Most Foreigners are anti-KMT?

[Feiren]

It's much harder to find qualified Chinese employees there. Also, FDI is much more important to China's economy than to Taiwan's. Taiwan can raise the US$5 billion for a chip foundry from its own domestic capital markets even today. Foreign investors come to Taiwan for specialized purposes and don't need or want so many foreign employees on the ground. Unfortunately for us. This is not going change.

[taihan]

Taihan, you say the economy was 'robust until last year'. I take issue with that, its clear it has been quite bad for the last 8 years if you ask any regular workers here how much they have been getting paid.

So you rate the strength of an economy is based on whether wages grow or not? How convenient for you to choose THAT benchmark. Sorry, but you can't convince me that a borderline developed country with a GDP growing annually at 4.6%, an unemployment rate of 3.9%, where per-capita income is stagnant but still at $29,800, and where consumer inflation is 1.1% is in a sorry state.

The figures come from the 2008 CIA World Factbook. In fact, the CIA obviously doesn't share your clarity about the gloom and doom situation in Taiwan until last year. This is their overview of Taiwan's economy in 2007:

"Taiwan has a dynamic capitalist economy with gradually decreasing guidance of investment and foreign trade by government authorities. In keeping with this trend, some large, government-owned banks and industrial firms are being privatized. Exports have provided the primary impetus for industrialization. The island runs a trade surplus, and its foreign reserves are among the world's largest. Despite restrictions on cross-strait links, China has overtaken the US to become Taiwan's largest export market and, as of 2006-07, its second-largest source of imports after Japan. China is also the island's number one destination for foreign direct investment. Strong trade performance in 2007 pushed Taiwan's GDP growth rate above 4%, and unemployment is below 4%."

Yep, sounds pretty decent to me. Note too the bit about the development of the China trade DESPITE the restrictions on cross-strait links.

Unless you have real cross-the-board figures that show how Taiwan was faring so poorly in 2007 (saying wages were stagnant alone doesn't cut it), I can't view your economy-related comments as credible.

[headhonchoII]

There's very little real foreign investment in Taiwan , anyone who works in business here will know that.
Quoting some 'facts' from the CIA doesn't make it right, ask George Bush! Real wages have stagnated or gone down over the last 10 years while student fees, food, energy have become more expensive. I'm not sure how anyone could deny this, it's a phenonmenon across almost every industry here, ask anybody in almost any sector from IT professionals, middle management, pilots, cleaners, restaurant workers, new graduates, teachers...the list goes on and on. As far as I'm concerned the income in people's pockets is the real mark of success of economy, not what a few business owners cream off at the top or by total trading amounts (i.e. import/export figures), doesn't really mean anything. Day dream believers, we are back on Fantasy Island again!

[mr_boogie]

As far as I know, the DPP cannot make much in terms of real salaries, unless they go on and institute a minimum wage increase. But it is hard to implement this in a country where companies can simply close doors and move to the neighbour looking for less expensive labourers.

So, according to you, the DPP should have increase real salaries via some sort of magic that would make everyone richer, and make companies still stay in Taiwan producing the same products that they can produce next door for half the price.

Why don't you go ask to Compal, Winstron, Chimei, Foxconn, Asus and so on why they went to open factories in China, and didn't stay in Taiwan? Why didn't they increase the salaries of the Taiwanese workers in the last years?

Of course, Taiwanese can simply move on to China to try to get better salaries there.... that is what happens eveywhere in the world.

[taihan]

There's very little real foreign investment in Taiwan , anyone who works in business here will know that.
Quoting some 'facts' from the CIA doesn't make it right.

Oh, I see. So because you don't personally agree with these "facts" as you term them, then they must be wrong.

Hey, nobody here said Taiwan was perfect. I did not claim it was the land of economic gold where all problems were a thing of a distant past until the big, bad KMT came to town. But it is a fact, whether you like it or not, that under the DPP, Taiwan was not the declining cesspool that you are making it out to be.

[headhonchoII]

No I didn't blame the DPP on all the problems which are mostly to do with the types of businesses here and the short-term mentality Taiwanese people have, but you were saying that the economy was going great when it patently hasn't been for the vast majority of people here..you seriously misrepresented the situation as it was. The DPP seriously lacked a vision of how to replace industry that had migrated to China and in fact just seemed to promote a policy of investing in SE Asia! They didn't institute proper reforms of social welfare system, Taiwan has enough money to do that if it wanted to, just needs to tax high earners more...not saying KMT is doing any better in regard to FDI or social welfare yet either.

[twocs]

So you rate the strength of an economy is based on whether wages grow or not? How convenient for you to choose THAT benchmark. Sorry, but you can't convince me that a borderline developed country with a GDP growing annually at 4.6%, an unemployment rate of 3.9%, where per-capita income is stagnant but still at $29,800, and where consumer inflation is 1.1% is in a sorry state.

The figures come from the 2008 CIA World Factbook. In fact, the CIA obviously doesn't share your clarity about the gloom and doom situation in Taiwan until last year.

Not per capita income, but PPP adjusted per capita GDP, right?

Usually I trust World Factbook, but I don't really trust the $29,800 figure, as I think that the figure is extremely skewed towards Asia. If prices of food and goods in Asia and the US are equal, the nominal per-capita GDP of Taiwan, which is actually $17,111/year, would reflect the "purchasing power" of Taiwanese. I think that Taiwanese don't get paid enough for the work they do, but that the low salaries are going to persist for decades. Taiwan certainly won't see $30K per capita income by 2012 like Ma Ying Jeou promised in his election campaign, or even by 2016, and that's not because of the current gloomy economy. Even if the GDP increased 5%/year and the population of Taiwan was constant, it would only rise to $25,000 by 2016. It doesn't add up unless the GDP grows >7% every year.

[mr_boogie]

he wants to "clean up" part of the population, so that he can get to the 30K figure...

that would be consistent with past KMT policies...

[TaipeiDawg]

A lot of these numbers are meaningless, especially the FDI figure. If you check into that you will realise that most FDI in Taiwan is from Taiwanese owned foreign registered firms who had previously moved their capital out of Taiwan for whatever reason. Other large amounts listed as FDI are actually strategic partnerships where Japanese companies co-invested with local companies in their foundry/LCD plant production. It's easy to know there is not a lot of 'real FDI' in Taiwan as you don't see many foreign businessmen or executives working here.
There are many small companies operated by Japanese in particular here taking advantage of weak NT to export stuff to Japan. There are also many businesses opening direct sales offices rather than going through distributors, the net effect on the economy is pretty much the same after the distributor loses the business.
The same phenomenon exists regarding tourist numbers that are regularly touted, while hiding the fact that many of the visitors included in the 'tourist numbers' are here on business.
Other figures quoted here are suspect, for instance cargo figures. Is Kaoshiung (Gaoxiong) (Gaoxiong) really handling more trade now than 10 years ago, I don't really believe that, it used to carry the most cargo in the world. And as the previous poster said, weak growth leaves Taiwan far behind countries such as Korea which have forged ahead.

It's a bit conflicting to say there are less foreign businessmen working here yet saying that the tourist numbers are inflated by people coming here for business. Anyway, I daresay that less companies are sending people to Taiwan on expensive expat packages when there is a highly educated workforce here that is generally competent in English - not to mention a stable business environment.....

[Deuce Dropper]

It's a bit conflicting to say there are less foreign businessmen working here yet saying that the tourist numbers are inflated by people coming here for business. Anyway, I daresay that less companies are sending people to Taiwan on expensive expat packages when there is a highly educated workforce here that is generally competent in English - not to mention a stable business environment.....

reality is that Taiwan is no longer a distinct entity to a lot of firms as many foreign companies have restructured it as a sales office whose employees answer to a 'Greater China' HQ in Shanghai or HK.

in 2000 the term 'Greater China' didn't exist in many companies lexicon, and Taiwan had independent operations and leadership on the island.

With the greater focus on Mainland China in the last decade (you basically cannot do business in Asia without access to China) the thought of having your operation centered in Taiwan made no sense without direct links to China where much of the production takes place.

Sure you can say 'China wouldn't deal with Chen' but that is a cop out. There is always a way to get things done. And the Chen administration didn't get things done.

As a result, a lot of the management level foreigners and foreign business owners who came here during Taiwan's production boom were forced to move to China because their production moved there or their company restructured and moved their core operations to China.

Had direct links been in place, many of them would have stayed and kept part of their operations (white collar back office type stuff) on the island as Taiwanese office workers were more educated and capable. But with no direct links and difficult transit flights (taking half a day or more) through Cheju, HK or Macau this became an impossibility.

Not being able to find a way for the island to maximize benefits from the boom going on next door was a huge blunder and a blunder Taiwanese are still paying for.

Today you have 1-2M Taiwanese professionals plying their trade in the Mainland along with countless relocated Western professionals. Taiwan suffers a HUGE brain drain, and loses all this tax revenue and becomes more and more of a backwater.

But oh yeah, the Mainlanders are bad guys. This is big boy shit, and you gotta suck it up and do what is best for your country. The Greens didn't do that.