For the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), there is one group from whom they do not expect support in the March 20 presidential election -- China-based businesspeople.
Their number, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, is about 650,000.
The figure covers only registered businessmen. The semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), which handles cross-strait affairs, estimates there are 800,000 to 1.2 million Taiwanese businesspeople in China.
PHOTO: YEH CHIH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
With about 12 million votes cast in the 2000 presidential election, analysts have been asking whether the million-strong Taiwanese business community in China could swing this year's election result.
This question has been reverberating in the minds of campaign managers from the DPP and the blue-camp alliance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party (PFP).
Even if the demographic's votes are insufficient to alter the election outcome, earning the community's support would still be a symbolic victory for the presidential candidates.
PHOTO: YEH CHIH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Even Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Both the blue camp and green camp are vying for the businesspeople's endorsement. Taiwan and China are also competing for their support. President Chen Shui-bian (
Chang Rong-kung (
"More than 600,000 of the businessmen are eligible to vote. They can also solicit ballots [for the KMT] from their families, relatives and friends living in Taiwan," Chang said.
"The business community altogether may represent more than a million votes," he added.
Having campaigned for KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Chang said the KMT has been listening to the group's opinions in order to shape the party's cross-strait policies. The three cross-strait links -- transportation, postal service and trade -- are the most urgently needed policy, he said.
The KMT is helping the businesspeople book air tickets to return to Taiwan for the election, said Chang, who set up many of his party's liaison offices in Chinese cities.
The KMT and PFP have been careful not to do anything to displease China in their campaign there, Chang said.
In contrast, Chen Chung-hsin (陳忠信), Chang's DPP counterpart and a legislator, did not go to China to seek support from the business community.
"It is easy for Chang to go to China because Beijing would give him permission. But it is very difficult for DPP officials to get China's permission to go there," Chen Chung-hsin said.
Complaining about Beijing's unequal treatment of KMT and DPP officials, Chen Chung-hsin nevertheless said he would not travel to China for campaign purposes even if China gave him permission.
"I don't want DPP supporters' identities exposed," Chen Chung-hsin said.
"Chang has spent most of the past six months in China and returned to Taiwan only occasionally, as if China is his hometown and Taiwan only his holiday destination," Chen Chung-hsin said.
blacklisted
Last year, the Mainland Affairs Council invited Chen Chung-hsin to join a Taiwan National Day celebration in Hong Kong on Oct. 10.
"They [Hong Kong] would not grant me a visa until the afternoon of Oct. 9. You can see how difficult it is for me to be permitted entrance, even in Hong Kong," Chen Chung-hsin said.
Asked whether he is worried the DPP's support among the China-based Taiwanese business community may lag far behind the blue-camp's, Chen Chung-hsin said if this is the case, he could do nothing to reverse the situation.
"We will do our best, anyway. What else can I do?" he asked.
DPP backers in China know that revealing their political orientation would only bring them trouble. The SEF reported cases of pro-DPP Taiwanese businessmen being harassed by Chinese officials after the 2000 election.
Chen Chung-hsin said he did not know based on what evidence the blue camp boasted it could secure 70 percent of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople's votes.
"If they are happy to believe that's the case, let them be," Chen Chung-hsin said.
"To be honest, I really don't know how many votes the China-based Taiwanese business community can contribute to this election. But I am sure the blue camp's claim that the votes could be more than million is an exaggeration," Chen Chung-hsin said.
The number of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople who returned to Taiwan to vote in the 2000 election was reported to be from 2,000 to 20,000, but the exact count was unavailable.
In the election, the DPP needs to be realistic, Chen Chung-hsin said, acknowledging that Chen Shui-bian's failure to implement direct links has caused widespread discontent among the Taiwanese business community.
realistic strategy
While the DPP estimated the votes it might be gaining from different ethnic and social groups, it presumed it would not have any votes from China-based Taiwanese businesspeople.
"We want to calculate votes in a way that is closest to reality so that we may shape the right campaign strategy," Chen Chung-hsin said. "Any votes from the China-based business community will be viewed as added value to our campaign."
The definition of a China-based Taiwanese businessperson is unclear, said Yen Wan-ching (
"That's why it is so difficult to count their exact number," he said.
Yen divided the China-based Taiwanese business community into three groups.
The first group is Taiwanese businesspeople who moved to China in the early 1990s for China's cheap labor and burgeoning market as Taiwan's manufacturing sector, the so-called "sunset industry," began to decline, particularly in central and southern Taiwan.
While the businesspeople were often owners of small and medium-sized businesses in Taiwan, Yen said, they grew in China such that their products now boast a 30 to 40 percent share of the global market.
Many of these businessmen are no longer who they were when they moved to China. Nowadays they are kings in their separate manufacturing sectors in the world market. They make toys, umbrellas, screws, lamps and many other products," Yen said.
"They are making global industries and they have global vision," Yen said.
The second group is tycoons and major industry owners who began investing in China in recent years. The group includes high-tech industries, many of which still base their headquarters in Taiwan but set up their manufacturing in China.
"Their management and production lines are closely connected with the Chinese market," Yen said.
The third group is small store owners, Yen said. These people sell food and groceries.
"They are the group of people that the government's [cross-strait] policies have little impact on," Yen said.
Yen estimates the number of businesspeople who can afford to return to Taiwan to vote would not exceed 50,000 due to the restricted number of airline tickets and their leave arrangements.
"The businessmen will not be able to mobilize a large number of voters to go home. Only those who happen to have their vacations coincide with the date of the presidential election will actually go home to vote," he said.
During a Lunar New Year conference hosted by the SEF for leaders of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople in Tainan earlier this month, the businesspeople asked Premier Yu Shyi-kun to do something to reform their image in the public's eye.
They understood their close relationships with China have caused some to question whether they still regarded themselves as Taiwanese or whether their business interests have made them more pro-unification.
Yen said it is difficult to judge whether China-based Taiwanese businesspeople's political orientation and recognition of their nationality has shifted as a result of their long-time residence and work in China.
Their urgent need for direct links may have switched their support to the blue-camp, which has enjoyed more cordial terms with China. However, it is also possible that their actual experience of living in China made them more aware of the differences between China and Taiwan.
"They may come to realize that China and Taiwan are different countries with different political systems and be convinced that Chen Shui-bian's `one country on each side' of the Taiwan Strait is the reality," Yen said.
Tony Cheng (
Cheng, who will be returning to Taiwan to vote for Lien, said he has no doubt he is Taiwanese.
"Taiwan's political system is fundamentally different from China's. When I retire, I will return to Taiwan. Taiwan has democracy," he said.
"We have no identity cards in China," Cheng said.
`gray zone'
He said he would vote for the blue camp because its cross-strait policies are more likely to bring peace and stability between Taiwan and China.
"The last thing we would like to see is instability in cross-strait relations," Cheng said.
Chen Shui-bian, who insists on Taiwan's sovereignty, would not accept Beijing's demand to accept the "one China" principle as the precondition for both sides to open talks.
Frustrated by the president's handling of cross-strait relations, Cheng said Lien's proposal to "shelve Taiwan's sovereignty disputes" to seek negotiations with China may be feasible.
"We need to tolerate a `gray zone' in dealing with cross-strait affairs. Chen Shui-bian's zero-sum persistence simply does not work," Cheng said.
In Shenzhen, the number of Taiwanese businesspeople and their families amounts to around 80,000 and about 40,000 of them are eligible to vote.
"We hope to recruit at least 20,000 people to return to Taiwan to vote," Cheng said.
"We are the minority in Taiwan's electorate. But we are the crucial minority," he added.
Ho Fang-wen (何芳文), president of Zhaoqing Taiwanese Businessmen Investment Enterprises Association in Guangdong, also said doing business in China has changed neither his political stance nor his perception of his nationality.
"I will come home to vote ? but I won't say for whom," Ho said.
Hector Yeh (
He accused the DPP and the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) of being hostile to the China-based Taiwanese business community and said he would not expect such parties to implement policies that would benefit them.
hostility
The DPP and TSU admit that some members in their parties dislike the businesspeople.
"We are not hostile to all of them, but we don't like some business leaders who urged [us] to put aside Taiwan's sovereignty in order to launch the three links," said TSU Legislator Lo Chih-ming (羅志明).
The TSU also dislikes businesspeople who left their debts in Taiwan and invested their money in China, Lo said.
Formosa Plastics Group Chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), who has invested huge sums in China in recent years, is one of the bad examples of businesspeople who have bowed to China and opposed Taiwan's referendum, Lo said.
While China banned a KMT liaison office in Shanghai in order to avoid the allegation that it interfered with Taiwan's presidential election, a Shanghai businessman has been quietly encouraging his compatriots to return to Taiwan to vote.
Eric Teng (
Teng stressed his organization has not taken political sides.
While China closed the KMT liaison office in Shanghai, Teng's organization continued without being harassed by Chinese officials.
"Our activities are not politically motivated," he said.
Businesspeople are eager to go home to vote this time because over the past four years they felt "somehow the government did not pay enough attention to them," Teng said.
Businesspeople signing up to Teng's initiative came mostly from the Yangtze River Delta. Deng said his organization serves people regardless of their political orientation.
"We serve both blue-camp and green-camp backers," he said.
Teng's organization does not accept any political parties' donations and it refuses to "meddle with any parties," Teng said.
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