The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said yesterday it opposed the government’s plan to enlarge a state-owned venture capital fund and allow companies to use the fund to invest in China.
Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairman Chen Tian-jy (陳添枝) announced on Thursday that the government would increase the value of the National Development Fund (國發基金) five-fold to NT$1 trillion (US$29.95 billion) to help local enterprises amid the global financial crisis.
To enlarge the National Development Fund, the government said it would borrow up to NT$800 billion from the Postal Savings Fund run by stated-owned Chunghwa Post Co.
DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) told a press conference the government had previously stated that the National Development Fund could not be used for investments in China, but in a meeting held on Aug. 10 the Cabinet decided to allow a company that receives a loan from the fund to use up to 20 percent of its total net worth for investments in China.
Lai said the government has been steadily raising the cap on China-bound investment by local enterprises and now it wanted to expand the nation’s investment in China even further by investing the public’s savings there, which would worsen the situation where “money enters China, leaving Taiwan with debts.”
The legislator said that previous Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administrations had used various state-owned funds to help tycoons, such as Wang You-theng (王又曾), Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), Tseng Cheng-jen (曾正仁) and several others, which had resulted in the embezzlement of public money.
“As the government plans to use people’s savings to profit local businesses, has it asked the public’s opinion on the matter?” DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) asked.
The government had not even informed the legislature before announcing the decision, he said.
A run on Chunghwa Post might occur because of the government’s decision and Chunghwa Post could then go bust, he said.
Chen said the government would offer financial assistance to companies in strategic industries that were vital to the nation’s long-term economic development. These mainly included companies in the manufacturing sector and some service and financial industries.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods