Commenting on Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao’s (陳光標) scheduled visit to Taiwan, during which he reportedly plans to make substantial cash donations to Taiwan’s needy, an academic said yesterday that China’s infiltration of Taiwan was strategically planned.
Wang To-far (王塗發), a professor of economics at National Taipei University, said Chen’s plan was an obvious attempt to buy votes for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and that China has always claimed that it would be cheaper to buy Taiwan than to attack it.
“Why else would Chen give away money in Taiwan when there are 150 million people in China who make less than US$1 per day?” Wang said.
Taiwan Brain Trust chairman Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said China was hostile toward Taiwan and if China really wanted to make donations to Taiwan, it should do so via social welfare organizations or foundations, rather than just spreading money the way it was planning to do.
Wang said the way China was allowing Chen to travel to Taiwan to give away money by letting people line up had a clear strategic objective. When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in government, China used the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to pressure the DPP to deregulate agricultural exports, following the same strategy, he said.
The question concerning Chen’s plan was how the government will respond, Wang said. If Chen is allowed to enter Taiwan and if local governments were allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they would participate, they would be cooperating with China’s strategy, Wang said.
Saying that Taiwan’s average annual income is about US$17,000, while in China it is less than US$4,000, China would become an international laughing stock by not helping its own poor while a rich businessman comes to Taiwan to donate money, Wang said.
Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), a researcher at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University and former chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, said the Chinese government is using criminals and leaders of local factions to directly influence local governments.
With these elements buying out smaller political parties and with all their financial sources coming from China, they will promote China’s unification goals, said Wu, adding that all Chinese investments in Taiwan are based on strategic considerations, and that Taiwan’s government does not know how to deal with the matter, nor is it trying to deal with it.
Local charity groups, however, said it was time to get rid of the custom of “being a silent good Samaritan.”
Tsao Chien (曹儉), an executive with Eden Social Welfare Foundation’s Northern Taiwan Division, said US philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet make their donations widely known.
Taiwanese tycoons should invite the media to cover their charitable activities, too, Tsao said, adding that it was time for them to shed their modesty in “doing good deeds without letting others know.”
Chang Fu-shan (張伏杉), head of the Communications and Marketing Division of the Social Resources Department of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families, said low-income people in need of money to celebrate the Lunar New Year would not mind standing in a long line to get the philanthropist’s “red envelope” of NT$10,000.
Some in the middle class might think that by staging such a high-profile donation campaign in Taiwan, Chen would be hurting the dignity of Taiwan’s poor, Chang said.
However, for the truly poor, who are having difficulty surviving from day to day, “face” cannot replace bread, Chang said.
“How could they put dignity above continuing to live?” he said.
Chen’s high-profile donation in Taiwan is aimed at arousing people’s sense of charity, Tsao said, calling the action “very correct.”
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