Economy – Taiwan Insight

Cross-border Movement of Labour between Taiwan and the Philippines: A Taiwanese NGO Worker’s Perspective

25 November 2022 Yi Yu Lai

Written by Yi-Yu Lai. Lennon Wong is the director of a shelter for migrant workers in Taiwan. Before joining the shelter in the early 2010s, he was already a labour activist and worked in the Chinese Federation of Labour and the First Commercial Bank Union. Although his prior work was not directly relevant to migrant workers in Taiwan, his engagement with the labour movement may have started with the issue of migrant workers from Southeast Asia. As a result, we may thus understand the cross-border movement of migrant workers between Taiwan and the Philippines through some of his observations.

Semiconductor industry: a shield to Taiwan or the source of insecurity?

18 November 2022 Adrian Chiu

Written by Guo-Huei Chen and Ming-En Hsiao. That is why Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is a key element in the strategic competition between the United States and China in science and technology. Losing Taiwan is equivalent to losing the power to speak in future innovative technology. Neither the United States nor China can afford the consequences of losing Taiwan’s semiconductors.

Taiwan’s Single-Payer National Health Insurance at a Crossroads: Barbarians at the Gate and Way Forward

11 November 2022 samluowei

Written by Tsung-Mei Cheng. Chronic financial instability and the difficulty the government has with raising the premium rate to balance the budget aside, the NHI faces myriad other challenges, including rising patient-consumer expectations and demands for ever more and better health care, the high cost of new medical technology and its coverage, provider payment reform, health care workforce shortages, ageing of the population, building long term care, etc.

The Interaction between Taiwan’s Indigenous and Migrant Workers: Lessons from Construction Industry

21 October 2022 Yi Yu Lai

Written by Hsuan Lo. Translated by Yi-Yu Lai. In Taiwan, a narrative concerning the opposition of migrant and Indigenous workers appears to be a continuing source of contention. In 1997, director Ming-hui Yang released a documentary, “Please Give Us a Job.” One of the film’s impressive scenes depicts an off-duty Indigenous worker sobbing uncontrollably in front of the camera while lamenting the employment difficulties caused by the introduction of migrant workers. In 2016, Chen Ying, a DPP legislator from the Puyuma Indigenous community, brought this issue back into the public eye by highlighting the impact of “illegal migrant workers” on the employment of Indigenous workers. Unfortunately, the notion that “migrant workers take jobs from Indigenous workers” has become deeply ingrained.

Labours of g0v: Rethinking Work from the Perspective of Data Activists

11 October 2022 samluowei

Written by Aaron Su. How does such civic tech activism – whose results have indeed been transformative – proceed amidst limited resources and a wide variety of training and vocations? Beyond the material outputs of g0v, we must also not forget what activists and scholars have had to say about the distribution of infrastructural or emotional labour within grassroots or activist communities. There are members whose caretaking, organizing, and managing help to reproduce the bare conditions for activist work in the first place. Others have further written about the particular costs of serving as a digital activist, noting that such practices often intensify demands on members in ways inflected by class background, gender, and other social factors.

Fair Go for Taiwan: Perspectives from Taiwanese diaspora in Australia

21 September 2022 Yi Yu Lai

Written by Mei-Fen Kuo. A recent exhibition mounted by Australia’s government office in Taiwan––“40 years, 40 stories”––highlights the importance of people-to-people ties linking Taiwan and Australia since the office opened in Taipei in 1981. These are timely stories. In an exhibition of its own, Beijing recently lobbed missiles over Taiwan’s people’s heads to show that its territorial claims to Taiwan will not be slighted. Australia does not challenge those claims, but it does maintain close relations with people in Taiwan through trade, education, technology, and cultural exchanges, which have flourished despite the lack of official recognition.

INDIA-TAIWAN RELATIONS: RIGHT TIME TO MOVE AHEAD

20 September 2022 Yi Yu Lai

Written by Jasinder Singh Sodhi. Relations between India and Taiwan have improved significantly over the last two decades, even though the two nations do not have formal diplomatic ties. This is because India officially recognises China as part of its One-China Policy. In the political field, India and Taiwan are both grappling with the Chinese standoff in the Himalayas and Taiwan Strait, respectively. Therefore, reinforcing India-Taiwan relations can stand up to the expansionist plans of China since China is incapable of launching a two-front war on India and Taiwan simultaneously. Thus, the stronger relations India and Taiwan have, the better results it will have for mutual national interest and national security.

Truss or Sunak? Who is better for Taiwan?

2 September 2022 Adrian Chiu

Written by Ben Seal. In the previous general election, which took place in December 2019, just over forty million voters gave Boris Johnson a majority of eighty seats. This summer, after the resignation of Johnson, around 180,000 Conservative Party members are choosing who will be the UK’s next Prime Minister. Will they select Sunak or Truss? As the voting goes into the final days, polls suggest that Truss will be the most likely victor, but my piece attempts to examine how both contenders would affect the UK’s relationship with Taiwan.

The Economic Impact of COVID-19 Outbreaks in Migrant Workers’ (MW) Dormitories in Singapore and Taiwan

22 August 2022 samluowei

Written by Jackson Teh. In crux, we should note the link between the general public’s health, both physically and mentally, with that of the migrant workers: only when local community cases are stable, and their sentiments positive, are migrant workerss allowed to move around and go to work; only when migrant workerss move around and go to work, can they feel better and hopeful about themselves and the future. Therefore, the mental well-being of both groups in a country must not be seen as isolated variables.

Tension Across the Taiwan Strait: Perspectives, Concerns & Dynamics from South Asia

15 August 2022 Adrian Chiu

Written by Raian Hossain. This article looks into the reactions and concerns from Asian countries due to the complex triangular relationship of the US-China-Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait. While analysing the dynamics, it also unpacks whether this ongoing crisis would further shrink Taiwan’s space for engagements in the international space like trade, commerce, and people-to-people connectivity (not focused on diplomatic recognition). Therefore, this article takes the South Asian region as a case study to answer these two queries.

The Rivalry Between Mainland China and Taiwan: How They View Each Other’s Application to Join the CPTPP

11 July 2022 Yi Yu Lai

Written by Liqiao Guo. This article clarifies how the mainland and Taiwan view each other’s applications and tries to find the similarities and differences by addressing three vital questions. First, what are the motivations for both sides, respectively? Second, Who and why do they think they can finally join? Third, what would the final result be and its impact on cross-strait relations and the Asian-Pacific region’s economic order? This research details some of the essential official statements and academic contributions to the overall debate on both sides. Although I primarily draw on official statements and academic contributions to elucidate the discussion, I also consider newspaper articles, mainly because they provide an insight into an influential and growing antagonistic perspective.

Taiwan’s Catalytic Role for Resilient Development in the CPTPP

8 July 2022 Yi Yu Lai

Written by Peter C. Y. Chow. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP) was considered as one of the pathways to a Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific (FTAAP) during the APEC meeting in 2014. Hence, membership enlargement in this trade bloc will enhance its sphere of regional influence, leading toward the path of free trade in the Asia Pacific. CPTPP is the highest standard of trade accord which includes what is not in the WTO-the WTO extra and those beyond the WTO- the WTO plus. Therefore, it symbolises a gold standard of trade liberalisation in the 21st century.

1 2 3 … 15 »