Several Taiwanese businesspeople who have made investments in China yesterday said the government did not help them when they were in trouble. They urged the government to allow Taiwanese investors in China to take part in negotiations prior to the signing of a trade protection agreement with Beijing.
At a press conference organized by the Victims of Investment in China Association (VICA), several Taiwanese businesspeople told stories of their experiences investing in that country.
Since the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese businesses have invested in China. While many have prospered, several others suffered from irregularities involving government officials, bank personnel or Chinese business partners, and could not receive proper help from either the judiciary in China or the Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in Taiwan, they said.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Peng Tseng-tien (彭增田) said he opened eight factories in Guangdong Province in the 1990s, but one day found that 7 million yuan (US$1.01 million) in his Bank of China account had disappeared.
“They told me I had never deposited 7 million yuan in my account,” Peng said. “Apparently, someone inside the bank took the money — even some people from within the bank told me that.”
Peng reported the case to local police, “but instead of helping me, the police officers were like bandits” and threatened him into dropping the case.
“I was ‘invited’ to ‘help the police handle the case,’ but it was more like a kidnapping, so I left on the first flight to Taiwan the next day,” he said. “It was December 1997 and I have never gone back.”
Huang Hsi-tsung (黃錫聰) began investing in Fujian Province in 1991. However, a local official in 1998 managed to secure a loan for 10 million yuan from the bank using his name.
“I’ve since taken legal action, but my case was never resolved,” Huang said.
Other Taiwanese businesspeople who have invested in China complained that their investments were forcefully taken over by government officials or local business partners.
What upset them most, though, was the attitude of the Taiwanese government.
All 10 businesspeople at the press conference have sought help from the SEF, a semi-governmental organization dealing with cross-strait exchanges, but most of their calls went unanswered, they said.
Two of them, who wish to remain anonymous, said they were pressured by the SEF before coming to the press conference. They were told that their participation at the press conference could have a negative impact on their cases.
“I want to ask what kind of government this is. Is this a government that protects its people or is it one that helps China in hurting its people?” VICA president William Kao (高為邦) asked.
Under the Democratic Progressive Party administration, the SEF would always share a story of a victimized Taiwanese businessperson in China to remind investors to be more cautious when investing in China in the foundation’s monthly magazine, Kao said.
“However, this was canceled after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) took power,” he said.
Kao said that while the KMT government encourages more cross-strait business exchanges, “it should work harder to protect businesspeople investing in China.”
VICA also called on the government to allow executives with real experience in investing in China to take part in negotiations of a cross-strait trade protection agreement.
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