A rising China poses a greater threat to Taiwan economically than militarily, Lin Bih-jaw (
Lin issued the warning when giving a speech on cross-strait relations to Taiwanese expatriates living in the city state.
According to Lin, China's economic pull based on its business clout has affected Taiwan more on the economic front than militarily, evidenced by Taiwan's industrial hollowing-out and capital and talent flights.
Claiming that Taiwan has not responded swiftly enough to the changes brought about by China's economic opening since the 1970s, Lin said that Taiwan should wise up and turn China's challenges into something meaningful to galvanize its upgrading and transformation.
Taiwan should interpret China's rise as a world power from an angle beneficial to its own interests, instead of echoing the views of Western countries, he said. Apart from being a power in the Asia-Pacific region, China also has increased leverage in international affairs, he noted, adding that China's ascent has come with a bigger role on the world stage, a development that is hard for Taiwan to keep pace with.
Facing such a situation, Taiwan should do its best to engage with other countries by fulfilling its role as a democratic and constructive member in international society, he said. As to the question of whether China will be a risk to other nations in the process of becoming a superpower, he said that it is premature to talk about the issue now as many variables remain.
For the time being, China has devoted all its energy to developing its economy in a peaceful manner and it will avoid having conflicts with countries such as the US and Japan, he said.
It is worth noting that in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China always supports countries in Southeast Asia to hold talks with Russia, India and Central Asian countries, while the US has been trying to better its ties with Australia, Canada, Japan and Taiwan, he said.
While China backs Southeast Asian countries to organize various forms of regional cooperation meetings that are within "East Asia," the US favors the idea of organizing regional cooperation organizations under the name of "Asia-Pacific," Lin said.
Competition between the two blocks has not yet surfaced, but to the US, an ascending China is set to challenge its presence in the Asia-Pacific region sooner or later, and this is something that must be contained, he said.
The SCO is an inter-governmental body set up in 2002 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to boost mutual beneficial cooperation and good ties among the six countries in the areas of politics, security, diplomacy and trade.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS