Taiwan's top technologist yesterday revealed what he considers to be "fallacies" surrounding the government's knowledge-based economy plan.
In a keynote speech delivered yesterday at the Presidential Office, Morris Chang (
The chairman of the world's largest made-to-order semiconductor company also questioned whether the main focus of a knowledge-based economy is actually "knowledge."
Council of Economic Planning and Development (CEPD
The government's plan is divided in to six parts: setting up a job-creating mechanism to help establish new enterprises; expanding Internet infrastructure; expanding applications for information technology and Web sites; revising the educational system; building a service-oriented government; and taking steps to prevent Taiwan from losing its technological edge.
Despite the soundness of the government's plan, Chen immediately embraced Morris Chang's views yesterday, saying that Chang's eight-point examination of the nation's knowledge-based economy "is unwittingly the same as his own ideas."
Chang said that another myth is that the knowledge-based economy is high-tech centered, with little relation to other industrial sectors. The high-tech sector will not necessary lead to a concomitant all-out growth in GNP, he said.
Chang also questioned whether a knowledge-based economy could be developed independently of a host of factors, including labor issues, and legaland ethical aspects.
He also questioned, in what seemed to be a source of discomfort to the Cabinet, whether Taiwan has any choice but to attempt to implement a knowledge-based economy.
The government has rationalized its plan by citing the high-tech led boom that has propelled the US on its longest period of economic expansion. Chen said that incomes would not necessarily rise across-the-board in a knowledge-based economy.
Hu Chung-ying (
"There has been a long economic expansion in the US," Hu said. "The slowdown is a normal cyclical downturn and has little correlation to the knowledge-based-economy principle."
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