Taiwan’s economic “over-dependency” on China was not in the nation’s best strategic interests, a Washington conference was told on Thursday.
“It may be used in the future to hurt Taiwan in very profound ways,” US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said.
He said the supply chain drove Taiwanese investment in ways that were near impossible for the government to control.
He was addressing the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars conference on “Staying Ahead of the Economic Curve: Taiwan and its Rivals in East Asia.”
A Wilson Center official asked the conference if Taiwan could afford to engage in high-tech trade with China when it was such a potential adversary.
“Taiwan is caught between a rock and a hard place,” Hammond-Chambers said. “Many would agree that the Chinese do not have the same intention for their relationship with Taiwan that Taiwan has for its relationship with China.”
The Taiwanese, he said, “can’t help themselves.”
Hammond-Chambers said Taiwan’s economy remained in “deep distress.”
While unemployment was still relatively low, that was because of an increase in tourism and investment to improve infrastructure
There was unwillingness, he said, to push for needed domestic reform and when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did try to tackle the problem, “domestic political forces absolutely hammered him.”
Hammond-Chambers said that 20 or 30 years ago, Taiwan could argue it was competing well with South Korea.
“Now, that is just not the case,” he said
The South Koreans were “significantly pulling away from Taiwan and it’s a big problem, ” he said.
Hammond-Chambers said that Taiwan’s response to South Korea was “unclear” but that South Korea “casts an extremely long shadow across Taiwan’s economy.”
He said there was “some angst” about what the future held for Taiwan, but that it was essential that the nation continued “the long slog” toward developing its own global brands.
.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS