The semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said it has helped resolve nearly half of all complaints it has received from Taiwanese businesspeople operating in China, in a response to an opposition lawmaker’s accusation that Beijing was trying to lure in local investors to “steal” their money.
Foundation official Teng Tai-hsien (鄧岱賢) said the organization has received 2,000 complaints to date, 47 percent of which have been handled in a manner that the petitioners found satisfactory.
Many of the cases were reported more than a decade ago, with little data for the foundation to go on, but it is doing its best to investigate, Teng said, citing a Taiwanese business seeking indemnity from a claim by the local government in Qingdao, Shandong Province, which has already received 500 million yuan (US$80.56 million) out of a requested 1 billion yuan.
The statement came after Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) on Tuesday told a press conference that China’s preferential treatment for Taiwanese investors is just a way to draw them in and snatch their business assets.
Chen Yun-huo (陳允火), a former member of Taiwan’s now-defunct national assembly, said he invested 40 million yuan in a real-estate development project in Xiamen, only to find that the co-investor, a Chinese company, had put no money into the venture, sparking a legal battle among shareholders in the project.
Also present was businessman Huang Hsi-tsung (黃錫聰), who said he has been involved in legal action for 14 years running over 10 million yuan in loans someone took out in his name using a forged seal.
Huang, who had invested in a motorcycle plant in China’s Fujian Province and subcontracted operation management to another Taiwanese business, said he has won seven civil suits, but the ownership certificates for his property have been seized by a local bank, handed to the courts and then given to the Taiwan Affairs Office branch in the province.
“This is an illegal seizure,” he said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS