Academics yesterday urged caution toward Beijing’s relaxation of restrictions on Taiwan-based businesses, citing political and business risks, as well as its potential to drain Taiwan’s capital and talent.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) on Wednesday announced that many restrictions on the licensing of privately or individually owned Taiwanese businesses are to be lifted next year.
Previously, Chinese authorities only permitted Taiwanese-owned businesses from the retail and restaurant industries to operate in China, but the new rules are to permit privately owned businesses from 24 different industries, including advertising and packaging services, the TAO said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The area in which Taiwanese businesses are allowed to operate will be drastically expanded from nine provinces and cities to almost all of China, excluding Xinjiang, Gansu and Qinghai provinces, as well as Inner Mongolia and Tibet, the TAO said, adding that Taiwanese businesses would also no longer be limited to having a maximum of 10 employees and 500m2 of business space.
National Cheng Kung University law professor Hsu Chun-hsin (許忠信), who is a former legislator of the Taiwan Solidarity Union, said the lifting of restrictions is a Chinese strategy to drain Taiwan’s small and medium businesses of capital and talent.
The policy is also an alternative to the trade in service and goods agreements, whose future had been called into question by the public backlash against it, Hsu said.
“While many will be tempted to start businesses in China, my experience as a lawmaker made me familiar with many cases of Taiwanese entrepreneurs who were blindsided by hostile takeovers and lost everything,” he said. “Private operators are no doubt even less protected than their predecessors.”
National Central University economics professor Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮) was also reserved about the announcement, saying: “The yielding of benefits is only superficial.”
Only the most well-connected Taiwanese corporations could gain direct access to customers in China, and those customers consist almost entirely of major Chinese corporations, he said, adding that the announcement is “an attempt to influence the coming election.”
Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) warned that the lifting of restrictions is a reaction to the stonewalling of the trade in service and goods agreements by the legislature, designed to drain Taiwan’s talent and capital while increasing dependence.
It is also possible that China intends to utilize Taiwanese capital and talent for its own “One Belt, One Road” project, Lai said.
“China is a highly volatile investment environment due to its justice system, tax codes and investment management practices,” he said, adding that Taiwanese business owners frequently lose their enterprises, or even their freedom, in China.
“The promotion of the market is the cause of Taiwan’s current economic woes … the government should take measures to prevent more of Taiwan’s technological advantages from falling into Chinese hands,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS