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Overreliance on China will not solve Taiwan's problem: president

ROC Central News Agency

2008-01-01 16:54:05

    Taipei, Jan. 1 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian said Tuesday that China is a vast and important market, but not the only market, and overreliance on China will not solve Taiwan's problem.

    The president made the remarks while delivering his New Year's message.

    Chen said, "Taiwan has invested too much, rather than too little, in China." He went on to say that China's ability to attract foreign investment threatens not only Taiwan's national security, but also that of neighboring countries, including Japan and South Korea.

    He cited statistics complied by the Investment Commission of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and organizations in other countries showing that the ratio of Taiwan's annual China-bound investment to its gross domestic product (GDP) increased from 0.81 percent in 2000 to 2.15 percent in 2006.

    That figure is much higher than the highest corresponding ratio over the same period for Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and the United States at 1.71 percent, 0.44 percent, 0.1 percent, and 0.02 percent, respectively, Chen said.

    The ratio of China-bound investment to total outbound investment, meanwhile, more than doubled from 33.93 percent in 2000 to 71.05 percent in 2005, he said.

    The latter figure is exceptionally and disproportionately high compared with the highest ratios seen for neighboring countries during the same period: South Korea at 47.38 percent; Singapore at 33.05 percent; and Japan at 18.94 percent, he continued. "Unrestricted, unsupervised investment in China over the years has been the main factor in the appearance of an M-shaped society in Taiwan," the president said, adding that continued intensive investment in China will not help ease the impacts and predicaments suffered by this M-shaped society, instead, it will only exacerbate current trends, he said.

    He cited the four major goals -- increase investment in Taiwan, create more job opportunities, close the urban-rural divide, and narrow the gap between rich and poor -- which he proposed at the Conference on Sustaining Taiwan's Economic Development in July 2006, as the keys to transforming Taiwan's M-shaped society.

(By Lilian Wu)

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