Lack of steel data reveals hypocrisy in Taiwan
Taipei Times reported that on March 8, the US imposed punitive tariffs on imported steel and aluminum products under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 due to national security concerns, while offering some nations the opportunity to be exempted from the tariffs. Countries such as Canada, Mexico and the EU states are temporarily excluded from the list, and Taiwan sent officials to the US to make its case for exemption. There were reports that the US asked Taiwan to detail the portion of Chinese content in Taiwanese steel exports.
However, Taiwan does not track these data, and so the government’s efforts came to no avail.
In a bid to resolve the issue, Premier William Lai urged the Ministry of Economic Affairs and other concerned agencies to check the portion of Chinese content not only in Taiwanese steel, but also products in other industrial supply chains.
Mr Lai’s instructions were met unexpectedly with fierce criticism from pan-blue camp media outlets and political commentators, who accused the premier of placing all the blame on the “China factor.”
The question is, why do these media outlets and KMT politicians oppose Mr Lai’s proposal to thoroughly examine the Chinese content in Taiwanese products?
The public must pay more attention to this seemingly trivial issue: This is a big factor behind the nation’s deteriorating economic dynamics, which has continued for a dozen years and resulted in the so-called “22K curse” a starting monthly salary of only NTD 22,000 for university graduates.
It might be difficult to believe that not only does Taiwan not have data on Chinese content ratios, but the following data, which are vital to the nation’s economic development, are also lacking.
First, there are no data on Taiwanese investments in China. What the Investment Commission discloses is only the amount of money it has reviewed and approved and this figure is a far cry from actual investments. Any planning and forecasting of the nation’s economy based on this inaccurate data will of course go wrong.
The “6-3-3 policy” proposed by former president Ma Ying-jeou’s administration was an example of national economic development goals based on completely inaccurate data; in the end, the policy misled the nation.
Investigating the actual amount of money that Taiwanese businesses invest in China is not so much a difficult task as it is a matter of lacking determination.
In 2005, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission outsourced a study of actual Taiwanese investments in China. The report showed that as of early 2005, total Taiwanese investments in China accounted for about half, or USD 281 billion, of total foreign direct investments in China. This is drastically different from the USD 45.4 billion reported by the Investment Commission.
If the US could make such a precise estimate, there is no reason why Taiwan cannot do so. It is more likely that these efforts are being hampered by the political ideology of responsible officials.
Second, the government does not have statistics and analyses on Chinese components in Taiwanese listed companies. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, for instance, boasts an annual revenue of NT$4 trillion (US$135 billion), but it is not clear how much of that comes from Taiwan or China.
About 80% of Taiwanese listed companies have invested in China, but it is not clear how much revenue they generate there. This is basic accounting data, but the ministry and the Financial Supervisory Commission do not have them, nor do they require these companies to provide the real data.
Source : Taipei Times