Describing himself as a “mercantilist,” Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) yesterday vowed to be businesses’ “best friend” if elected president.
“On a certain level, I am a mercantilist,” the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate told a forum with business representatives in Taichung.
“If businesses are doing well, Taiwan will do well; if businesses have hope, the whole of Taiwan will have hope,” he said.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
Taiwan’s situation can best be summed up by the word “stifling,” as Taiwanese are mired in concerns about the future of their career and children, he said.
If elected, he would work to bring hope and life to the nation, he said.
“I would do my best to make the government the best friend of business, so we can grow together. The last thing it should do is to be an obstacle to business,” he said.
Strong businesses would increase tax revenue, allowing the government to improve education and take care of disadvantaged people, he said.
If businesses cannot make money, it would lead to a “national security crisis,” he said.
While President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration brags about returning Taiwanese companies investing nearly NT$700 billion (US$22.94 billion) in the nation, “investigations show that the actual cash flow [from these businesses] into Taiwan is zero,” he said.
Han’s policy plans include setting up a fund and a team to assist small and medium-sized businesses, deputy head of Han’s policy advisory team Woody Duh (杜紫軍) told the forum.
Han also plans to adjust the Tsai administration’s policy of “one rest day and one flexible day off,” as the current system “lacks flexibility,” Duh said.
If elected, Han would allow employers and employees to jointly decide their rest days, as long as employees are taking two days off every week, he said.
To ensure that negotiations are fair, the government would provide a negotiation mechanism for companies that do not have labor unions, he added.
Asked about Han’s remarks about returning Taiwanese businesses, Tsai said New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) have all spoken about companies returning to invest in their cities.
“I do not understand why a mayor who has not been working would think no Taiwanese companies have returned to invest, when all the mayors who have been working have already confirmed that,” Tsai said, referring to Han taking a three-month leave to focus on his presidential campaign.
Moreover, Han in January visited a returning Taiwanese business in Tainan to learn about its investment plan, the president added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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