Han Kuo-yu Being Put in a Straight Jacket, the Economy Will Get Worse

 Han Kuo-yu Being Put in a Straight Jacket, the Economy Will Get Worse

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 27, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

While Han Kuo-yu has been striving for the economy on the front lines, the DPP government has been striving for politics in the rear, thinking of putting Han Kuo-yu in a straight jacket. Han Kuo-yu went to the Mainland to secure export orders for farm and orchard produce and aquaculture products; the DPP government is no match in striving for the economy, so it can only strive for politics, attempting to use the "politics card" to trump the "economics card"; however, would it achieve its purpose?

The DPP government has been telling the people that Taiwan’s economy has performed very well, but overlooked the people’s real feelings. In various international competitiveness assessments, Taiwan has performed well, representing that international institutions look favorably at Taiwan's investment and business environment; however, our country has long faced the a question of a decline in foreign direct investment (FDI). According to data of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) of 2017,Taiwan only attracted FDI of US$3.3 billion, which surprisingly denigrated to the class of Maldives (US$3.2 billion) and Ethiopia (US$3.6 billion).

Where lies the problem? Because Taiwan has overlooked two currently extremely important pillars of international trade and investment: One is the accessibility of securing the principal production resources; as a result of the "serious distinction between friend and foe" that Taiwan harbors toward the Mainland, the Mainland’s many innovative industries with higher production efficiency, as long as our industries have competitive relations with them, the government will, without fail, use all efforts to pin an accusation of "impacting national security," excluding them from outside our borders. Thus, it is difficult to enter into a partnership with Mainland enterprises utilizing the accessibility of their commercial relations to market on the Mainland.

Secondly, the ASEAN countries and South Korea have both signed "free trade agreements" with China, and products exported to each other are exempt from customs duties. If investing in Taiwan for production, then products exported to the Mainland or ASEAN will be burdened with tariffs. In the case of services trade, probably because the local markets are not open to Taiwan, there is fundamentally no way to invest or market them. This is the crucial reason that large-scale international financial institutions have withdrawn from the Taiwan market in droves, and our own financial services industries face enormous difficulties either going south or going west. May we ask how we are going to develop an "international convention and exhibition industry"? Why would foreign-investment industries be willing to come to invest in Taiwan?

Han Kuo-yu said "let merchandise ship out, people come in, Kaohsiung will become prosperous"; this is absolutely not only the needs of farm and orchard produce, but that the holistic economic policy must be changed. If the Tsai government, for the sake of elections, continues to strive for cross-Strait confrontation, the problem of "merchandise can't be shipped out, people can't come in, foreign investment going down the drain" will become even more serious, with even less investment, even lower wages, the brain drain will accelerate even more, and Taiwan's economy would be mired in a pessimistic vicious circle.

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