A new US study on Taiwan’s economy cautions that gains from current trade and investment talks with China may be limited and that Taipei needs to concentrate on internal economic restructuring and the cultivation “of new and dynamic foreign relationships beyond the straits.”
Written by Derek Scissors, a research fellow in Asia Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation, the study says Taiwan should reform corporate taxation and the “sheltered” domestic service sector.
Scissors said it might be “difficult to imagine” how the centerpiece of Taiwan’s economic strategy could be anything other than more open trade and investment with China, but said: “The most lucrative years for Taiwan-China business and trade have already passed.”
As an investment, China is moving from a growth stock to a value stock and Beijing’s successful globalization has left fewer opportunities for Taiwanese companies, Scissors said.
“Both the mainland as a source of dynamism for the Taiwanese economy and Taiwan playing a pivotal role in mainland development in return are waning — not waxing — forces,” Scissors said.
Other options should therefore be cultivated, he wrote.
The study, entitled Taiwan’s Economy Needs More Than Cooperation With China, said Taipei should seek partners poised for a period of especially rapid growth — “better positioned to achieve rapid gains from fresh globalization and in greater need of Taiwanese technology and service industries.”
Scissors said that an obvious candidate is India, because it is now entering a demographic expansion of similar magnitude and importance to the one that China is leaving.
“In some ways, India is China 15 years ago, with a decade of 12-13 percent growth potentially available, to be then possibly followed by the same 8 percent annual [growth],” he said.
“More open Taiwanese trade and investment with China fits the principles of American foreign policy … Diversification of economic efforts, however, will result in a more vigorous Taiwan … And a more economically dynamic, secure Taiwan is good for peace, stability and prosperity in the region,” he said.
“Cross-straits liberalization is valuable, but it is only one arrow in the quiver … More needs to be done to bolster Taiwan’s economic future, and America can help,” the study said.
Among the recommendations made by Scissors is that Taiwan should ensure that its regulations, taxes and international economic agreements do not artificially divert trade and investment toward China or any East Asian bloc at the expense of other promising partners such as India.
The US should support cross-strait liberalization while verifying that it does not spark fresh discrimination against US products and companies and that the US should pursue its own trade and investment liberalization with Taiwan, “culminating in a robust free trade agreement and bilateral investment treaty,” he wrote.
Given US President Barack Obama’s cautious approach to free trade agreements, however, it is unlikely that Scissors’ last recommendation will gain much traction.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)