The government needs to address ties with China and offer more assistance to Taiwanese businesses, rather than just asking them to invest in Southeast Asia as part of its “new southbound policy,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Lin Li-chan (林麗嬋) said yesterday.
Lin, who is of Cambodian descent and married to a Taiwanese, said that the government’s push to expand Taiwanese companies’ presence in Southeast Asia would be challenging if relations across the Taiwan Strait are not handled well.
Southeast Asian nations might not be willing to work with Taiwan if they believe that doing so could jeopardize relations with China, Lin said.
Lin founded the Association of Development and Communication for New Immigrants and is Taiwan’s first “new immigrant” lawmaker.
The government needs to enhance its role in Southeast Asia, she said.
Citing Cambodia as an example — where she returned for a visit during the current legislative recess — Lin said that Taiwan does not have a representative office in that nation, nor in Laos.
In one example, the family of a Taiwanese who worked and died in Cambodia made an insurance claim, which required documents stamped by the Chinese embassy in Cambodia before the Cambodian government would certify such papers, she said.
The documents then had to be stamped by the Cambodian embassy in Vietnam before they were sent to Taiwan’s representative office in Vietnam — which is responsible for affairs involving Cambodia — for Taipei to recognize them.
From her perspective as an immigrant in Taiwan, Lin said the government’s “new southbound policy” is a positive development, but there are challenges ahead.
She said that simplified Chinese characters are more commonly used in Southeast Asia than traditional Chinese characters.
Also, the yuan is accepted at many tourist attractions in the region, while the New Taiwan dollar is not, she said.
There are 360,000 Taiwanese who have a parent born outside Taiwan — mainly in China or Southeast Asia — and 200,000 of them are students, she said.
The second generation of immigrants from Southeast Asia should be the talent pool for the government’s “new southbound policy,” as they and their parents are likely to have better local connections in the region, Lin said.
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