Wed, Jan 26, 2011 page2

• Donation plan a ploy: analysts

  WHAT ABOUT NEEDY CHINESE? An academic said letting local governments decide whether to participate in a tycoon’s handout was cooperating with China’s strategy

  • By Lin Shu-hui / Staff Reporter, with CNA
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  Commenting on Chinese tycoon Chen Guangbiao’s (陳光標) scheduled visit to Taiwan, during which he reportedly plans to make substantial cash donations to Taiwan’s needy, an academic said yesterday that China’s infiltration of Taiwan was strategically planned.

  Wang To-far (王塗發), a professor of economics at National Taipei University, said Chen’s plan was an obvious attempt to buy votes for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and that China has always claimed that it would be cheaper to buy Taiwan than to attack it.

  “Why else would Chen give away money in Taiwan when there are 150 million people in China who make less than US$1 per day?” Wang said.

  Taiwan Brain Trust chairman Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said China was hostile toward Taiwan and if China really wanted to make donations to Taiwan, it should do so via social welfare organizations or foundations, rather than just spreading money the way it was planning to do.

  Wang said the way China was allowing Chen to travel to Taiwan to give away money by letting people line up had a clear strategic objective. When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in government, China used the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to pressure the DPP to deregulate agricultural exports, following the same strategy, he said.

  The question concerning Chen’s plan was how the government will respond, Wang said. If Chen is allowed to enter Taiwan and if local governments were allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they would participate, they would be cooperating with China’s strategy, Wang said.

  Saying that Taiwan’s average annual income is about US$17,000, while in China it is less than US$4,000, China would become an international laughing stock by not helping its own poor while a rich businessman comes to Taiwan to donate money, Wang said.

  Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), a researcher at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University and former chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, said the Chinese government is using criminals and leaders of local factions to directly influence local governments.

  With these elements buying out smaller political parties and with all their financial sources coming from China, they will promote China’s unification goals, said Wu, adding that all Chinese investments in Taiwan are based on strategic considerations, and that Taiwan’s government does not know how to deal with the matter, nor is it trying to deal with it.

  Local charity groups, however, said it was time to get rid of the custom of “being a silent good Samaritan.”

  Tsao Chien (曹儉), an executive with Eden Social Welfare Foundation’s Northern Taiwan Division, said US philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet make their donations widely known.

  Taiwanese tycoons should invite the media to cover their charitable activities, too, Tsao said, adding that it was time for them to shed their modesty in “doing good deeds without letting others know.”

  Chang Fu-shan (張伏杉), head of the Communications and Marketing Division of the Social Resources Department of the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families, said low-income people in need of money to celebrate the Lunar New Year would not mind standing in a long line to get the philanthropist’s “red envelope” of NT$10,000.

  Some in the middle class might think that by staging such a high-profile donation campaign in Taiwan, Chen would be hurting the dignity of Taiwan’s poor, Chang said.

  However, for the truly poor, who are having difficulty surviving from day to day, “face” cannot replace bread, Chang said.

  “How could they put dignity above continuing to live?” he said.

  Chen’s high-profile donation in Taiwan is aimed at arousing people’s sense of charity, Tsao said, calling the action “very correct.”
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