President Ma Ying-jeo’s (馬英九) nomination of outgoing Google executive and technology veteran Simon Chang (張善政) as minister-without-portfolio last week raised the hope that a much-needed overhaul of the nation’s high-tech industry is near, as pressure mounts from primary global rival South Korea.
Chang’s resume makes his appointment persuasive. Chang, 57, was head of Google’s Asia-Pacific Hardware Operations, and before that he worked at the National Science Council and was a vice president at local PC firm Acer. With close links to Taiwan’s high-tech circle, Chang can argue for the government to take a more effective approach to benefit high-tech firms and make concrete suggestions to help reshape the industry.
However, Chang cannot restructure an entire industry on his own. All government agencies will have to work together to drive growth, Chang has said.
His remarks reflect the sad truth that for a long time, a critical problem has been the government’s poor efficiency and inability to formulate or carry out adequate policies, which has led to the failure to upgrade the nation’s high-tech sector. Chang said he wants to bridge the gap between the government and local technology companies.
Chang’s concern is genuine. Over a long period of time, the lack of government stimulus programs and financial incentives has meant that Taiwanese companies have been relying on cost cuts to squeeze ever slimmer profits out of the manufacturing process. Because of their small scale and their predominant focus on manufacturing rather than development, they cannot afford the massive research and development outlays of their global rivals. However, the exclusively cost-cutting approach is not enough for them to survive intensifying competition in everything from from chip manufacturing to the PC brand sector.
Taiwan’s shaky DRAM industry is a perfect example. Lacking timely government capital injections and the advanced technologies available to competitors, Taiwanese companies are scaling back production in a fight for survival. They now only play a marginal role in the world’s DRAM industry after their market share shrank to less than 7 percent at the end of last year from 10 percent at its beginning.
There are successful Taiwanese companies that still shine on the global stage. Hon Hai Technology Group and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co are two of them. However, both companies’ chairmen — Terry Gou (郭台銘) of Hon Hai and TSMC’s Morris Chang (張忠謀) — complain that the government has given them little help in growing their companies.
Now, as minister-without-portfolio, Chang wants the government to have a greater say in the development of cloud-computing technology, to make the nation a leading production center. The government should play a central role in developing applications of cloud-computing technology in the medical and education sectors in order to encourage more firms to participate in this industry, he said.
It is good that the government wants to help, but it has to help in the right manner. This is the old fashioned and inappropriate way — identify a promising new industry with stellar growth prospects and then simply encourage firms to join the game.
The government should learn from history. The nation’s debt-ridden DRAM and LCD sectors are the unsuccessful cases. Too many companies entered these “promising” industries after being encouraged to by the government, which only led to oversupply and a price collapse.
The government should listen more, if Chang wants to do his job better. Taiwanese corporate executives have been calling for a pro-business environment that can safeguard their investments and for effective policies that can help boost their competitiveness against global rivals. With or without Chang, these things can be achieved — if the government listens.
The recent passing of Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), known to many as “Big S,” due to influenza-induced pneumonia at just 48 years old is a devastating reminder that the flu is not just a seasonal nuisance — it is a serious and potentially fatal illness. Hsu, a beloved actress and cultural icon who shaped the memories of many growing up in Taiwan, should not have died from a preventable disease. Yet her death is part of a larger trend that Taiwan has ignored for too long — our collective underestimation of the flu and our low uptake of the
For Taipei, last year was a particularly dangerous period, with China stepping up coercive pressures on Taiwan amid signs of US President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, which eventually led his Democratic Party to force him to abandon his re-election campaign. The political drift in the US bred uncertainty in Taiwan and elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific region about American strategic commitment and resolve. With America deeply involved in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the last thing Washington wanted was a Taiwan Strait contingency, which is why Biden invested in personal diplomacy with China’s dictator Xi Jinping (習近平). The return of
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), known affectionately as “Big S,” recently passed away from pneumonia caused by the flu. The Mandarin word for the flu — which translates to “epidemic cold” in English — is misleading. Although the flu tends to spread rapidly and shares similar symptoms with the common cold, its name easily leads people to underestimate its dangers and delay seeking medical treatment. The flu is an acute viral respiratory illness, and there are vaccines to prevent its spread and strengthen immunity. This being the case, the Mandarin word for “influenza” used in Taiwan should be renamed from the misleading
Following a YouTuber’s warning that tens of thousands of Taiwanese have Chinese IDs, the government launched a nationwide probe and announced that it has revoked the Republic of China (Taiwan) citizenship of three Taiwanese who have Chinese IDs. Taiwanese rapper Pa Chiung (八炯) and YouTuber Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) in December last year released a documentary showing conversations with Chinese “united front” related agency members and warned that there were 100,000 Taiwanese holding Chinese IDs. In the video, a Taiwanese named Lin Jincheng (林金城), who is wanted for fraud in Taiwan and has become the head of the Taiwan Youth Entrepreneurship Park