The policy that bans Taiwanese firms from investing more than 40 percent of their net value in China has come under intense scrutiny, with many government officials concluding that it has been ineffective in stemming the surge of China-bound investment over the last decade, a top China affairs official said yesterday.
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (
"Obviously the 40-percent cap set up in 1997 has failed to meet both the needs of the local industries and the government's goal of managing the flow of China-bound capital," Wu said at a forum held by the Taiwan New Century Foundation on how Taiwan can prepare itself for the hidden dangers of the Chinese economy.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Wu said that the government was currently reviewing the feasibility of the restriction, in the context of both allowing local industries to take advantage of the economic opportunities in China, and enhancing the industries' ability to diversify their investments in the global market.
Wu said there has been heated debate about the issue in the preliminary meetings for the upcoming Conference on Sustainable Economic Development scheduled for July 27 and July 28, and that the MAC was still soliciting opinions from businesses and academics.
In response to the threat by the Chinese National Federation of Industries to hold demonstrations in November if the government doesn't make progress on lifting the investment cap and ban on direct cross-strait air links, Wu said that the government is trying to find a balanced solution to the problem.
"Our consideration is not simply to lift the 40 percent investment cap. Rather, we are thinking about how to make the management of Taiwanese businesses' investment in China more effective, just and transparent," Wu said.
He added that the government's goal is to help Taiwanese people reach the cutting edge of their industries in the global market.
Wu said at the forum that the hidden dangers of China's economy are the widening gap between the rich urban cities on the eastern coast and the poor farming villages in the western hinterlands, increasing environmental pollution, rampant government corruption and the ever-more strict suppression of democracy.
Chang Ching-hsi (
Yang Chia-yen (
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching