The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) looks over its decades of governing and the so-called "Taiwan miracle" -- the transformation into a strong economy and democracy -- and pats itself on the back.
It has an elitist attitude and deceives itself into believing Taiwan's success story was somehow all the result of its wisdom and foresight.
Based on that view, it has not changed its belief that such a regime is justified. It gives orders from the top and proposes projects with grandiose titles: the Asia-Pacific Regional Operations Center (APROC), an airline hub connecting Northeast and Southeast Asia; the dual purpose operations center for domestic and foreign enterprises; the "cross-strait common market," the global value-added services center; and the global innovation center.
The KMT has dominated the discussion of such issues. But ironically, in spite of a constant string of proposals and impressive project titles, its economic strategy boils down to one principle: complete reliance upon the US and China.
In the years before the KMT lost the presidential office, its economic policies focused on two areas: the development of the electronic information industry with a focus on manufacturing and the APROC.
The latter was a policy proposed by KMT vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (
To bolster the electronics and information technology sectors, the KMT allowed the manufacturing industry to move operations abroad to gain cheaper access to land, capital and laborers. But the industry focused entirely on original equipment manufacturing of hardware, while the innovative integrated-circuit and software sectors, which focused on research and development, were grossly underestimated.
Companies working in these sectors had difficulty listing themselves on the stock market and gaining access to Hsinchu Science Park and were usually excluded from tax incentives.
The government's priorities back then resulted in an economic reliance on technology from upstream companies and orders from downstream companies. There was no effort to promote independent technologies or brands.
As for Siew's APROC, which was copied from Hong Kong, the KMT tried to used Taiwan's location to build a "greater China" economic zone.
KMT Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (
The "greater China" approach was based on the erroneous judgment that the nation had gone from reliance on the US economy to reliance on the Chinese economy. To compete in the Chinese market, the argument went, Taiwan's manufacturing industry must have access to the same cheap Chinese laborers; the service industry must ape Hong Kong and focus on China; and Taiwan must serve as a door for China's imports and exports.
This is the approach that the KMT is promoting even today.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a different vision for continued economic transformation. That vision is based on creating technology.
From building up brands to developing the service and cultural sectors, the nation's economy must seek its future in innovation. The key is research and development. Industries will gradually gain in independence by innovating and marketing their developments.
The economic policies offered by the DPP and KMT reflect the difference between independence and dependence. They represent two completely different economic maps for the growth of the nation's industries. They are the difference between looking over the horizon to create a global center for logistics and innovation or limiting Taiwan to a "greater China" economic zone.
Hong Kong is an excellent example. It is a door to the Chinese market and some have called it the hub of East Asia. But Hong Kong's success remains limited to taking advantage of its location. It has capitalized on its position to become what it is today, but failed to innovate and grow in other directions. Siew's vision is exactly this: Taiwan, another Asia-Pacific center.
There is no doubt that Siew is right in one aspect. The nation would be foolish not to take advantage of geography to grow. But Taiwan is more than the "city economy" that is Hong Kong. Taiwan has long had global ambitions. Instead of vying to compete within the region, the nation's economy needs to aim for competing globally. Our ambitions should be much higher than simply hoping China and other countries continue to transit their goods through here.
Taiwan and Hong Kong have taken different paths for centuries and should not start mirroring each other now. The pan-blue camp keeps warning against policies it labels as "isolationism," but its strategy would undermine the nation's strides as a global player and turn it into a regional player.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS