When Hong Kong was still under British rule, residents often used the phrase "red fat cat" (
Beijing has apparently found a new candidate for the title in Taiwan, in the person of Wang Yung-ching (
When Wang asked the Taiwan government on Tuesday to accept the "one China" principle, he was trying to give a political justification to Beijing for his several investment projects now underway in China.
Wang has always used a two-faced strategy whenever he has faced business difficulties in Taiwan. He has tried to win better deals from the government by publicly lambasting it and by stirring up fears that the Formosa group was about to leave Taiwan for greener pastures -- thereby putting tremendous pressure on the Ministry of Economic Affairs. He has also curried favor in Beijing to lay the groundwork for FPG's investments in China. His argument was that if the Taiwan government does not allow FPG to set up plants in China, then it must give the conglomerate the best deals possible at home in terms of loans and land prices. In this way, FPG managed to squeeze highly favorable investment terms from the KMT government for its Sixth Naphtha Cracker Plant project in Yunlin County.
Taiwan's businesses have been withering, Wang said, because almost nine out of 10 export processing businesses have moved to China -- even high-tech companies have been moving their production bases over the past few years. But he then paradoxically asked the government to encourage businesses to migrate to China.
Rapid industrial migration overseas, however, will only further aggravate the domestic economy, given the inevitable unemployment and capital outflows it will trigger. Perhaps only a muddled-headed old man like Wang could have uttered such contradictory remarks. Even more surprising was Wang's comment that "There is no enmity between Taiwan and the mainland; [the two sides] should treat each other on an equal basis." Wang appears confused about who his audience should be -- he should be trying that line out on the leaders in the Zhongnanhai, given China's military threats and its constant bullying of Taiwan on every front.
Ever since martial law was abolished, Taiwan has consistently worked to ease enmity across the Taiwan Strait by promoting various exchanges. What has China done? Launched missiles into the seas off Taiwan in the run-up to the 1996 presidential election and staged large-scale military maneuvers including practice invasions. And of course, it rants hysterically at almost any mention of Taiwan in the international arena. Would Wang just have the people of Taiwan give in quietly to such intimidation? The people of Taiwan would be better served by Wang going to Beijing and fighting there for an equitable status for Taiwan, instead of muttering into his teacup here in Taipei.
Wang is going to Beijing later this month. But he won't be fighting for Taiwan or its people. He'll just be looking for ways to fatten his profits. He will be negotiating for several FPG investment projects, including a US$5 billion petrochemical project in central China. His motives for saying what he did on Tuesday cannot be more obvious.
Taiwan has lost Trump. Or so a former State Department official and lobbyist would have us believe. Writing for online outlet Domino Theory in an article titled “How Taiwan lost Trump,” Christian Whiton provides a litany of reasons that the William Lai (賴清德) and Donald Trump administrations have supposedly fallen out — and it’s all Lai’s fault. Although many of Whiton’s claims are misleading or ill-informed, the article is helpfully, if unintentionally, revealing of a key aspect of the MAGA worldview. Whiton complains of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s “inability to understand and relate to the New Right in America.” Many
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