A forum in Taipei yesterday urged the government to adopt supplementary measures to protect the interests of Taiwanese workers following the signing of a cross-strait trade pact that will allow more Chinese professionals to work in Taiwan.
Liu Chin-hsin (劉進興), convener of Taiwan Thinktank’s social and humanities group, said the government should introduce measures requiring companies to hire a fixed number of local workers before recruiting Chinese managers or other professionals.
Liu said he also wanted the government to introduce regulations permitting Chinese professionals to stay the same length of time as Chinese nationals engaged in business.
Although current laws stipulate that Chinese visiting Taiwan for business purposes can stay no longer than three months per visit, there are no regulations on how long they can stay each year. Most Chinese professionals participating in professional activities can stay no more than four months each year, though certain categories of professionals are allowed to stay for a maximum of one year per visit.
Liu also called on the government to apply regulations governing foreign nationals engaged in professional work or business activities to Chinese nationals. Foreign nationals engaged in business must obtain a work permit from the Council of Labor Affairs and receive a monthly wage of no less than NT$47,971. These rules do not apply to their Chinese counterparts.
Finally, Liu proposed the government set a minimum turnover for Chinese companies and strictly review their annual performance to avoid an influx of “hot money” or market speculators.
Liu made the calls during a forum sponsored by Taiwan Thinktank to discuss the impact of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China on domestic employment.
Chang Kuo-cheng (張國城), a Taiwan Thinktank adviser, said the ECFA ushered in a “new three links” with China, facilitating the free flow of manpower, commodities and capital.
Although President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) vowed to ban the entry of more Chinese workers, Chang said the administration has since amended executive orders to allow more Chinese white-collar workers into the country, which will inevitably take away jobs from Taiwanese workers.
Chang Feng-yi (張烽益), executive director of the Taiwan Labor and Social Policy Research Association, said the number of Chinese professionals and Chinese nationals engaged in business activities in Taiwan rose 182 percent from 54,936 in 2007 to 155,137 last year thanks to the revised regulations.
Chang said the revisions were the administration’s attempt to “bury its head in the sand” and created a bridgehead for the entry of more Chinese workers. After the trade pact was signed, Chang said he suspected more Chinese companies would come to Taiwan and bring more Chinese white-collar workers with them.
Comparing the ECFA to Hong Kong’s Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), Wang To-far (王塗發), a professor of economics at National Taipei University, said his study showed the CEPA produced more problems than benefits.
The CEPA resulted in a second wave of industrial migration to China, undermining the manufacturing sector which was almost hollowed out, he said.
The Hong Kong-China pact also made the territory more economically reliant on China, and exacerbated poverty and the gap between rich and poor, he added.
Wang said he suspected the ECFA would have a similar impact on Taiwan, adding that unemployment would rise and the gap between rich and poor widen.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
BACK TO WINTER: A strong continental cold air mass would move south on Tuesday next week, bringing colder temperatures to northern and central Taiwan A tropical depression east of the Philippines could soon be upgraded to be the first tropical storm of this year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the next cold air mass is forecast to arrive on Monday next week. CWA forecaster Cheng Jie-ren (鄭傑仁) said the first tropical depression of this year is over waters east of the Philippines, about 1,867km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), and could strengthen into Tropical Storm Nokaen by early today. The system is moving slowly from northwest to north, and is expected to remain east of the Philippines with little chance of affecting Taiwan,
RSS