Taiwanese who do business in China should exercise caution, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, after China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) announced a new policy to attract individual investors and entrepreneurs.
At a news conference in Beijing, TAO spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) said that Taiwanese could register as individuals engaged in 122 categories — up from 24 categories — of industrial or commercial activity in specified areas of China.
Taiwanese operating out of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong Province or one of 24 other provinces or municipalities in China would be eligible to register directly with the Chinese government to invest or engage in entrepreneurship in the specified categories, Zhu said.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The Chinese policy, which follows the “31 incentives” for Taiwanese students and businesspeople announced by Beijing in 2018, is evidence that “China’s philosophy of both sides of the Taiwan Strait being one family will not change,” she said.
The policy is part of a pilot program by the Chinese government to spur innovation in trade and the services industry, while “offering support to Taiwanese compatriots, particularly young people, who wish to engage in entrepreneurship” in China, she said.
In Taipei, the council said that policies implemented by the Chinese Communist Party have been detrimental to the business environment in China, and that Taiwanese should anticipate heightened supervision, energy restrictions and the promotion of state-owned enterprises over private entities.
Amid heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait, there is also the risk of Taiwanese in China being identified as financiers of Taiwanese independence, the council said.
Taiwanese planning to enter the Chinese market should carefully consider these factors and evaluate the situation before doing so, it said.
While the new Chinese policy is unlikely to attract a large number of Taiwanese, the council said that it would continue to monitor developments.
The council reminded Taiwanese that laws and social values in China are “very different” from those in Taiwan, and that people planning to operate out of China should “exercise caution.”
Separately, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Mei-hui (王美惠) criticized the new Chinese policy, saying that it is another example of Beijing “promoting unification through economics.”
The policy ultimately aims to defraud Taiwanese investors in China, Wang said.
“Beijing already messes with large corporations operating in China,” she said. “Now individual investors there will also lose their shirts.”
China steals talent and technology from Taiwanese by attracting them to the country through the false pretense of offering beneficial conditions, she said.
“It is not easy to make money in China, particularly now that China is in an economic downturn,” she said.
“That is why many Taiwanese businesspeople have over the past few years been bringing their investment money back home,” she added.
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