A Control Yuan member raised concerns over the emergence of China’s “red supply chain” and the acquisition of Taiwanese businesses by Chinese companies during an inspection tour of the Executive Yuan earlier this week.
Nancy Chen (陳小紅) said that aside from an international economic downturn, another reason the nation’s exports are in decline is the emergence of fast-growing clusters of high-tech manufacturers backed by the Chinese government, which have taken orders away from Taiwanese flat-panel and electronics manufacturers.
Chen said the time has probably come for Taiwan to abandon the contract manufacturing model and look for its next strategic industry.
She also questioned if the Executive Yuan has any substantive plans in this regard.
The Legislative Yuan recently adopted a resolution stipulating that, before a new legislature is formed, all planned acquisitions of Taiwanese businesses by Chinese companies should be frozen, she added.
The Investment Commission would also not be allowed to review plans by China’s Tsinghua Unigroup to buy stakes in Siliconware Precision Industries Co and ChipMos Technologies.
Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said that the “red supply chain” is a structural problem that would take some time to deal with, according to Control Yuan member Lee Yueh-der (李月德).
On the policy of liberalizing Chinese investment in Taiwan, Mao said the executive and legislative branches should cooperate to establish a coordination and handling mechanism to facilitate industrial development.
According to a statement issued by the Control Yuan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said it would provide local companies with help on how to make use of the Internet of Things and big data to turn price competition into value competition.
The ministry is also to bolster talent recruitment and research and development of local companies in order to help them maintain their technological lead.
Meanwhile, Mao said adjustments to industrial structure and upgrading of exports would also take time.
He said he hopes to create new development opportunities for the biotechnological, medical and agricultural sectors through the government’s “Productivity 4.0” initiative.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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