’s efforts came to no avail.
In a bid to resolve the issue, Premier William Lai (賴清德) urged the Ministry of Economic Affairs and other concerned agencies to check the portion of Chinese content not only in Taiwanese steel, but also products in other industrial supply chains.
Lai’s instructions were met unexpectedly with fierce criticism from pan-blue camp media outlets and political commentators, who accused the premier of placing all the blame on the “China factor.”
The question is, why do these media outlets and KMT politicians oppose Lai’s proposal to thoroughly examine the Chinese content in Taiwanese products?
The public must pay more attention to this seemingly trivial issue: This is a big factor behind the nation’s deteriorating economic dynamics, which has continued for a dozen years and resulted in the so-called “22K curse” — a starting monthly salary of only NT$22,000 for university graduates.
It might be difficult to believe that not only does Taiwan not have data on Chinese content ratios, but the following data, which are vital to the nation’s economic development, are also lacking.
First, there are no data on Taiwanese investments in China. What the Investment Commission discloses is only the amount of money it has reviewed and approved — and this figure is a far cry from actual investments. Any planning and forecasting of the nation’s economy based on this inaccurate data will of course go wrong.
The “6-3-3 policy” proposed by former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration was an example of national economic development goals based on completely inaccurate data; in the end, the policy misled the nation.
Investigating the actual amount of money that Taiwanese businesses invest in China is not so much a difficult task as it is a matter of lacking determination.
In 2005, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission outsourced a study of actual Taiwanese investments in China. The report showed that as of early 2005, total Taiwanese investments in China accounted for about half, or US$281 billion, of total foreign direct investments in China. This is drastically different from the US$45.4 billion reported by the Investment Commission.
If the US could make such a precise estimate, there is no reason why Taiwan cannot do so. It is more likely that these efforts are being hampered by the political ideology of responsible officials.
Second, the government does not have statistics and analyses on Chinese components in Taiwanese listed companies. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, for instance, boasts an annual revenue of NT$4 trillion (US$135 billion), but it is not clear how much of that comes from Taiwan or China.
About 80 percent of Taiwanese listed companies have invested in China, but it is not clear how much revenue they generate there. This is basic accounting data, but the ministry and the Financial Supervisory Commission do not have them, nor do they require these companies to provide the real data.
One cannot help but wonder how the government conducts financial supervision and how it plans to improve the economy.
Third, there are no accurate data on the number of top Taiwanese businesspeople and their relatives who are living long-term in China. How many are there? 700,000, 1 million, 2 million? According to China’s official census, in 2010, there were 2 million Taiwanese residing in China.
This number affects consumption and investment in Taiwan. Acquiring this information is easy using computing technology. It is only a matter of willingness.
Thirty years have passed since the two sides of the Taiwan Strait started to interact with each other, but old KMT members controlling the bureaucracy refuse to collect basic data about these exchanges.
Now that there is a US-China trade war, the government is unable to respond to questions about the portion of Chinese content in Taiwanese exports.
This inability to provide answers exposes the hypocrisy and cluelessness with which past governments tried to stimulate the economy. This is a serious national security issue, and it is something that the government must rectify.
Huang Tien-lin is a national policy adviser and former managing director and chairman of First Commercial Bank.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under