President Chen Shui-bian (
Although San Sun has overseas factories in the US, the Dominican Republic and China, its Taiwan factories are still the main ones. Not only have the company's employees in Taiwan increased from 600 to more than 1,000 this year, it recently received a large order from Japan. Last year, the annual production of the Taiwan factories alone reached 4 million caps.
As our industries rapidly relocate to China, Day Sheng-tout, (戴勝通) -- chairperson of the company and president of the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, ROC (中小企業協會) -- once said, "an investment outflow triggered by a rise in domestic labor costs should be considered `internationalization, refugee-style' (逃難式國際化). Rises in labor costs should never be taken as a reason for saying that an industry is unable to survive in Taiwan."
Increases in labor costs happen everywhere. It is not surprising at all when an industry relocates its low-technology production lines overseas because of an increase in domestic labor costs. The outflow, however, is usually limited to large enterprises. The number of small- and medium-size enterprises choosing to migrate is usually much smaller. By the same token, most foreign companies investing in Taiwan are multi-national corporations.
The problem is that Taiwan is facing a different kind of investment outflow. At first, downstream factories left, forcing mid-and upstream factories to follow. Later, factory headquarters chose to move, taking their secondary factories with them. In both situations, the outcome was the same the hollowing out of domestic industry and an increase in the unemployment rate.
All the companies that leave for China give the same excuse: "We have no choice but to leave!" Is this true?
If this theory is true, firms from Japan and the US should be migrating to build-up complete up-, mid- and downstream production systems in China. Since wages in these countries are much higher than those in Taiwan, and they are also more advanced in terms of production technologies, why didn't firms from these countries relocate to China, saying they had no choice, before Taiwan's industries did so?
The answer for them is that China is a foreign country. Even if they choose to make investments there, the decision would only be part of a larger strategy to carry out internationalization. They also do not consider overseas investment to be their only option. Although their domestic wages are higher, there are still many ways for them to survive at home.
Thus, Taiwan's business' excuse that they "have no choice" is unjustified. Because of San Sun's determination to keep its roots in Taiwan, the company is now truly on the rise. Its success serves as a powerful example for all companies, proving that it is okay for them not to leave. If their hearts stay in Taiwan, the possibilities for future development of this island will be infinite.
If there were more companies like San Sun, our president would certainly be a happier man who would be able to enjoy lunch with the employees of more companies. Taiwan would not have an unemployment problem and keeping economic growth at above 5, or even 6 or 7 percent would prove to be no problem at all.
Huang Tien-lin is a national policy adviser to the president and former chairman of First Commercial Bank.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS