2011Vol.41No.2

THE AMERIC AN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN TAIPEI

INDUSTRY FOCUS A Report on the Capital Markets Sector

October 2011

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Vo l u m e 4 1 N u m b e r 1 0

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w w w. a m c h a m . c o m . t w

How Healthy is Taiwan?

TAIWAN BUSINESS TOPICS

為國民健康把脈

October 2011 • VOLUME 41 NUMBER 10 中華郵政北台字第 號執照登記為雜誌交寄 5000 10_2011_Cover.indd 1

NT$150 ISSUE SPONSOR

2011/10/31 11:25:25 AM

AmCham Companies through the Years As AmCham Taipei turns back the clock during this anniversary year to review its six decades of service, it is also asking its member companies to share photo remembrances of their early presence in Taiwan.

The Steven Spielberg film Jurassic Park from Universal Pictures set a box office record in Taiwan with receipts of NT$231 million in 1993.

E.J. Rehfeldt Sr. of the Rehfeldt Group, who passed away earlier this year, and E.J. Rehfeldt Jr. pose with Admiral Soong Chang-chih, the Minister of National Defense, in the 1980s.

10-historical page.indd 2

Jay Van Andel, co-founder of Amway and chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called on President Chiang Ching-kuo in 1980 in preparation for Amway's launch of operations in Taiwan. He was accompanied by Robert Parker, Dutch van Gessel, and Gale Peabody from AmCham Taipei.

United Parcel Service (UPS) launched its inaugural flight on March 6, 1994 at what was then called the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport in Taoyuan.

2011/10/31 11:27:32 AM

CONTENTS

NEWS AND VIEWS

6 Editorial

9 Issues

Aiming for TPP Membership OCTObEr 2011

VOlum E 41, NumbE r 10

一○○年十月號

Publisher

Andrea Wu

Improving the APRC Application Process; Tax Laws and R&D Competitiveness

爭取加入TPP

7 Taiwan briefs

By Jane Rickards

發行人

吳王小珍

Editor-in-Chief

總編輯

Don Shapiro Art Director/

改善永久居留證請領程序；稅賦法規與研 發競爭力

沙蕩

COVEr SECTION

美術主任 /

Production Coordinator

Katia Chen Staff Writer

Jane Rickards

後製統籌

陳國梅 採訪編輯

李可珍

Manager, Publications Sales & Marketing 廣告行銷經理

Irene Tsao

曹玉佳

Translation

Zep Hu

翻譯

胡立宗

American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei 129 MinSheng East Road, Section 3, 7F, Suite 706, Taipei 10596, Taiwan P.O. Box 17-277, Taipei, 10419 Taiwan Tel: 2718-8226 Fax: 2718-8182 e-mail: amcham@amcham.com.tw website: http://www.amcham.com.tw 名稱：台北市美國商會工商雜誌 發行所：台北市美國商會 臺北市10596民生東路三段129號七樓706室 電話：2718-8226 傳真：2718-8182

15 How Healthy is Taiwan?

TOPICS is a publication of the American Chamber of Commerce in

Taipei, ROC. Contents are independent of and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Officers, Board of Governors, Supervisors or members. © Copyright 2011 by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, ROC. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint original material must be requested in writing from AmCham. Production done in-house,

為國民健康把脈 Taiwan’s healthiness scorecard is a mixed bag of pluses and minuses. Life expectancy is high, infant mortality is

low, and infectious diseases have been brought under control. But at the same time Taiwan is seeing more and more health problems common to an affluent society in which people eat well while leading a relatively sedentary lifestyle and finding themselves under stressful work conditions. Cancer, heart disease, and stroke are now the top three causes of death. Taiwan is also a rapidly aging society, with higher incidence of such chronic ailments as diabetes and hypertension. The prevalence of endstage renal disease requiring kidney dialysis is the highest in the world, but the survival rate is unusually high.

By Timothy Ferry 撰文／法緹拇

20 The Importance of Exercise 24 Campaigning Against Smoking

Printing by Farn Mei Printing Co., Ltd. 登記字號：台誌第一零九六九號 印刷所：帆美印刷股份有限公司 經銷商：台灣英文雜誌社 台北市105敦化北路222巷19之1號1樓 發行日期：中華民國一○○年十月 中華郵政北台字第5000號執照登記為雜誌交寄 ISSN 1818-1961

OFFICERS: Chairman/ Bill Wiseman Vice Chairmen/ William E. Bryson / David Pacey Treasurer: Carl Wegner Secretary/ William J. Farrell 2010-2011 Governors: Michael Chu, Alan Eusden, Douglas R. Klein, Cindy Shueh Lin, David Pacey, Stephen Y. Tan, Lee Wood.

2011-2012 Governors: William E. Bryson, Alexander Duncan, Christopher Fay, William Farrell, Steven Lee, Neal Stovicek, Carl Wegner, Bill Wiseman.

2011 Supervisors: George Chao, Varaporn Dhamcharee, Jenny Lin, Ashvin Subramanyam, Ken Wu. COMMITTEES: Agro-Chemical/ Melody Wang; Asset Management/ Christine Jih, Winnie Yu; Banking/ Victor Kuan; Capital Markets/ William Bryson, Jane Hwang, Jimin Kao; Chemical Manufacturers/ David Price; CSR/ Lume Liao, Fupei Wang; Education & Training/ Robert Lin, William Zyzo; Greater China Business/ Helen Chou, Stephen Tan; Human Resources/ Richard Lin, Seraphim Mar, Ashvin Subramanyam; Infrastructure/ L.C. Chen, Paul Lee; Insurance/ Mark OÆDell, Dan Ting, Lee Wood; Intellectual Property & Licensing/ Jason Chen, Peter Dernbach, Jeffrey Harris, Scott Meikle; Manufacturing/ George Chao, Albert Li; Marketing & Distribution/ Christopher Fay, Wei Hsiang, Gordon Stewart; Medical Devices/ Nelson Hsu, Daniel Yu; Pharmaceutical/ David Lin, Edgard Olaizola, Jun Hong Park; Real Estate/ Peter Crowhurst, Kristy Hwang; Retail/ Prudence Jang, Douglas Klein; Sustainable Development/ Eng Leong Goh, Kenny Jeng; Tax/ Cheli Liaw, Jenny Lin, Josephine Peng; Technology/ Revital Golan, R.C. Liang, Jeanne Wang, Deborah Yen; Telecommunications & Media/ Thomas Ee, Joanne Tsai, Jason Wang, Ken Wu; Transportation/ Michael Chu; Travel & Tourism/ Pauline Leung, David Pacey.

4

DOOrKNOCK

25 beef Still a Nagging Issue in u.S.Taiwan relations AmCham’s 2011 Doorknock team finds increased visibility for Taiwan in Washington, due largely to pending legislation.

By Don Shapiro

bOOKS

31 Giving Taiwan Her Due

A review of Why Taiwan Matters by Shelley Rigger.

By J. Bruce Jacobs

TAIWAN buSINESS

34 The View from 1972: u.S. Companies’ Contribution

By Don Shapiro

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octob e r 2011 • Volume 41 n umbe r 10

INDuSTrY F

COVEr SPONSOr

CuS

A leading brand in Health and Well-being Capital Markets Sector: Pluses and Minuses 38 Taiwan Stock Exchange update: Some Wins, Some losses Interview with Taiwan Stock Exchange Chairman Schive Chi

By Don Shapiro 40 Financial Ombudsman System ready for launch

By Philip Liu 42 DrAm Industry Woes Impact bad loan ratios

By Alan Patterson 45 Ongoing legal Disputes over lehman Assets

AmCHAm EVENTS

2 AmCham Companies Through the Years

飛利浦為一健康舒適與優質生活的領導品牌 Philips is a diversified Health and Well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. Philips Healthcare focuses on improving healthcare at lower cost, around the world. By approaching healthcare from the perspective of a patient or a physician, we believe we can ultimately create the best solutions for them. Whether it is in the hospital or in the home, we seek to improve patient outcomes throughout the entire “cycle of care” – from preventive medicine, including screening, through diagnosis and treatment in hospital, to recovery and, where needed, long-term disease or health management in the home. Philips is a market leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as lifestyle products for personal well-being and pleasure with strong leadership positions in male shaving and grooming, portable entertainment and oral healthcare. 飛利浦是一家多元化發展的健康舒適及優質生活公司，專注於 提供及時的創新產品，以改善人們的生活品質。飛利浦醫療保 健致力於以較低的成本，改善全球各地的醫療保健，從病人或 醫師的觀點來提供醫療保健服務，無論是在醫院或家中，都希 望透過完整的照護循環改善病人的狀況：從包括篩檢在內的預 防醫療，經過醫院的診斷與治療，一直到復原，並且在必要時 ，延伸到家中長期的疾病或健康管理。飛利浦在心臟照護、重 症治療、家庭醫療保健、節能照明解決方案、創新照明應用、 以及個人優質生活與娛樂產品皆為市場領導者。在男性刮鬍及 修容、可攜式娛樂產品、及口腔保健產品皆具重要領導地位。

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E d i t o r i a l 爭取加入TPP

Aiming for TPP membershiP

交部長楊進添10月底指出，台灣與 新加坡、紐西蘭洽談經貿協定，有 助台灣參與「泛太平洋戰略經濟夥 伴關係協定」（TPP）。馬英九總統稍早之 前也已表態，台灣政府有意爭取加入TPP。 台灣與新加坡目前正在洽談「台星經濟 夥伴協議」（ASTEP）；與紐西蘭的「經 濟合作協議」（ECA）則剛開始可行性研 究。 台灣主要競爭對手南韓，已經陸續完成 與歐盟及美國的自由貿易協定（F T A）， 迫使台灣居於經貿戰略劣勢。此外，東南亞 國協與中國、南韓、日本的「東協加三」， 可能導致台灣被排除在區域經濟整合之外。 避免邊緣化的策略之一是強化經貿外 交，而參與TPP必須是主要目標之一。一般 認為，推動TPP的用意之一，即是抗衡中國 對亞太區日增的經濟影響力。新加坡、紐西 蘭、智利與汶萊是TPP的四個創始國，因此 楊進添的發言其來有自，更何況包括美國在 內的另外五國也即將加入TPP。TPP雖然是 多邊協議架構，但加入此協議架構實質上幾 乎等同與美國建立F T A關係。然而，有鑑 於美國國內情勢、國際政治發展等因素，台 灣尋求加入TPP恐怕比促成台、美簽訂雙邊 FTA更為務實可行。 TPP未來的路還很長，而且美國必然以高 標準要求架構下的經貿協定。如果台灣決 心加入TPP，就必須展現完全開放市場的決 心，包括政治敏感度很高的農產品。 台灣也必須說服美國，自己是個言出必 行的可靠貿易伙伴。台北市美國商會叩門之 旅訪問團於十月初訪問華府時發現，牛肉爭 議已經嚴重傷害美國政府對台灣的信賴。若 無法恢復互信關係，美國政府願意大力支持 台灣加入TPP的機會也很小。 商品與服務方面的歧見也必須化解。其 中之一是行政院金管會正要求外商銀行將境 外的資料處理中心移回台灣。參考韓美自由 貿易協定，金融機構的資料必須能夠自由跨 境流通，因此美國政府必然要求台灣比照處 理相關事務。 參與TPP是個重要目標。但台灣必須現在 就開始修補與美國行政部門與國會的關係， 因為這兩個政府部門都開始懷疑台灣是否還 是一個可靠的貿易伙伴。

oreign Minister Timothy Yang called a press conference this month to point out that progress in enhancing Taiwan’s trade ties with Singapore and New Zealand could have the added significance of paving the way for this country’s participation in the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade bloc. The remark follows President Ma Ying-jeou’s recent statement of the government’s intention to pursue eventual TPP membership.

Taiwan is already negotiating a bilateral economic cooperation agreement with Singapore, and Taiwan and New Zealand recently announced plans to begin exploratory talks toward a similar pact.

The recent conclusion by Korea, Taiwan’s main trading rival, of FTAs with both the United States and the European Union raises concerns that Taiwan may be placed at a competitive disadvantage. In addition, the prospect that the trade pact between ASEAN and China will be gradually enlarged to include Korea and Japan presents the specter of a formidable regional bloc from which Taiwan would be excluded.

To avoid such isolation, Taiwan needs to intensify its trade diplomacy – and inclusion in the TPP, which is being developed in part as a counterweight to Chinese influence in the region, should be one of the chief goals. Singapore and New Zealand are among the four charter members of the TPP, which was the reason for Minister Yang’s remarks, and the group is expected to soon expand to take in five additional members, including the United States. Although wrapped in a multilateral framework, membership in the TPP would be equivalent to enjoying an FTA with the United States, but for both domestic U.S. and international political reasons would be more feasible to achieve than a bilateral FTA with Washington.

Which is not to say that it would be easy to accomplish. The United States is determined to ensure that agreements under the TPP are highstandard, comprehensive accords. If Taiwan is serious about joining the TPP, it would have to demonstrate willingness to fully open its markets, including those for politically sensitive agricultural products.

Taiwan would also have to convince the United States that it is a trustworthy trading partner that can be counted on to keep its promises. As AmCham Taipei’s recent Doorknock mission to Washington discovered, the ongoing dispute over restrictions on U.S. beef imports into Taiwan has badly eroded U.S. government confidence in Taiwan’s reliability. Unless a way can be found to restore that trust, it seems unimaginable that the United States would champion Taiwan’s entry into the TPP. Other irritants regarding trade in goods and services would also have to be dealt with. An example is a current move by the Financial Supervisory Commission to require foreign banks to bring offshore data-processing functions back to Taiwan. As shown by the section in the new Korea-U.S. FTA mandating free cross-border data flow for financial institutions, this subject is also one that the U.S. government regards as a vital principle. The low reimbursement prices given in Taiwan to innovative drugs and medical devices are another example, deterring some new products from being launched in this market.

Membership in the TPP is a valuable objective. But Taiwan must start now to repair its reputation with U.S. officials and lawmakers who have come to doubt whether it is a dependable trading partner.

外

6

F

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BY JA N E R I CKA R D S

MACROECONOMICS

GLOBAL SLOWDOWN IMPACTING TAIWAN The uncertain global outlook as Europe’s finance chiefs wrestle with how to solve Greece’s debt crisis and calm accompanying fears of contagion, and as American politicians squabble over plans for resolving high unemployment, brought signs in recent weeks that the Taiwan economy was headed for a slowdown.

After five straight quarters of rate increases, the Central Bank in late September left rates unchanged at 1.875%, noting in a statement that the uncertain situation in the United States and Europe “may adversely impact Taiwan’s economic growth, while inflation expectations have abated.”

Amid expectations that European and American appetites for Taiwan’s electronics exports may diminish, various forecasters reduced their projections for Taiwan’s 2011 economic growth.

Citing global uncertainties, for example, the local Polaris Research Institute lowered its forecast from the earlier 5.29% to 4.73%.

Third-quarter growth slowed substantially due to reduced private consumption, exports, and investment, Polaris President Liang Kuo-yuan told the media. For 2012, the institute is forecasting economic growth of 4.51%. Standard Chartered Bank in mid-September adjusted its forecast for this year’s economic growth from 5.6% to 4.6%, also citing concerns that global market turmoil may

Taiwan sTock exchange index & value

THE RED LINE SHOWS CHANGES IN TURNOVER AND THE SHADED AREA CHANGES IN THE TAIEX INDEX.

8000

140

7750

130

7500

120

7250

110

7000

100

6750

90

6500

80

6250

70

6000

60

5750

50

September chart soUrce: tw se

Unit: ntD billion

weaken exports and drive local firms to cut hiring and capital spending. Citigroup revised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan from 4.9% to 4.8% for this year, and is predicting 4.6% growth next year.

In another warning sign, Taiwan’s foreign reserves of US$389.17 billion at the end of September, though still the fourth-largest total in the world, was the lowest level since January, as rattled foreign investors pulled out of the domestic stock market and took their money home.

Exports in September, at US$24.61 billion, were up by 9.9% over the same month last year, compared with figures in the low double digits most of this year. Total imports came to US$22.84 billion, up by 10.8% over September 2010. The trade balance was favorable, amounting to US$1.78 billion. Export orders, an indication of things to come in the next few months, showed signs of sagging. At US$36.71 billion in August, they were up only 5.26% year-on-year – and were nearly US$1 billion less than July’s US$37.59 billion.

Unemployment remained relatively static.

At 4.41%, the rate was up slightly from June’s 4.35%, but once seasonally adjusted, it fell to 4.37%

from the previous month’s 4.4%. The consumer price index in August rose 1.35% year-on-year, higher than the 0.11% in July but still well below June’s peak of 1.93%, the highest it has been in two-and-a-half years.

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

US$5.85 BILLION ARMS PACKAGE ANNOUNCED The U.S. State Department in late September notified Congress of a US$5.85 billion weapons sales package to Taiwan, mainly consisting of upgrades to the island’s fleet of 145 F-16A/ B fighter planes. Sale of the more advanced 66 F-16C/D jet fighters that Taipei has requested since 2006 was not included in the deal. Although many analysts saw that omission as placating China, U.S. officials reiterated that the decision on the C/Ds remains open.

Retrofitting of the F-16A/Bs, which will cost a hefty US$5.3 billion, will involve equipping them with new improved engines, along with such weaponry as guided cluster bombs that can detect tanks and armored cars, as well as heat-seeking short-range air-to-air missiles. Among the American companies expected

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WELCOME TO AMERICA—DPP Chairwoman and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen met with members of Congress at a reception during her visit to Washington, D.C. photo : cna

to participate in the deal are BAE Advance Systems, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Pratt & Whitney, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said. In addition, the package includes US$52 million worth of aircraft spare parts and US$500 million to extend an F-16 training and logistical support program at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

The notice has not mollified Taiwan’s supporters in Congress, who have been vociferously demanding sale of the F-16 C/Ds as necessary to solidify Taiwan’s air defense in the face of continuing military build-ups by China. A key advocate, Republican Senator John Cornyn, represents the state of Texas, home to the Lockheed Martin manufacturing plant where the F-16 C/Ds would be built.

8

Since May, at least 47 of the 100 U.S. Senators and 181 of the 435 members of the House of Representatives have written to President Barack Obama, urging the F-16 C/D sale.

President Ma Ying-jeou said he will still continue to push for the F-16 C/Ds, which are estimated to cost US$8.3 billion. Until recent years, Taiwan has considered airpower to be one of its strengths in a potential cross-Strait military conflict, but lately China has gained the upper hand, according to Pentagon studies. Although the A/B upgrades will provide Taiwan with state-of-theart equipment, the newly announced deal does not add on any new planes to Taiwan’s rapidly dwindling air force, which currently includes around 60 aging Vietnam-era F-5 jets whose utility is now limited

mainly to training. The F-5s have been called “flying coffins” for their many crashes over the years, and on September 13 one of the planes crashed into a mountain in Yilan, killing three crewmen. In addition, Taiwan’s 56 French-built Mirage fighters are scheduled for retirement in a decade or less.

U.S. INTERFERENCE IN TAIWAN ELECTION? The Financial Times quoted an unnamed “senior administration official” in late September as expressing concern about the ability of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen to manage the sensitive cross-Strait relationship. The report shocked many political observers as an apparent effort to influence the outcome of the January

balloting, but was immediately followed by a State Department denial that the anonymous official was speaking on behalf of the U.S. government.

The Financial Times report came shortly after Tsai’s visit to Washington, D.C., where she met with leading figures in the Obama administration responsible for Asian affairs. The newspaper quoted its source as saying Tsai had left the U.S. officials with “distinct doubts about whether she is both willing and able to continue the stability in cross-Strait relations the region has enjoyed in recent years.”

The account stunned Tsai’s spokeswoman Hsiao Bi-khim, who told TOPICS she had the impression that Tsai’s meetings with top U.S. officials had gone well.

“The DPP has a long-term track record of democracy and human rights which we share with the U.S., so we can’t imagine U.S. officials doing that,” she said.

According to Washington sources, the phone call to the Financial Times came from the National Security Council after key U.S. officials had reached a high-level inter-agency consensus to express concern about Tsai’s cross-Strait policy, but without touching on the precise wording or channel to be used. Relieved

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by the decline in crossStrait tensions since the Ma administration took office, Washington officials reportedly fear a return to the crisis atmosphere that characterized the China relations of Ma’s DPP predecessor, President Chen Shui-bian.

CROSS-STRAIT

CHINA BLASTS U.S. WEAPONS SALE China condemned the US$5.85 billion arms sale, warning that it would damage Sino-American military and security ties, but at least initially did not take any concrete action. “The Chinese military expresses its utmost indignation and strong condemnation of this action that gravely interferes in China’s domestic affairs,” said a Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesman, Senior Colonel Geng Yansheng, referring to China’s claim that Taiwan is a breakaway Chinese province. He said the arms deal “damages China’s sovereignty and national security interests.”

The response appeared to be in sharp contrast to China’s reaction to a U.S. arms sale to Taiwan in January last year, when it severed bilateral military contacts for most of 2010. Some local political analysts surmised that Beijing is reluctant

to make too much of the issue at this time, for fear of undermining President Ma's re-election bid in the run-up to the January balloting.

DOMESTIC

ROC CELEBRATES 100TH ANNIVERSARY To the roar of jet-fighter flyovers and colorful sky diving shows with military paratroopers, the Republic of China celebrated its 100th anniversary. The October 10 national day marks the start of the 1911 revolution that toppled the Qing Dynasty and paved the way for the founding of the ROC, Asia’s first republic. Attending this year’s Double Ten were nearly

1,500 visiting foreign dignitaries, the highest number in a decade. They included former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield and the president of Burkina Faso.

In an address, President Ma urged Beijing to face the reality of the existence of the ROC, which China views as an illegitimate regime. He also urged China to democratize.

Across the Strait, Chinese leader Hu Jintao used the occasion to warn Taiwan against independence and called for unification.

SOONG DECLARES CANDIDACY James Soong, a former influential Kuomintang politician who is now

HURRAH FOR THE ROC—Some of the performers during Double Ten celebrations to observe the 100th anniversary of the 1911 revolution that ended imperial rule in China.

photo : ap/wally santana

chairman of the People First Party (PFP), in late September announced his candidacy for the January presidential election, a move which could seriously damage Ma’s chances of re-election. Soong, a former governor of Taiwan, commands considerable loyalty among “pan-blue” supporters and could therefore shave crucial votes away from Ma, who is running neck-and-neck with Tsai according to most polls. A survey from the Global Views Survey Research Center, for example, in late September found that without Soong in the presidential race, Ma led Tsai by 39.2% to 38.3%.

But in a three-way race, Tsai had a lead of 36% to Ma’s 35.8%, while Soong obtained only 10% support.

When Soong ran as an independent in the 2000 presidential election, it split the pan-blue vote, allowing the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian to win. Despite Soong’s declaration of his candidacy, some local analysts doubt that he seriously intends to run for election. Instead, they say he is trying to gain leverage over the KMT to create space for PFP candidates on the KMT’s legislator-at-large list of candidates ahead of January’s legislative elections. Soong picked Lin Ruey-shiung, a little-known epidemiologist and profes-

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TAIWAN AND JAPAN IN INVESTMENT PACT Taiwan and Japan at the end of September inked

economic indicaToRs

Unit: US$ Billion Current Account Balance (2011 Q2) Foreign Trade Balance (Jan-Sept) New Export Orders (August) Foreign Exchange Reserves (end of Sept) Unemployment (August) Overnight Interest Rate (Sept 30) Economic Growth Rate (2011 Q2) Change in Industrial Output y-on-y(August) Change in Industrial Output y-on-y (Jan-Aug) Change in Consumer Price Index y-on-y (Aug) Change in Consumer Price Index y-on-y (Jan-Aug) note:

10

p: preliminary

9.02 17.84 36.71 389.17

Year Earlier 11.01 18.37 34.88 380.50

4.45% 0.396% 5.02% 3.88% 8.50% 1.34% 1.43%

5.35% 0.221% 12.86% 23.51% 23.40% -0.47% -0.72%

soU rces: Moea, DGbas, cbc, boFt

24.7 37.4

Europe

2011

18.9 20.91

2010 Imports

2011

2010 Exports

a pact to boost mutual investment. Vice Economics Minister Hwang Jungchiou said the arrangement is expected to help Taiwan lure more investment from Japan, including makers of machinery components, chemical materials, and biotechnology. Following the agreement, companies from the two sides will be able to enjoy “national treatment” – that is, the same benefits as apply to domestic counterparts – when investing in one another's territories. Officials briefing AmCham said that this treatment would also apply to the subsidiaries of foreign companies, as they are legally regarded as domestic entities. The two governments will also be obligated under the agreement to assure the free repatriation of profits between Taiwan and

22.2 23.7

U.S.

2010

214.8 232.6

2011

TOTAL

183.9 202.2

13.7

2010

21

13.4

2011

30.57

39.9

38.4

94.4 34.8

88.5

2010

ASEAN

Japan

23.7

Along with the rest of the world, Taiwan in early October mourned the death of Apple founder Steve Jobs, whose inventions such as the iphone and itunes revolutionized modern communications. “We have lost a true visionary,” said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. chairman Morris Chang, while Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. founder Terry Gou said “I have lost a friend… he committed his heart to building a company and products that enriched people’s lives.” Meanwhile, Financial Supervisory Commission chairman Chen

HK/China

22.2

TAIWAN MOURNS STEVE JOBS’ DEATH

Taiwan's JanuaRY-sepTembeR TRade FiguRes (YeaR on YeaR compaRison)

18.9 20.91

BUSINESS

Yuh-chang said he had faith that Apple’s Taiwan supply chain, which includes iphone maker Hon Hai, camera lens maker Largan Precision Co., and casings maker Catcher Technology Co., would remain stable in the wake of his death.

Shortly before Job's passing, Apple’s launch of its long-anticipated iphone 4S received a disappointing reception from technology reviewers, who decried the lack of a major leap in sophistication from the previous version. Shares in Hon Hai, Largan, and Catcher slumped after the launch, and analysts pointed to a rare chance for rival smart-phone markers, such as HTC, to exploit the situation.

26.9

sor emeritus at National Taiwan University, as his running mate.

2011

2010

2011

Unit: US$BN Source: BOFT

Japan. Investment disputes will be able to be resolved by international arbitration agencies.

GOOGLE BUILDING ASIAN DATA CENTERS Popular search engine Google announced it late September it would invest more than US$200 million building Internet data centers in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, its first such facilities in Asia. The centers, which will be operational in one to two years after construction begins, are to boost Google’s presence in the region, where it is attracting users for its Android mobile phone operating system, the main competitor to Apple’s wireless technology, along with other services. Investment in the Taiwan operation will be over US$100 million, the company said.

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Issue s

Improving the APRC Application Process In the absence of clear instructions, obtaining an Alien Permanent Residence Certificate is not an easy task

S

ince 2000, Taiwan has provided a mechanism for foreign residents to receive an Alien Permanent Residence Certificate (APRC) if they have lived and worked in Taiwan for at least five years in succession (staying in Taiwan for at least 183 days each year) or if they meet certain other qualifications (such as through marriage to an ROC national, investment above a stated amount, or special contributions to Taiwan society). Although the application procedures have been simplified over the years, most applicants – including two individuals from the AmCham Taipei staff or leadership who recently went through the process – find it to be a highly frustrating experience for lack of clear and consistent guidelines on the steps to be followed.

The difficulties encountered by the two applicants are detailed below, together with explanations [in brackets] provided to TOPICS by the National Immigration Agency (NIA).

One of the applicants described his visit to the NIA’s Taipei service center after reviewing the agency’s Chinese and English language websites and also having his secretary phone the office to obtain a detailed description of the requirements. He was then surprised to be informed of the following by the staff person on duty: • One must make an appointment in order to file an application, and the soonest available appointment was 22 days away. The need for an appointment was not mentioned on the website or disclosed over the phone. [The purpose of the appointment is to help applicants save time and trouble by ensuring that they are eligible for an APRC; if the applicant is confident that all the required documents are in order, they can be filed without the need to make another appointment].

• Four additional documents (also not disclosed on the website or over the phone) need to be submitted: 1) a statement from the National Tax Administration on the amount of salary earned in the previous year, not just an Individual Income Tax Statement, which does not distinguish between salary and other income [the officer should have accepted the Individual Income Tax Statement unless it was for a joint return, in which

改善永久居留證 請領程序 申請永久居留證相關規定宜更明確、便於 遵循

台

灣自2000年起開放長期居住的外籍人士換領 永久居留證（A P R C），符合資格者包括： 外國人士必須連續五年合法居留，且每年居 住183日以上；台灣國民的外籍配偶與子女，需在十 年內至少五年居住滿183日；另外則是投資金額超過 特定門檻，或對台灣具有特殊貢獻者。永久居留證 開始發放後，行政程序雖已相對簡便，但多數申請 人，包括最近才剛辦過的台北市美國商會兩位成員 在內，仍然覺得申辦換領流程有許多不明確之處， 因為主管機關提供的說明指引矛盾不清。 商會兩位成員碰到的難題將在後文說明，括弧內 則是內政部入出國及移民署的回應。 商會的申辦者之一描述，儘管他事先已經查過移 民署的中、英文網站，也請他的秘書致電移民署以 釐清部分規定，但當他人到了移民署後卻驚訝地發 現，承辦人員認為他有好幾件事不符規定： • 首 先，承辦人員說，申請人必須事前預約才 能繳件，不過現在才預約的話，至少要22天 後才能繳件。然而問題在於，預約的相關規 定，移民署網站並未列出，電話詢問時也未 告知。[移民署回應：要求事先預約，是為了 方便申請人事先確定是否符合永久居留證的 請領資格；如果申請人確定符合資格，且具 備所需文件，可以直接送件。 ] • 其 次，承辦人員告訴他，他還缺四種證明文 件。同樣的，這點在網站或電話中都未提 及： 1) 前 一 年 度 薪 資 所 得 的 財 政 部 國 稅 局 證 明，因為個人綜合所得稅繳納證明無法

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Issues case there is no way to ascertain the applicant’s own income]; 2) the originals and photocopies of each work permit issued covering any part of the past five years, not just a copy of one's current work permit [this request was an error, and all service centers have been notified not to repeat this mistake. The NIA regrets any inconvenience]; 3) a letter from one's employer confirming the applicant's employment for the past five years [the need for up-to-date proof of current employment was listed on the Chinese website but not updated on the English website. The NIA apologizes and will correct the English website]; 4) photocopies of all passport pages showing stamps for Taiwan entry or exit within the past five years (not just a copy of the photo page); • There is a bilingual document called the “Alien Permanent Resident Certificate Application Procedure” (which is not available on the website or disclosed over the phone).

The document is bilingual, but the English and Chinese versions list different requirements. [This document was prepared by the Taipei service center on its own initiative and does not correspond completely with the Agency’s standard operating procedures; it will be corrected].

The other AmCham applicant cited some additional problems. After obtaining the required certification from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that he has no criminal record in the United States, he forwarded the document to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington for “authentication.” The TECRO website instructs applicants for such service to enclose a “photo I.D. (e.g. drivers license, passport, or naturalization certificate),” and he provided a copy of his Alien Residence Certificate for that purpose. But contrary to the website information, he was informed that only a copy of the passport was acceptable.

Once the authenticated FBI report is received, the next step is to have it translated and then notarized. The NIA materials say this may be done either at a District Court or by a private notary-public, and so the applicant went to the Taipei District court in downtown Taipei, where he learned that this service is performed only by the court's Sindian branch. (In the end, use of a private notary saved a trip to Sindian.)

Finally, both applicants had assumed that after obtaining an APRC, they no longer needed to hold a work permit. But only after asking – the information was not volunteered – they were instructed to apply to the Council of Labor Affairs for a general work permit (not one tied to a specific job).

“The NIA has consistently shown a determination to help make Taiwan an even more welcoming place for foreign residents,” says AmCham President Andrea Wu. “We appreciate that after reviewing our report, the NIA stated its intention to improve communications in order to make the APRC application process as user-friendly as possible.”

確認何為薪資所得，何為他項所得。 [移民署回應：承辦人員應該收件，除 非申請人繳交的是合併申報證明，因為 此種文件無法辨別所得是否屬於當事 人。 ] 2) 過去五年曾經取得的所有工作許可的正 本與影本，不能僅僅繳交現有的工作許 可的影本。[移民署回應：這項要求是 錯誤的，移民署已經要求所有服務中心 避免此一錯誤再度發生。移民署很抱歉 造成申請者的困擾。 ] 3) 由雇主出具的在職證明，以佐證其過去 五年的就業狀況。[移民署回應：必須 提交最新在職證明的規定，中文網站有 列，但英文版未做更新。移民署深感抱 歉，並將更新英文網站。 ] 4) 護照所有頁面的影本，以確認過去五年 入、出境台灣的查驗戳記，不能只繳交 身分證明頁的影本。 • 最 後，申請人在現場雖然拿到一本「永久 居留證申請程序」的中英文雙語手冊，但 不論是網站或電詢時都未提及此一手冊。同 時，英文與中文版對於應繳文件的說明並不 一致。 [移民署回應：手冊是由台北市服務 站自行編印，因此內容並不完全符合移民署 的標準程序；相關內容將做更正。 ] 商會另一位申請人則舉出另外一些難題。他先 取得美國聯邦調查局（FBI）美國境內並無犯罪紀 錄的證明，隨後將文件寄給台灣駐美代表處（即台 北經濟文化代表處）辦理文書驗證。駐美代表處的 網站說明，文書驗證申請人必須繳交附照片的身分 證明，如駕駛執照、護照，或歸化證明。但當他提 交台灣的外僑居留證時，駐美代表處告知只接受護 照。 終於取得文書驗證過的FBI證明，下一步是將其 翻譯成中文；但此一要求似乎毫無必要，因為內容 單純的FBI證明都是使用標準語彙，台灣移民官員 必然看過不下千百次。取得中文譯本的FBI證明後 還必須進行公證。移民署的說明文件指出，地方法 院或民間公證人事務所都可以受理公證，因此他 決定前往台北市中心的台北地方法院，但服務人員 卻告訴他必須到新店的台北市地方法院公證處辦 理。最後，他選擇鄰近的民間公證人以省下往返新 店的時間。 最後，兩位申請人都以為，拿到永久居留證 後，就不必再申辦工作許可了。但一問之下才知 道，他們還是必須向行政院勞委會申請非特定雇主 的工作許可。 商會執行長吳王小珍說，「移民署向來樂於協 助在台灣的外籍人士更自在地在此生活」，「商會 很高興移民署在瞭解報導內容後，能於很短時間內 做出回應，並承諾儘速改善永久居留證的申請程 序」。

—撰文／沙蕩 —– By Don Shapiro

12

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Issue s

Tax Laws and R&D Competitiveness Some companies worry that Taiwan will lose ground as a site for technology innovation.

F

ollowing the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framew o r k A g r e e m e n t ( E C FA ) w i t h C h i n a l a s t y e a r, t h e government is currently highlighting Taiwan’s potential as an Asia-Pacific regional hub, particularly for high-tech manufacturing.

Besides the island’s convenient geographic location, officials have stressed Taiwan’s strength in technological innovation. In fact, this month’s 2011 Taiwan Business Alliance Conference had as its theme “Taiwan as a Global Innovation Center and an Asia-Pacific Operations Hub.” Members of AmCham’s Technology and Tax Committees have therefore found it puzzling why new tax laws have appeared to discourage research and development (R&D) activity rather than encourage it. Cheli Liaw, co-chair of the Tax Committee, says some Chamber members are finding that tax incentives for R&D spending have been greatly curtailed since last year’s reduction in the corporate income tax rate from 25% to 17%.

R&D expenses eligible for tax exemption include such items as the compensation of full-time R&D personnel; materials, supplies, and samples used by a company's R&D department; and amortization or expenditures for patents, know-how, or copyrights.

They also include the procurement of databases, software, and other specialized systems; expenses relating to collaboration with domestic and foreign universities and other research institutions; and expenses incurred in connection with joint R&D programs with domestic or foreign companies.

Now, however, the level of exemption for these R&D expenses has been slashed from the previous 35% of a company’s total R&D expenses to 15%, provided the sum does not exceed 30% of the business income tax payable for the current fiscal year. In addition, the previous system allowed such tax incentives to be carried forward and enjoyed for five years, whereas now the benefits are limited to a single year.

The new system also makes it harder for companies to engage in R&D planning, Liaw says, as they have no way of knowing in advance how many tax credits they are entitled to – and therefore how much money to allocate to R&D projects. Companies file taxes at the end of May, she notes, but the amount of income tax liability and available tax credit will not be known for sure until after the R&D projects are reviewed by the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which may take place as late as December. “For investors, there is a lot of uncertainty,” Liaw says. “From May to December, they may not have any approval as to whether they qualify for tax credits.”

In addition, says Liaw, exemption for R&D expenses may now only be claimed for “high innovation” activities, but applicants have found that the IDB’s definition of what constitutes “high innovation” to be unclear and quite subjective. In a further compli-

稅賦法規與研發競爭力 營所稅新制恐損害台灣科技創新力

兩

岸簽署經濟合作架構協議（E C F A）後， 政府積極推銷台灣成為亞太營運中心，特 別是高科技製造業。除了台灣的地理位置 適中，官員也強調台灣的強項是科技創新。事實 上，10月的2011投資台灣高峰會就以「全球創新 中心、亞太運籌樞紐及台商營運總部」為宣傳主 軸。 台北市美國商會科技與稅務委員會的成員因而 必須質疑，既然如此，為何新的稅賦法令反而不 利企業研發？稅務委員會共同主席廖哲莉表示， 在營利事業所得稅稅率由25%降至17％後，部分 商會成員發現，研發支出的稅賦減免已經大不如 前。 研發支出得以折抵營所稅的項目包括：全職 研發人員薪資；研發用原材料與樣品；購買專利 權、專用技術、著作權的權利金；專業性或特殊 性資料庫、軟體程式及系統；委託國內外大學及 研究機構研發的支出；以及，與國內外廠商共同 開發所需的費用。 但是，研發支出抵減營所稅的額度已由總支 出的35%降至15%，且不得超過應繳營所稅額的 30%。此外，原當年度剩餘抵減額度仍可保留至 其後四年扣抵的規定，也修改為僅可於次年使 用。 廖哲莉表示，新制也不利企業長期研發規畫， 由於許多項目申報後必須等主管機關核准，因 此根本無法事先算出抵減額度，當然無從規劃研 發經費的年度配額。她表示，企業在五月底申報 後，應繳稅額與抵減額度可能會拖到十二月才能 知道，因為個別項目是否合於規定還須經濟部工 業局認定。她說，「對企業來說，不確定性太 高，畢竟五月到十二月是很長的時間，但企業在 此期間根本不確定到底能不能拿到抵減額度」。

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Issues cation, companies dissatisfied with the first IDB ruling may appeal to the National Tax Administration, which comes under a different ministry (Finance) and has its own set of standards. “In a normal legal process, the agency which received the (original) application should deal with appeals,” says Liaw.

Further, as Amcham’s 2011 White Paper points out, there is continuing confusion regarding the availability of tax exemptions for royalties from the licensing of patents, trademarks, and other knowhow. Royalties received by foreign companies from Taiwan licensees can be exempt from income tax if the income is derived from the manufacturing of certain qualified products or the use of certain know-how. But regulations specifically outlining the eligible products and know-how expired on March 11, and until now the Ministry of Finance has not issued a new list. It therefore remains unknown whether those items are still eligible for tax exemption. In an atmosphere of such uncertainty, foreign enterprises are less willing to transfer their technologies and know-how into Taiwan, diminishing the island’s potential for upgrading its domestic industries.

Liaw says it appears that the tax incentives for R&D spending were cut because officials think that the reduction in the corporate income provided companies with enough tax benefits. But if the government wishes to promote technology and innovation as key attributes of the local economy, she adds, Taiwan will need to offer a sufficiently attractive tax regime to remain competitive with its neighbors. “Some AmCham members indicated that Korea has very complete R&D tax incentives and that its government is very cooperative in promoting R&D development,” says Liaw. “The question is whether Taiwan can provide equally fertile ground for R&D.”

廖哲莉表示，新制提供「高度創新」研發支 出的抵減優惠，但工業局並未明確訂出遊戲規 則，有時甚至流於主觀認定。更令業者困擾的 是，如果不服工業局的准否裁定，業者雖然可 以申覆，但對象卻換成認定標準不同的財政部 國稅局。廖哲莉說，「正常的程序是，原受理 機關應負責案件的申覆」。 此外，如同商會2011年台灣白皮書所指出 的，專利、商標、技術的授權金能否抵減仍有 歧見。台灣廠商付給外國企業的授權金確實可 以抵減營所稅，前提是相關營業收入必須來 自產製合於規定的產品，或運用特定技術。然 而，得抵減營所稅的產品與技術，其規範早在 三月十一日就已失效，但財政部迄今尚未公布 新的規定，因此廠商無從得知原本的資格是否 仍然有效。充滿變數的情況下，外商引進技術 的意願降低，台灣反而喪失產業升級的機會。 廖哲莉指出，政府似乎認為，營所稅稅率降 低後，就算研發抵扣減少，企業仍有足夠的稅 賦優惠。但她認為，關鍵在於，如果政府希望 以技術創新的形象行銷台灣，就必須建構優於 鄰近國家的稅賦體制。廖哲莉引述部分商會成 員的意見表示，「南韓的研發抵減制度完善， 其政府也很願意鼓勵研發，問題就在台灣是否 能提供同樣豐沛的誘因」。

—撰文／李可珍

—By Jane Rickards

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2011/10/31 11:57:40 AM

COVER STORY

health

How Healthy is Taiwan? 為國民健康把脈

T

aiwan’s healthiness scorecard is a mixed bag of pluses and minuses. Life expectancy is high, infant mortality is low, and infectious diseases have been largely brought under control. But at the same time Taiwan is seeing more and more health problems common to an affluent society in which people eat well while leading a relatively sedentary lifestyle and finding themselves under stressful work conditions. Cancer, heart disease, and stroke are now the top three causes of death. Taiwan is also a rapidly aging society, with higher incidence of such chronic ailments as diabetes and hypertension. The prevalence of End Stage Renal Disease requiring kidney dialysis is the highest in the world, but the survival rate is unusually high.

台 灣的國民健康狀況憂喜參半：平均壽命高，嬰兒死亡率低，傳染病多數獲得控制；但就像許多富 裕國家，文明病也開始普遍，包括吃得太好、但動得太少，以及工作壓力越來越大。癌症、心臟 病、中風已是前三大死因。而人口結構快速老化，伴隨著糖尿病、高血壓等慢性病發生率增加。另外， 雖然末期腎疾盛行率全球最高，但存活率也高。

BY TIMOTHY FERRY

撰文／法緹拇

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Cover STORY LIFE ExpEcTancY aT BIRTH, TaIwan 1984

Total

Male

Female

72.57

70.46

75.53

1994

74.5

71.81

77.76

2009

78.97

75.88

82.46

2010

79.45

76.1

82.7

Source: Department of HealtH

LEadIng cauSES OF dEaTH In TaIwan 2008

1984

Cancer

1

1

Heart disease

2

4

Stroke

3

2 7

Diabetes

4

Accidents

5

3

Pneumonia

6

12

Respitatory disease

7

n/a

Liver disease

8

6

Suicide

9

16

Kidney disease

10

9

Hypertension

11

5

Source: Department of HealtH

臺

C

ardiologist Chang NenChung, deputy dean of the College of Medicine at Taipei Medical University (TMU), recalls one of his most troubling cases: a man admitted to the hospital’s ER unit with what turned out to be acute myocardial infarction. A common enough occurrence in Taiwan, perhaps, where heart disease is the number-two killer, but several things made this case unusual. First, the man was neither obese nor a smoker, and he lacked other markers typically found with heart disease. Second, he was only 36 years old. What’s more, the patient showed no sign of chronic heart disease, suggesting his heart attack was brought on by repeated spasms to the valves – spasms caused by stress alone. The owner of a small food stall in a night market, he had apparently fallen victim to a punishing lifestyle of long hours and late nights, plus the ever-present smoke from the cooking food. “It was just his lifestyle, the stress,” Dr. Chang explains.

He says such situations are becoming ever more common in Taiwan.

“We see many cases of people under 40 with acute myocardial infarction (heart attacks) – and these cases are increasing from years ago.”

And yet, at the same time Taiwan

北醫學大學心臟內科教授張念中任教、行 醫多年，碰過很多個案，但他印象最深刻 的是，一個被診斷為急性心肌梗塞的壯年 男子。心肌梗塞雖然常見，畢竟心臟疾病佔死因第 二位，但這個病患卻有點不尋常：第一，他的體重 正常，又不抽菸，也沒有引發心臟病的疾病；第 二，他才36歲；第三，病患身上找不出長期罹患 心血管疾病的徵兆。所有跡象顯示，他的心肌梗塞 可能來自心臟瓣膜經常痙攣，而痙攣的唯一原因就 是壓力。病患平常在夜市擺攤，工時長又熬夜，加 上燒烤食物的煙霧，最後終於出現心臟病。張念中 說，「都是因為生活方式，自己給身體的壓力」。 張念中說類似的狀況越來越普遍，「我們碰過很 多不到40歲就心肌梗塞的病人，而且這些年來案 例只增不減」。 不過，在此同時，台灣也越過了一個國民健康上 的里程碑，於2010年達到平均壽命79.45歲，追上 許多先進國家的水準，更勝過美國的表現。 前述兩個例子正反映出現代社會面臨的公衛困

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just passed another milestone showing improvement in the nation’s health.

The average life expectancy in 2010 rose to 79.45 years, equaling many of the world’s richest nations and exceeding that of the United States.

These two instances exemplify the paradox of public health in the modern world. While broad metrics such as life expectancy continue to improve, societies face epidemics of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension that threaten to overwhelm national healthcare systems.

Taiwan is no exception, and in this increasingly affluent society many lifestyle-related chronic diseases are becoming more and more prevalent. Currently the top 10 killers in Taiwan are, in descending order: cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease (stroke), pneumonia, diabetes, accidents, chronic respiratory disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, hypertensive disease, and kidney disease. Many of these, particularly cancer, heart disease, and stroke, have strong correlations with diet, sedentary lifestyles, and higher levels of stress – all hallmarks of an affluent society. Smoking, meanwhile, has continued to decline as government crackdowns on public tobacco use and awareness of the dangers have

境：平均壽命等總體指標的確持續進步，但糖尿 病、高血壓等慢性病案例的持續增加，卻可能拖垮 整個國家的醫療體系。 台灣也不例外；而且隨著社會越來越富裕，肇 因於不良生活習慣的慢性病只會越來越普遍。台灣 目前的十大死因依序為癌症、心臟疾病、腦血管 疾病、肺炎、糖尿病、事故傷害、慢性下呼吸道 疾病、慢性肝病、高血壓疾病及腎病。其中許多疾 病，特別是癌症、心臟疾病、腦血管疾病，成因不 外乎不良飲食習慣、久坐生活形態與高度壓力，而 這些都是富裕社會才有的問題。另外，抽菸人口雖 然因法令管制與政府宣導而持續降低，但仍然是國 民健康的一大威脅。 不論以何種重要指標來看，台灣都已經在公衛 領域創造令人稱羨的成果。台灣人民比以前活得更 久、活得更健康，因為台灣在從開發中國家邁向已 開發國家的路途中，提升的不僅是人均所得，還有 醫療科技，以及追求卓越醫療服務的意願。 行政院衛生署的2010年「台灣公共衛生報告」

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increased, but it nevertheless continues to take a high toll on the nation’s health.

By every major indicator, Taiwan has achieved remarkable success in the public-health arena. People are living longer, healthier lives than ever before as Taiwan’s leap from developing economy to developed nation has not only raised incomes but improved healthcare technology and led to greater awareness of best practices in healthcare.

In the 2010 Taiwan Public Health Report, Taiwan’s Department of Health (DOH) observes that life expectancy for women at 82.7 years surpasses the 81 years of the United States (though it falls short of Japan’s 86 years for female life expectancy), while life expectancy for men – at 76.1 years – matches that of the United States.

Infant mortality, another key metric, has also fallen to a level equivalent to that of developed countries. According to the Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan’s infant mortality rate – deaths per 100,000 births – fell from 6.1 in 1999 to 4.5 in 2008. While this trails Japan’s 2.6 and Germany’s 3.5, it is considerably better than the U.S. rate of 6.5.

And Taiwan has achieved this success at a far lower cost than many countries. The United States spends over 15% of its total GDP on healthcare; Taiwan, by comparison, spends only 6.9%, less

even than the OECD’s median of 8.4%, according to the DOH. Cancers – especially liver and lung cancers – have been the biggest killers in Taiwan since 1983, and in some ways this can be seen as a sign of progress for the nation’s healthcare system. Sherry Fu-Li Chen, associate professor in Fu Jen Catholic University’s public health department, notes that 50 years ago the most common killers were pneumonia, tuberculosis (TB), and smallpox. As the nation developed, national vaccination programs steadily reduced the incidence of infectious diseases.

Hepatitis B is a prime example. Dr. Chung-kwe Wang, a gastroenterologist and senior administrator at Taipei City Hospital’s Renai Branch, says that in 1984 Taiwan was the first nation in the world to provide hepatitis B inoculations to all infants. With its resultant liver cirrhosis and cancer, hepatitis B was once the scourge of Asian societies but has been brought under control in Taiwan.

Carrier rates for the disease have plunged from 15-20% of the population to only 0.6% for those 27 years and younger.

Liver cancer continues to take a heavy toll among older people, and liver disease alone is the eighth most common cause of death, but Taiwan can look forward to a future with far fewer liver disease-related deaths as a result of the inoculations.

指出，台灣女性的平均壽命已達82.7歲，雖然少於 日本的86歲，但超過美國的81歲；男性平均壽命則 為76.1歲，與美國一致。 公衛水準的另一項重要指標¬ー嬰兒死亡率，則 已經等同於已開發國家的水準。內政部統計發現， 每10萬名嬰兒的死亡率已經由1999年的6.1人降至 2008年的4.5人。台灣的狀況雖然落後於日本的2.6 人與德國的3.5人，但優於美國的6.5人。 但台灣降低嬰兒死亡率的醫療成本卻遠低於許多 國家。衛生署資料顯示，台灣的醫療支出佔國內生 產總值（GDP）的6.9%，而美國佔15%，經濟合作暨 發展組織（OECD）會員國的中位數則為8.4%。 癌症，特別是肝癌與肺癌，自1983年以來就一直 居於死亡原因首位；以某種弔詭的角度解釋，此一 現象也算是醫療體系進步的指標。輔仁大學公共衛 生學系副教授陳富莉表示，50年前，台灣主要死因 是肺炎、肺結核與天花；但全面預防接種已經降低 傳染病的發生機率。 B型肝炎就是最佳例證。台北市立聯合醫院仁愛院

The dialysis conundrum Few health-related situations have confounded the experts as much as Taiwan’s extremely high rate of dialysis treatment. For years, Taiwan has ranked number one or number two in the world for dialysis – the treatment for people who have reached end-stage renal disease (ESRD), entailing the loss of most or all kidney function. According to the U.S. Renal Data System, Taiwan in 2009 was second only to the United States in the incidence rate (meaning the rate of new cases per year) – at 371 per million.

Although that is a sharp decline from the peak of over 470 new cases per million in 2005, it still adds more than 8,000 new dialysis patients every year. Taiwan’s rate of prevalence – the number of people in the population currently receiving treatment – is by far the highest in the world at 2,447 per million, for a total of more than 56,000 patients. The number far exceeds the prevalence rate of 1,811 per million in the United States and the 2,205 in Japan.

Both cumbersome and costly, dialysis takes hours to perform and must be repeated several times a week. Each treatment typically costs NT$3,500 (about US$120), not a lot compared with treatment in the United States and many other countries, but considering the total

To serve its aging population, Taiwan will need continued access to new medical technologies.

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pHoto : Henry WeStHeim

numbers of patients and the frequency of treatment required, the overall annual cost to the National Health Insurance (NHI) program comes to some NT$33 billion (over US$1 billion), representing some 50% of the claims for major injury or illness.

Dialysis is the largest single cost for the government-sponsored insurance scheme. “The steadily growing number of patients with end-stage renal disease is one of the leading threats to public health and health budgets worldwide” and particularly in Taiwan, the Taiwan Society of Nephrology notes on its website.

What accounts for such high rates of ESRD requiring dialysis? One theory blames the use of certain Chinese medicines containing aristolochic acid, a chemical known to cause kidney disease.

While this substance is banned in Taiwan, media reports indicate that it continues to be sold as a liver tonic, usually advertised on pirate radio stations. Other theories points to the tendency of doctors in Taiwan to overprescribe Western medications, or the frequent misuse of medications (including the ingestion of drugs that should not be taken in combination with one another) by patients who either

區消化內科主治醫師兼院區醫務長王鐘貴指出，1984 年，台灣領先全球開始新生兒的B肝疫苗全面接種。B 肝可能引發肝硬化與肝癌，一度是亞洲國家最猖獗的 疾病之一。台灣在開始全面接種之前，B肝帶原者高 達總人口的15%至20%，但1984年以後出生的人，只 有0.6%帶有B肝病毒。全面接種前出生的人，罹患肝 癌的比例仍高，而整體來說，肝病還是第八大死因； 但因為B肝接種，下一代的台灣人或許能免於肝病之 苦。

洗腎的沉重負擔 醫學界一直難解的問題之一是，台灣的血液透析治 療（俗稱洗腎）病患為何如此之多？許多年來，台灣 因腎功能衰竭或喪失而必須洗腎的比例一直是全球數 一數二的高。美國腎病登錄系統（USRDS）的資料顯 示，如果依每年新增比例而言，2009年只有美國的腎 病發生率高過台灣的每百萬人371人。雖然2009年的 患病比例已經遠低於2005年高峰期時的每百萬人470

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have not been given proper guidance by physicians and pharmacists or who do not follow those instructions.

But according to Dr. Chen HanHsiang, president of the Taiwan Society for Nephrology and of the Mackay Medicine, Nursing and Management College in Taipei, all these theories put the situation backwards, as the real question is not kidney disease per se, but rather the chronic diseases that lead to kidney failure. “Twenty years ago, the number-one cause of ESRD in Taiwan was chronic nephritis (kidney disease),” he says.

“Now, the number-one cause of dialysis is diabetes, the same as in the U.S.” Although kidney failure may be caused by diseases specific to the kidneys themselves, more often it is one among many systemic consequences of heart disease, hypertension, and/or diabetes.

Rather than signifying abnormally high rates of kidney disease, in Dr. Chen’s view, Taiwan’s high dialysis rate actually reflects the success of the healthcare system in caring for the chronically ill. He notes that about 30% of people in the United States with diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease – chronic diseases that would likely lead them to dialysis – die before they ever receive dialysis; in Taiwan, that number is 20%. “Chronic diseases get very good care here, so the inflow [for dialysis treatment] is very

起新增病例，但換算之後，新增病患人數仍達每年 8,000人。台灣現在的洗腎病患人數約56,000人，即 每百萬人2,447人，比例高居全球第一。而美國的盛 行率為每百萬人1,811人，日本為每百萬人2,205人。 洗腎既繁複又昂貴，除了需要數小時才能完成，而 且每週都必須做好幾次。每次療程需要新台幣3,500 元，雖然低於美國與許多國家，但考量病患總數與治 療頻率，全民健保每年的支出達330億，佔重大傷病 給付的五成。 洗腎是健保給付總額最高的單一疾病。台灣腎臟醫 學會的網站指出，末期腎疾病患人數持續增加，已經 成為全球，特別是台灣，在公共衛生與醫療經費的最 大威脅之一。 洗腎比例如此之高的原因何在？一種解釋是部分中 草藥帶有馬兜鈴酸，以致引發腎病變。儘管法令禁用 馬兜鈴酸，媒體報導指出，仍有不肖廠商以保肝劑之 名透過地下電台販售。另一種解釋則是台灣的醫生處 方都開的很重，或是病人在指示不清及自己亂服的情 況下，誤用與混用不能搭配的藥品。

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high,” Dr. Chen notes.

Also noteworthy is Taiwan’s success in preserving the lives of those receiving dialysis. Once patients begin the treatment, they need to continue until the end of their lives, with the first year presenting the greatest risk of death. In Taiwan, about 10% of first-year dialysis recipients die, compared with around 15% for Western Europe and 22-24% in the United States, says Dr. Chen. “Our nephrology care is very, very good here,” he maintains.

Further contributing to the extremely high ESRD prevalence rate in Taiwan is the relatively low number of transplants.

For cultural reasons, organ donations are exceedingly rare in Taiwan, and in fact Taiwan’s ESRD patients until recently relied on a small but steady stream of kidneys purchased from mainland China.

Fearing human rights abuses, though, the government closed off this pipeline in recent years. The National Taiwan University Hospital scandal this August, in which the organs of an HIV-positive donor were mistakenly transplanted into five patients at Taiwan’s premier medical facility, will undoubtedly further diminish receptivity to the idea of organ donation. Thus, while 58% of ESRD victims in the United States eventually receive a new organ, almost no Taiwanese ESRD sufferers do.

Taiwan’s investment in dialysis is

controversial, with some media reports in the past actually insinuating that the payout for dialysis by the NHI is so high that some patients may be receiving treatment they do not really need.

Without addressing that specific allegation, the Taiwan Health Reform Foundation, a watchdog association of medical professionals, says that although Taiwan spends billions on dialysis, “the lack of regulation and supervision on the budget spending” has led to “various kinds of exploitation.”

The Foundation cites accusations made by the Taiwanese Dialysis Patients Association that artificial kidneys used in the dialysis procedure are reused by dialysis centers up to six times, although the Bureau of National Health Insurance pays for a new one each time at full price.

Dr. Chen dismisses this claim as untrue.

Kidneys perform a number of vital functions, including filtering the blood of impurities and excess water, and are a vital part of the endocrine system of hormone regulation and secretion. Dr. Chen says that “the government has spent a lot of money on programs to prevent early CKD (chronic kidney disease) from becoming end-stage-renal-disease.” These efforts have paid off, he notes, as “over the past two years the incidence of ESRD has gone down by 5%.”

He also considers it unfair to single

但台灣腎臟醫學會理事長、馬偕醫護管理專科學 校校長陳漢湘認為，上述的解釋是本末倒置，因為真 正重要的不是腎臟疾病本身，而是要問何種慢性病導 致腎衰竭。他說，「20年前，末期腎疾的頭號原因 是慢性腎炎；現在最主要的原因是糖尿病，跟美國一 樣」。 雖然腎衰竭確實可能由腎臟疾病引發，但更多時 候，腎衰竭只是心臟病、高血壓、糖尿病的諸多併發 症之一。陳漢湘認為，與其過度關切腎臟病罹患率過 高的現象，還不如換個角度解釋，正是因為慢性病患 都能得到良好照顧，才會有這麼多的腎病患者存活。 他指出，美國30%的糖尿病、高血壓、心臟病患者， 在病情惡化至需要洗腎前就已經亡故；台灣的比例是 20%。他說，「正是因為台灣對慢性病的照顧週全， 洗腎人數才會持續增加」。 同樣值得注意的是，台灣的醫療體系能夠維持洗 腎病人的生命。一旦病患開始洗腎，就必須終身持 續，且第一年的死亡風險最高。陳漢湘指出，台灣洗 腎病人只有10%在開始洗腎後第一年內死亡，西歐為

out the cost of dialysis, noting that expenditures on heart disease, at over NT$20 billion a year, also represent a heavy burden on the NHI budget. Dialysis treatment is the end stage for an array of chronic diseases, he notes, and should thus be considered as part of the total cost of caring for the chronically ill. Nevertheless, even as the incidence of primary kidney disease declines, use of dialysis continues to rise, an inevitable consequence of Taiwan’s improving healthcare system and changing demographics.

Aging population Advances in medical care mean more people live to an older age. According to DOH statistics, in 1979 only 4.15% of Taiwan’s population was over 65 years of age. Now, the proportion over 65 has increased to 10.63%, bringing Taiwan – along with many other developed economies – within the official definition of an aging society. Taiwan’s aging issue is compounded by a very low birth rate. In 1979, 32.75% of Taiwanese were under 15 years old. Now, the proportion under 15 has been halved to 16.34%.

The fertility rate – the measure of how many children women are having on average in their lifetime – is reported to be the lowest in the world. With 2.1 as the magic number for a fertility

15%，美國為22%至24%，「顯示台灣的腎病照護非 常、非常好」。 末期腎疾盛行率高於其他國家的原因還包括移植並 不普遍。出於文化傳統，台灣的器官捐贈非常罕見； 事實上，直到近幾年，台灣的末期腎疾病患都得到偷 偷摸摸向中國買腎移植。基於人權考量，台灣政府已 經禁止買腎。台大醫院八月發生醫療疏失，將愛滋病 患的器官移植給其他五人後，勢必再度降低民眾器捐 的意願。美國58%末期腎疾病患不論早晚都還是能獲 得新的腎臟，但台灣的比例趨近於零。 對洗腎挹注大筆健保給付並非毫無爭議，特別是媒 體曾經披露，因為洗腎的健保給付很高，某些不肖醫 院會偽造洗腎紀錄。雖非針對詐領健保給付，但台灣 醫療改革基金會曾經指出，雖然健保有數十億元花在 洗腎上，但經費開銷卻缺乏規範與監督，導致程度不 一的不當行為。 醫改會引述腹膜透析腎友協會的說法指出，部分醫 院會重複使用洗腎機的血液透析器（俗稱人工腎臟） 達六次之多，但每次洗腎的健保給付都是以全新的人

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the Importance of exercISe

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report this past summer in the medical journal The Lancet referred to a study conducted in Taiwan that found “significant” benefits from just 15 minutes of exercise a day – 92 minutes a week – whereas Taiwan’s Bureau of Health Promotion and most health authorities recommend 30 minutes of exercise daily.

The report is good news for Taiwanese, as another study published in 2008 found that half the people here engage in no leisure-time physical activity at all and that fewer than one-fifth were even moderately physically active. Less than 14% of Taiwanese engaged in enough exercise to burn 1,000 kilocalories per week, as compared to a third of Americans. More recently, Taiwan come out at the bottom of an international survey on exercise habits.

For the nation’s public health, the consequences could be disastrous.

While Taiwan has a much lower obesity rate than the United States, it equals the United States in diabetes rates and leads the world in dialysis and other chronic diseases associated with sedentary lifestyles and poor diets. These factors have contributed to sharp rises in healthcare costs, adding to the perennial financial stress facing the Bureau of National Health Insurance.

Why are Taiwanese people seemingly so exercise averse? Sherry Fu-Li Chen, associate professor in Fu Jen Catholic University’s public health department, suggests the answer lies partly with the educational system and parent’s expectations for their children’s academic performance. “They go to school from eight in the morning until four p.m., and then they go to buxibans (extracurricular studies) until the evening,”

工腎臟計算。但陳漢湘醫師認為重複使用的情形並不 存在。 腎臟負責多項重要功能，包括過濾血液中的毒素與 多餘水份，也是內分泌系統中負責調節與分泌荷爾蒙 的器官之一。馬偕的陳漢湘說，「政府有許多醫療預 算是用在避免早期慢性腎臟疾病演變成末期腎病，而 成果已經逐漸浮現，例如過去兩年間，末期腎病的發 生率降低了5%」。 陳漢湘也強調，單單批評洗腎的健保給付過高並 不公平，因為心臟疾病的支出每年超過新台幣200億 元，同樣加重健保的財務負擔。他表示，洗腎是許多 慢性病的末期治療手段，因此應該視為慢性病照護整 體支出的一環。因此，就算主要腎臟疾病的發生率持 續降低，洗腎的患者卻在增加，這大概必須視為台灣 醫療進步與人口結構變化的必然結果之一。

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she explains. “They don’t develop good exercise habits.”

She says that the Bureau of Health Promotion of the Department of Health (DOH) tries to promote exercise in schools, but encounters resistance from parents. “Their parents want them to do lots of schoolwork or read more books,” she says, noting the importance of entrance exams for junior and senior high school students.

Cardiologist Chang Nen-chung of Taipei Medical University sees busy lifestyles continuing throughout adulthood as well. “Everybody’s working so hard until eight or nine at night,” he observes. They get tired and want to take a rest when they come home.”

Chang recommends 40 minutes to an hour of brisk walking three or four times a week, and says the benefits are clear, as studies confirm that high blood pressure – the leading cause of Taiwan’s number-three killer, stroke – can be reduced by 10 or more points with only moderate exercise. Obesity and heart disease can also be effectively reduced through regular exercise.

The study cited in The Lancet, funded by the DOH and Taiwan’s National Health Research Institute in conjunction with the MD Anderson Cancer Center of the University of Texas, found that even 15 minutes of exercise can have a great impact on health. “Exercising at very light levels reduced deaths from any cause by 14%,” wrote Dr. Xifeng Wu, the senior author of the study. If more people exercised even slightly, the estimated reduction in mortality would be “similar to that from a successful tobacco control program,” the study concluded.

Slowly, the word seems to be getting out in Taiwan about the importance of exercise. “You can see that people pay more attention to doing exercise nowadays,” says Sharen Tu, a professional trainer for one of Taiwan’s larger fitness chains. “They do easy hiking or walking to work instead of taking the bus. You didn’t see this before.”

In the gym, she says that more elderly people are getting personal trainers or hitting the workout machines by themselves, indicating a growing awareness of the importance of fitness at all ages. She believes that the many new fitness centers and extensive bike trails that the Taipei City government has built in recent years have also had a beneficial effect. “They make it easier for people to start doing exercise. It’s quite a positive development.”

— By Timothy Ferry

不斷老化的人口結構 醫療的進步代表人可以活得更久。衛生署的統計顯 示，1979年時，只有4.15%的人超過65歲。現在，65 歲以上的人口比例增加至10.63%，代表台灣與其他許 多已開發經濟體同樣都正式邁入高齡化社會。高齡問 題因為生育率越來越低而更形嚴重。1979年，15歲 以下的人口比例為32.75%，現在只有16.34%。 生育率代表女性人口平均的終身生育數。台灣目前 的生育率為全球最低的1.2，其後為南韓的1.3與日本 的1.4。只有當生育率達到2.1時，人口才能維持現有 的規模，因此台灣的生育率代表人口將持續減少。多 數歐洲國家的生育率同樣過低，富裕國家中大概只有 美國能夠維持人口平衡。 人口預測顯示，2030年時，高齡人口將佔台灣總

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rate to ensure that a population will at least maintain its current size, Taiwan’s rate is 1.2, just below Korea’s 1.3 and Japan’s 1.4. Much of Europe has similarly lowered fertility rates, a common phenomenon among richer nations, but the United States has actually remained at the replacement rate.

Population projections thus indicate that by 2030, nearly a quarter of Taiwan’s people will be elderly, with enormous implications for public health and for the economic stress on the NHI system. And as treatments improve and people live even longer, despite having chronic illnesses, the costs will only rise.

Already costs per capita have gone up from NT$10,765 in 1991 to NT$32,224 by 2009, according to the DOH. And while Taiwan’s health costs consume a relatively modest 6.9% of GDP, as mentioned earlier, this figure is up from 5% in 1995 when the NHI program was launched and looks set to break 7% in the near future, according to the DOH. Cardiologist Chang of Taipei Medical University notes that as people age, their reliance on the health system increases dramatically. For those in the 30-39 age bracket, for instance, the average annual cost to the NHI system is around NT$9,500, but the amount soars to NT$115,400 for people in their eighties.

Dr. Chang notes that 46% of Taiwanese over 65 have hypertension – the primary cause of stroke, the third leading cause of death – and another quarter have heart disease.

But he is quick to point out that heart disease – along with diabetes, a major cause of stroke and a contributing factor in heart disease – is rising even in relatively younger people. He points to changes in diet and lifestyle as the principal factors.

Diabetes is genetically linked, and a certain number of people can be expected to develop the disease as they age. But even though others have the genetic markers, the disease may never appear as long as the person follows a healthy diet.

A study reported in the medical journal Diabetic Medicine found that diabetes prevalence in Taiwan increased from 4.7% to 6.5% for men and from 5.3% to 6.6% for women between 1999 and 2004, and that incidence rates – new cases per year – was rising most significantly for adults under 40. Dr. Chang attributes this trend to changes in eating habits and a lack of exercise.

It is a cruel irony throughout the developed world, and even among some developing countries, that the very same affluence that enables progress in public health has also brought diet and lifestyle changes that are themselves major menaces. Rich fatty diets, sedentary employment and lifestyles, and increased stress are implicated in most of the top 10 killers in Taiwan, including the top three – cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

Taiwanese health experts often point to the influence of the “West” as the culprit behind the surge of food-related ailments the island now faces. “As the

人口近1/4，公衛的挑戰與健保的負擔將更形惡化。 隨著醫療的進步與壽命的增加（就算可能患有慢性 病），健保支出將會只增不減。衛生署資料顯示，人 均醫療支出1991年為新台幣10,765元，而2009年時 已是32,224元。另外，1995年健保創設時，醫療支 出佔GDP的比例為5%，但現在已經佔6.9%，不久的將 來就會突破7%。 北醫的張念中指出，人的年紀越大，醫療需求將快 速增加。舉例來說，30歲至39歲的人，健保的年給付 是新台幣9,500元，但一但過了80歲，金額將暴增為 11萬5400元。張念中說，65歲以上的人，25%有心臟 疾病，46%有高血壓；而高血壓可能導致死亡原因第 三大的中風。 但張念中也指出，現在就算是年輕一輩也越來越多 人得糖尿病與心臟疾病；糖尿病是中風的主因，同時

country is developing, a lot of foods are being ‘Westernized,’ and Western food contains lots of fats and also less fiber,” says nutritionist Chen Yue-hwa, professor at Taipei Medical University’s School of Nutrition and Health Sciences. TMU cardiologist Chang concurs, attributing the rise in diet-related diseases to the “increasing rate of people, especially young people, eating Western-style food.”

But how much is Western influence behind the rise in food-based health problems and how much is simply attributable to greater wealth and thus greater access to better-tasting – and inevitably unhealthier – foods? Dr. Chang notes that in the past, Taiwan families would invariably sit down to home-cooked meals, but long work days and dual income families have generally put an end to that practice. What remains is a fast-food culture of people eating on the go. And as U.S.-based fast-food companies such as McDonald’s and KFC embody “fast food” around the world, by implication these chains come under fire for Taiwan’s increasing food-related mortality.

Although McDonald’s and KFC are quite successful in Taiwan, undoubtedly an even larger proportion of the population is getting most of its nutrition from small local restaurants and night markets. It would seem that from deepfried pork chops to hot pots to moon cakes, many favorite Taiwanese delicacies are also quite unhealthy. “Many of the local foods are also high in fats,” says Fu Jen’s Sherry Chen.

也增加心臟疾病的風險。他認為飲食習慣與生活作息 是主要原因。 糖尿病與基因有關，一部份人年長後就可能發病。 但就算帶有糖尿病基因，如果維持健康飲食，也可 能一生都不會發病。期刊「糖尿病醫學」（Diabetic Medicine）曾經刊出一份研究，指在1999年至2004年 間，台灣男性的糖尿病盛行率已由4.7%增加至6.5%， 女性由5.3%增加至6.6%；發生率增加最多的年齡層則 是40歲以下的青壯年。北醫的張念中認為，此一趨勢 的背後原因是飲食習慣與缺乏運動。 對已開發國家，甚至是少數開發中國家，國民所得 提升的影響經常是憂喜參半，雖然公衛水準提升，但 飲食習慣與生活習慣的改變卻成為健康殺手。高脂肪 飲食、久坐的工作與生活、越來越多的壓力，或多或 少與十大死因有關，特別是癌症、心臟病與中風。

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Cover STORY An unhealthy diet is one of the primary contributors to chronic ailments such as diabetes and heart disease. pHoto : tim ferry

“In the old days when we were poor, as long as we had something to eat we were satisfied,” explains TMU nutritionist Chen. “But now that we are getting richer and richer, we don’t worry about how much food we can get – we care about how delicious it is.” Unfortunately, she observes, “delicious foods are usually less healthful.”

Such items include various deep-fried dishes and fatty meats that once were consumed infrequently – perhaps only for festivals and other special occasions – but are now accessible on a daily basis.

Taiwan’s doctors and public health experts are therefore confronted with a difficult challenge. In food-conscious Chinese culture, it is hard to prescribe a bland diet. For example, nine daily serv-

ings of fruit and vegetables are recommended to ensure good health. But as TMU’s nutritionist Chen admits: “If you cook vegetables alone without adding something, it’s just like eating grass.” That “something” is generally oil and salt.

As a result, even eating vegetarian in Taiwan is no guarantee of a healthy diet.

Dr. Chiou Jeng-Fong, Taiwan Medical University Hospital (TMUH) vice superintendent and director of its Cancer Center, notes that vegetarianism in Taiwan is usually more an expression of religious rather than dietary conviction. Thus vegetarian food is often as oily and processed as any other. “They even deep fry vegetables – that’s crazy!” he says, noting that Buddhist monks, who are all vegetarian, have higher colorectal cancer rates than normal.

Among the ways in which a fatty diet, regardless of its origins, impacts the health is increased obesity, strongly associated with primary causes of death such as heart disease but also with chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Obesity might seem to be less of an issue in Taiwan than in the West, where 30% of Americans have a body-mass-index (BMI) of 30 or

台灣的公衛專家經常警告，西式飲食習慣會導致特 定疾病。北醫保健營養學系教授陳玉華說，「國家發 展到一個階段，許多食品都會西方化，但西式飲食脂 肪太多、纖維質太少」。北醫的張念中也認為，飲食 習慣引發的疾病會越來越普遍，應該歸咎於越來越多 人，特別是年青人，偏好西式飲食。 然而，飲食相關疾病的成因，是否就真的是因為西 方飲食，還是因為只要手頭寬裕，就自然會想吃美味 但不健康的食物？北醫的張念中說，台灣人過去習慣 回家吃飯，但工時長的雙薪家庭最後都會選擇外食。 不變的是外帶的速食文化。麥當勞與肯德基等美式速 食遍佈全球，但台灣的飲食相關疾病不見得全都因為 速食。 雖然麥當勞與肯德基的確深植台灣市場，但不可 否認的是，更多人選擇到小型餐廳或夜市吃飯。排骨 ［？］、火鍋、月餅等台灣美食，其實很可能一樣 不健康。輔大的陳富莉說，「許多小吃的脂肪也很 多」。

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above (the general definition of obesity).

Not surprisingly, U.S. rates of diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease are also sky-high. Taiwan’s obesity rate, on the other hand, is less than 15%.

Yet Taiwan’s incidence of chronic diseases often associated with obesity, particularly diabetes, are nearly as high as in the United States. Heart disease and stroke, the second and third leading causes of death in Taiwan, are number one and number three respectively in the United States.

A World Health Organization (WHO) study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, concluded that “the proportion of Asian people with a high risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease is substantial at BMIs lower than the existing WHO cut-off point for overweight.”

Medical studies indicate that Asians generally have a higher proportion of fat in their bodies than Caucasians, and thus are more vulnerable to obesity-related diseases at lower BMIs. So while Taiwanese people might look slim, they face many of the same risks as heavier Westerners.

Fatty food is implicated in around 35% of cancers on the island, not just colorectal cancer, because of how fats are transformed in the body. Cholesterol does more than just clog arteries. As TMU

北醫的陳玉華說，「很窮的年代，只要有飯吃就偷 笑了」，「但收入越來越高之後，我們不只要吃，還 要吃好的」，「但美食往往不太健康」。 油炸食物與肥美肉品過去只有過年過節吃得到，但 現在隨時想吃都有。 台灣的醫生與公衛專家因此面臨一大難題，因為 中華文化注重飲食，實在很難強逼病人忌口。舉例來 說，健康飲食要求每日九份蔬果，但正如北醫的陳玉 華所說，實在很難要病人什麼都不加就吃菜，「因為 這很像在逼他們吃草」，但如果要吃起來有味道，就 少不了油跟鹽。 因此，就算吃素都不見得是健康的。北醫附設醫院 副院長兼癌症中心主任邱仲峯表示，台灣人吃素多半 出於宗教信仰，而非飲食偏好。因此素食通常加很多 油，烹調方式也跟一般食物一樣。他說，「餐廳甚至 會油料蔬菜，這哪裡健康了？」因此，吃素的僧侶反 而更容易得大腸癌。 不管吃的是哪種高脂食物，肥胖都會影響健康，增

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nutritionist Chen explains, cholesterol is converted in the body into a number of hormones, including estrogen and androgen, both sex hormones strongly associated with breast and prostate cancer.

Breast cancer was the fourth most common cause of cancer death in 2009, and prostate cancer was number seven, according to DOH statistics.

Despite these obvious dangers, getting people to change their eating habits is difficult. TMUH’s Dr. Chiou compares it to the widespread use of motor scooters in Taiwan. “We know they are very dangerous and pollute the air, but we cannot stop it,” he says. With diet as well as mode of transportation, people pick the lifestyle they prefer.

Improved treatment That leaves treatment of diseases as the next best option, and Taiwan has made huge strides in this regard. Dr. Wang of Taipei City Hospital Renai Branch says that the advances he has seen in the treatment of cancer, particularly in his specialty of liver cancer, have greatly benefited patients. “Twenty years ago, when I was a resident, we saw many people with liver tumors, and hardly any of them could expect to live more than six months,” he recalls. “We had no radiation therapy, no advanced methods. We could do almost nothing.”

Now oncologists have a whole arsenal of weapons to throw at liver cancer, including injecting ethanol directly into the tumor and using targeted radiation therapies. Today, liver cancer has a fiveyear survival rate of 40%.

Taiwanese hospitals now employ some of the most advanced technologies to combat cancer, including tomotherapy precision radiation treatment and minimally invasive surgery (MIS).

And TMUH’s Cancer Center even takes cancer treatment into the realm of genetic sequencing – the only hospital that does so in Taiwan. Dr. Chiou of TMUH says that genetic sequencing enables the cancer center to provide patients with personalized medicine. Genetic sequencing looks for genetic markers in patients to help doctors make decisions on which chemotherapy drugs to use, for example. “This drug might be effective for one patient buts it’s not effective for another patient,” he says. “We need to separate and identify them to provide personalized medicine.”

Dr. Chiou notes that TMUH’s Cancer Center, inaugurated only six years ago, was inspired by the global leader in the fight against cancer, the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston. Following the MD Anderson example, TMUH reorganized its oncology department into multispecialty teams able to handle 12 of the 19 cancers occurring in Taiwan. Ranging from oncologists

加心臟病、糖尿病等的風險。台灣的過重問題似乎不如 西方嚴重。美國30%的人口身體質量指數（BMI）都超 過30這個肥胖臨界值，因此糖尿病、高血壓、心臟病 的盛行率高得嚇人。台灣過重的人口少於15%。 但過重引發的疾病，特別是糖尿病，台灣的發生率 卻接近美國。心臟病與中風是台灣第二與第三大死因， 美國則是第一與第三大。 世界衛生組織（Ｗ Ｈ Ｏ）刊登在醫學雜誌「刺胳 針」（Lancet）的報告指出，「如果要界定亞洲人種的 第二型糖尿病與心血管疾病的高風險族群，其BMI臨界 值會低於WHO的過重標準」。醫學研究發現，亞洲人 的體脂肪多半高於白種人，因此就算BMI不高也可能罹 患肥胖相關疾病。因此，體型偏瘦的台灣人，其罹病風 險可能等同於胖很多的西方人。 台灣35%的癌症與高脂飲食有關，而且因為身體吸收 儲存脂肪的方式，因此病徵不僅限於大腸癌。北醫的張 念中解釋，膽固醇不只阻塞血管，也會轉變為不同的荷 爾蒙，包括性荷爾蒙；女性荷爾蒙失衡可能引發乳癌，

to pathologists to technologists and social workers, these teams of a dozen specialists meet weekly to discuss each patient.

P o o l i n g t h e i r r e s o u r c e s a n d e x p e rtise, they are able to provide better and more consistent care for their patients, and have achieved an overall five-year survival rate of 50%.

Nevertheless, stress and sedentary lifestyles are likely to continue to take their toll on the population. TMU cardiologist Chang notes that he sees an increasing number of younger patients – some still in their teens – complaining of chest pains. He says that 90% of these cases are unrelated to heart disease, yet nevertheless reflects a stressed-out populace In addition, Taiwan is considered to be one of the laziest nations in the world when it comes to exercise. Despite government programs to encourage exercise, long school days for students and even longer hours for the country’s mostly white-collar workforce leave people exhausted and unwilling to find recreational opportunities to get the physical activity their forebears obtained through manual labor.

With these factors stacked against it, Dr. Chang fears for the future of the society. As for his patient – the 36-yearold heart-attack victim – he survived the ordeal. Whether the rest of his younger population of patients will also see such happy results remains to be seen.

InFanT MORTaLITY RaTE, TaIwan

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

6.43 6.66 6.35 6.57 6.07 5.86 5.99 5.35 4.87 5.3 4.98 4.61 4.69 4.51 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Source: Department of HealtH

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Cover STORY caMpaIgnIng agaInST SMOkIng

S

moking is an area of disease prevention where Taiwan has seen some distinct success. Smoking rates have been falling from a high of nearly 50% for men in the 1980s, and recent revisions to the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (THPA), which raised cigarette prices by imposing higher taxes and also strictly curtailed public smoking, have only furthered the trend. The smoking rate for adult men in Taiwan now stands at less than 35%. Although that is still fairly high, Sherry Fu-Li Chen, associate professor in Fu Jen Catholic University’s public health department, notes that the number of cigarettes smoked has declined even more significantly as bans on public smoking, including all workplaces, make the habit more inconvenient.

Even more importantly, she notes a cultural change in how people view smoking.

“In the past, people would ask ‘Why can’t I smoke? It’s my freedom, my right,’” she says.

Now there is more respect for the rights of non-smokers.

Still, public health experts have had less impact on youth smoking. Despite public communication campaigns mounted by the

vehemently anti-tobacco non-government organizations such as the John Tung Foundation featuring popular entertainers like Jay Zhou and Jolin Tsai, youth smoking rates have not declined significantly. Taiwan’s Central News Agency reports that the smoking rate for teenagers actually rose since enactment of the THPA and now stands at 22%. “They still think it’s cool,” Chen observes.

Government agencies, especially the Bureau of Health Promotion (BHOP) under the Department of Health (DOH), are gearing up for another round of efforts to tighten regulations even further, including eliminating any loopholes in public smoking bans and again increasing tobacco prices.

In addition, the DOH, in conjunction with the John Tung Foundation, is looking for volunteers to join the latest drive against secondhand smoke. Interested parties will receive 12 hours of training in early November, including both classroom instruction and field exercises. After completing the program, they will be expected to put in at least eight audited hours of tobacco-control promotion, including patrolling tourist attractions – off-limits to

男性荷爾蒙失衡則是攝護腺癌。衛生署統計顯示， 2009年所有癌症死亡案例中，乳癌是第四位，攝護腺 癌是第七位。 儘管罹病風險很高，但要改變飲食習慣很難。北醫 附醫的邱仲峯說，這就好像大家都知道騎摩托車很危 險，污染也更高，但大家還是選擇騎車。選擇飲食就 跟選擇交通工具一樣，大家都會憑喜好而非理智。

改善治療方式 既然無法改變生活習慣，剩下的選項就是醫療，幸 好台灣在這方面做得不錯。仁愛院區的王鐘貴說，癌 症治療方式的進步，特別是他所專長的肝癌，確實幫 了很多病人。他說，「20年前我還是住院醫生的時 候，許多肝癌病人根本活不過半年，因為我們沒有放 射科，也沒有其他先進設備，醫生根本愛莫能助」。 但現在的腫瘤科醫生有很多選項可以治療肝癌，包 括直接注射乙醇至腫瘤內部，或是以標靶放射治療殺 死癌細胞。現在，肝癌的五年存活率已經達到40%。 台灣現在已經引進部分最先進的技術，包括螺旋斷 層放射治療與微創手術。北醫附醫的癌症中心甚至領 先全台運用基因定序治療癌症。北醫附醫的邱仲峯表 示，基因療法可以提供客製化醫療，鎖定病人身上的 致癌基因，再搭配最合適的化療藥物。他說，「因為

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smokers – for violators.

How effective all of these programs will be in curbing smoking remains to be seen, but for the first time since 1983, the DOH reports that in 2010 lung cancer was superseded by liver cancer as the number one cancer-related cause of death for men.

— By Timothy Ferry

有些藥對某些人有效，但對其他人卻效果不好，因此 我們必須區分之後再提供不同療程」。 邱仲峯說，北醫附醫六年前成立癌症中心時，學習 的對象是癌症治療的先驅，美國德州大學休士頓分校 的安德森癌症中心。比照安德森癌症中心，北醫將放 射腫瘤科整合為腫瘤治療中心，能治療台灣19種常見 癌症中的12種。中心人員包括腫瘤科醫生、病理學 專家、技師、社工，十幾位專科醫生每週定期研判病 患的治療方式。整合資源與專長後，中心得以提供更 好、更穩定的醫療照護，病患的五年存活率因此達到 50%。 然而，壓力與久坐不動仍然是健康的隱形殺手。北 醫的張念中說，抱怨胸悶疼痛的病人中，有越來越多 的年輕人，有些甚至不滿20歲。他說90%都跟心臟病 無關，而是壓力造成。 此外，以運動頻率而言，台灣算得上是全球最懶的 國家之一。雖然政府不斷宣導運動的好處，但學生上 課時間長，出社會後工作時間更長，就算有空閒時間 也累到不想動，運動量自然一代不如一代。 上述因素持續累積，使得北醫的張念中說他非常擔 心台灣社會的未來。至於他的病人，那位36歲的心臟 病患，他幸運地逃過一劫。然而，更為年輕的世代， 如果碰上相同疾病，是否還能跟他一樣幸運，大概只 有天知道了。

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d o o r k n o c k

Beef Remains Nagging Issue in U.S.-Taiwan Relations AmCham’s 2011 Doorknock team finds increased visibility for Taiwan in Washington, due in large measure to pending legislation.

牛肉仍是美台關係的癥結 美國商會2011年叩門之旅發現台灣在華府更受矚目，主因是台灣政策法案浮上檯面

BY DON SHAPIRO

A

s a result of legislation introduced in the House of Representatives for a Taiwan Policy Act (TPA), ongoing debate over U.S. policy on the sale of F-16 jet fighters to Taiwan, and the upcoming presidential election in Taiwan, the 2011 AmCham Taipei “Doorknock” delegation to Washington D.C. found that Taiwan was receiving far more attention in the U.S. capital than had been the case for many years. Taiwan’s security needs were the subject of heated discussion, and U.S. officials disclosed that the extension of visa-waiver privileges to Taiwanese travelers had been basically approved, with only procedural technicalities holding up a public announcement.

At the same time, the Doorknock team was struck by the depth of displeasure among many U.S. government officials and some leading members of Congress regarding Taiwan’s continuing restrictions on the import of U.S. beef. “We knew that this was a major issue in Washington, but still we weren’t prepared for the intensity of the sentiments we heard being expressed,” says AmCham Bill Wiseman. Those comments

撰文／沙蕩

included a description of Taiwan as an “unreliable trading partner” by one senior official, who also complained of a “complete lack of effort and perceived lack of good will” on Taiwan’s part to resolve the problem.

Another ranking official said he was “extraordinarily disappointed with the way Taiwan” has handled the beef issue, which he depicted as having “cast a pall over the relationship” between the United States and Taiwan. In both the Executive Branch and at relevant Congressional committees, it was reiterated that action by Taiwan to make progress on the issue would be a prerequisite for resumption of high-level negotiations under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). TIFA talks are supposed to be held annually to help facilitate the bilateral economic relationship, but due to the dispute over beef they have not been conducted since 2007 (see the sidebar for a review of the beef controversy).

Despite the stalemate over beef and its ramification for TIFA, AmCham has been pleased that U.S. government

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American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei 2011 Doorknock, Washington, D.C. Dates: October 3-7, 2011 GOVERNMENT MEETINGS Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Department of Commerce (International Trade Administration) Department of Defense Department of State Department of the Treasury Department of Energy Members of Congress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Chair of Foreign Affairs Committee), Mario DiazBalart (Co-Chair, House Taiwan Caucus) Senators Richard Durbin, Mark Kirk, and Jim Webb.

Offices of Representatives Shelley Berkley (Co-Chair, House Taiwan Caucus), Dave Camp, Eric Cantor, Gerald Connolly, Scott Garrett, Phil Gingrey, Devin Nunes, Jim Risch and Dana Rohrabacher Offices of Senators John Cornyn, Mike Crapo, Charles Grassley, Kay Bailey Hutchison, James Inhofe (Co-chair of Senate Taiwan Caucus), Jon Kyl, Patty Murray, Rob Portman, Jay Rockefeller and Jim Webb.

Staff from Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senate Finance Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee, and House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade.

AIT–Washington THINK TANKS Brookings Institution Project 2049 Institute OTHER ORGANIZATIONS C&M International Taipei Economic & Cultural Representative Office U.S. Chamber of Commerce U.S.-Taiwan Business Council Nelson Report DPP Liaison in Washington Formosa Association for Public Affairs

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Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, poses with AmCham visitors.

agencies, after a lengthy hiatus, have begun to re-engage with Taiwan counterparts at a working level to discuss outstanding issues. A team from USTR was in Taipei during the week before the Doorknock, and representatives from the Commerce Department and Treasury Department recently also made the trip. In Washington, officials from all three agencies assured AmCham that they intend to increase their engagement with Taiwan so that problems can be addressed and opportunities for cooperation enhanced even without TIFA talks.

The Doorknock group also considered it good timing that just weeks before its arrival in Washington, Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee introduced a bill (the above-mentioned TPA) to bolster U.S.-Taiwan relations. A Cuban-American and staunch anti-Communist, she has described the intent of the bill as “clarifying and strengthening” the Taiwan Relations Act, the cornerstone of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship since its enactment by Congress in 1980.

The wide-ranging bill (some in Washington quipped that it seems to contain “everything but the kitchen sink”) appears to have a good chance for passage in the House, where the Republicans hold the majority and many Democrats have also expressed their support. A companion bill has not yet been submitted in the Senate, however, and the assessment of experienced political analysts is that prospects for the TPA in the upper house are likely to be dim. Besides the fact that the Senate these days has been unable to pass much legislation of any kind, they point out that the Democratic-controlled body may be reluctant to approve a bill that seems designed to place restraints on a Democratic president’s conduct of his foreign policy.

Spotlight on issues Regardless of the TPA’s likelihood of passage, the legislation helps to focus attention on a number of important issues covered in the bill, including some that could have come straight out of AmCham’s Taiwan White Paper: • TIFA. The bill would urge USTR to resume the TIFA negotiations on economic issues “at the earliest opportunity.”

• Bilateral agreements. The TPA states that “the ultimate

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台灣政策法案」（TPA）提交聯邦眾議院，美國應 否售台F-16 C/D型戰機，以及即將來臨的台灣總統 大選，種種因素加總，台北市美國商會在2011年華 府叩門之旅中發現，台灣在美國首都所受到的關注遠高於過 去。台灣的國防需求獲得密集討論，美方官員也透露免簽計 畫（VWP）可望納入台灣，完成行政程序即可對外宣布。 但在此同時，美國商會叩門之旅代表團也深感訝異，原 來對於台灣持續限制美國牛肉進口，許多美方官員與重要國 會議員竟是如此不滿。美國商會會長魏世民說，「我們知道 華府關切美牛對台出口，但我們並沒有料到反應是如此強 烈」。美方的評論包括一名資深官員形容台灣是「難以信賴 的貿易伙伴」。這位官員同時抱怨，「對於問題該如何解 決，台灣方面沒有實質行動，也沒有積極釋出善意」。 另一位高階官員則說，他「極端不滿台灣處理牛肉問題的 方式」，「台灣自己把台美雙邊關係弄僵」。不論是美國政 府行政部門或是國會山莊，兩造都認為台灣必須有所行動， 使牛肉議題有所進展，才有可能重啟貿易暨投資架構協定 （TIFA）的例行談判。TIFA談判原本應該每年召開以深化台 美經貿關係，但美牛問題導致會議自2007年後就已經停開。 （牛肉問題的背景說明請參閱邊欄） 雖然牛肉問題無解，TIFA談判停開，但令台北市美國商會 慶幸的是，美國政府已經恢復與台灣的工作層級討論。叩門之 旅開始前一週，貿易代表署（USTR）官員造訪台北，商務部 與財政部代表前一陣子也拜訪過台灣。前述三個部會的官員在 與商會華府訪問團會晤時都保證，願意增加與台灣的互動，使 問題獲得解決，並在TIFA談判停擺之際強化雙邊合作。 商會代表團認為，叩門之旅時機不錯的另一個原因是，美 國眾議院外交事務委員會主席羅斯ー雷提能幾週前才剛正式 提出台灣政策法案，以強化美台關係。古巴裔、堅決反共的 羅斯ー雷提能形容TPA足以「釐清與強化」台灣關係法；台 灣關係法自國會1979年通過以來，一直是美台關係的基石。 台灣政策法案內容廣泛（有些華府人士甚至笑稱，「簡直 包山包海」），由於共和黨佔眾院多數，且許多民主黨議員 也表態支持，TPA很有機會獲得眾院院會通過。不過，參議院 版的TPA對案尚未提出，而且資深政治專家認為，限於政治情 勢，參院不太可能通過。其原因除了參院議事陷入僵持，很 多法案都遭擱置，而且掌控參院的民主黨應該不會願意通過 TPA，因為該法可能限縮同黨籍總統的外交政策空間。

「

Doorknockers Cassingham and Wiseman with Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, co-chair of the House Taiwan Caucus.

goal of trade negotiations with Taiwan should be the negotiation of a free trade agreement” and that “as building blocks toward that goal, the United States should study the feasibility of negotiating with Taiwan a bilateral (1) Investment agreement, and (2) Tax agreement.” Previous moves toward concluding those two agreements were stymied by uncertainty over the Congressional approval process. Would they have to be taken up by both houses of Congress? Or could they go through the normal channel of ratification by the Senate only, even though in the absence of formal diplomatic relations they would not be considered “treaties?” (An argument in favor of that interpretation is the statement in the Taiwan Relations Act that the laws of the United States should continue to apply to Taiwan the same way they did prior to de-recognition.)

A clause of the TPA would require the President to report to Congress, within 180 days of passage of the bill, assessing whether bicameral or Senate-only approval would apply – and hopefully clearing the way for work on these agreements to move forward.

• Visits by Cabinet-level U.S. officials. Between 1992 and 2000, five American Cabinet-rank officials paid visits to Taiwan, but no such trip has occurred for the past 11 years, presumably out of concern about jeopardizing various Cabinet departments’ contacts with China. Besides serving as a symbol of the continuing U.S. commitment to Taiwan, such visits are event-forcing occasions that can lead to concrete progress on important matters. AmCham has long argued that their absence deprives the United States of a major opportunity to advance its interests. The TPA would define U.S. policy as encouraging “visits by cabinet-level officials between the United States and Taiwan to foster commercial, technological, and people-to-people exchanges.”

• Participation in the international arena. The bill would require the Department of State to “continue its annual program to ensure meaningful participation

by Taiwan in the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland,” as well as in other relevant international organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). With specific regard to ICAO,

重點議題 不論台灣政策法案能否過關，法案多項重點確已因此更受 重視，包括商會在「台灣白皮書」提出的一些觀點： • 貿易暨投資架構協定： TPA可能促成USTR儘速恢復TIFA 談判。 • 雙邊協定： TPA主張，「美台經貿談判的終極目標應為 自由貿易協定（FTA）」，以及「為建構FTA的基礎， 美國應研究洽談下列雙邊協定的可能性：(1)投資協定， 與(2)租稅協定」。兩項協定的推動工作並不順利，因 為美國國會的批准程序仍有變數。協定是否必須同時獲 得參眾兩院同意，抑或比照條約批准程序，僅由參院同 意即可？美台之間沒有正式外交關係，協定是否能視為 「條約」不無疑慮，但有利台灣的見解認為，台灣關係 法已經表明，就算雙方已經沒有外交關係，但美國法律 對於台灣仍然適用。TPA要求，法案通過後180天內， 總統須向國會釐清，美台協定究竟是兩院通過或一院批 准；此一安排或許有助投資協定與租稅協定。 • 美國部長級官員訪問台灣： 1992年至2000年間，曾有五 位部長級官員訪問台灣，但過去11年完全沒有。合理的 解釋是，各部會都擔心首長訪台將引發中國抵制。高層 訪問除了象徵美國維持對台灣的承諾，更有助推動重要 議題的具體進展。台北市美國商會向來主張，停止高層

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Why the Beef Issue is so Sensitive

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he issue of Taiwan’s continued restrictions on the import of American beef is portrayed in Washington as a matter of principle – and of the kind of cooperation that should be expected between close friends and allies. The background is that Taiwan cut off imports of American beef in late 2003 after one cow in Washington State was discovered to have been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more widely known as “mad cow disease.” The animal in question had in fact originated in Canada, and no meat from the cow had entered the food supply.

Nearly three years later, Taiwan reopened the market to U.S. beef with certain conditions, including a continuing prohibition on internal organs and cuts of meat containing bone. Then in October 2009, the two sides signed a Protocol ending the ban on bone-in beef and some other products – only to have the Legislative Yuan quickly pass an amendment to the Food Safety Law that in effect reneged on the agreement by slapping a further prohibition on ground beef and offal.

Although the inability of the Taiwan government to adhere to the Protocol left many U.S. officials angry and frustrated, a year later it appeared that preparations for TIFA talks would be able to resume regardless. In fact, a TIFA delegation from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) was all set to visit Taipei in early 2011 when another hurdle arose that caused the trip to be called off – the rejection of a shipment of U.S. beef by the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) because it was found to contain the presence of ractopamine, a feed additive widely used by U.S. ranchers to promote leanness in livestock. Although ractopamine had long been outlawed under Taiwan’s regulations, it had not been previously tested for in import inspections. Taiwan has never set a maximum residue level (MRL) for the amount of ractopamine allowable in beef, with the result that the Taiwan policy is zero tolerance. Since early this year, testing for ractopamine has been more and more common, with numerous shipments rejected.

Those in the United States friendly to Taiwan who had stood up to criticism by urging the restart of TIFA talks even without full resolution of the beef issue felt betrayed. U.S. officials have emphasized that there is no scientific evidence showing ractopamine at reasonable levels to be unsafe, and note that millions of American consume beef as part of their daily diet without incident.

On the Taiwan side, the government has been wary of potential allegations from consumer groups and opposition politicians that it is failing to guard against risks to public health, especially after the recent melamine and plasticizer episodes. And while Taiwan has little beef industry to protect, it has many hog farmers. Ractopamine is also used in raising pigs, and the domestic pork industry reportedly finds the issue to be a convenient way to block competition from U.S. imports.

In view of this situation, it has been clear that the Taiwan government would seek to avoid sparking a campaign issue by acting on the beef issue before the presidential and legislative elections this January. The hope in Washington is that after the elections, no matter which party is in charge, Taipei will move to set an MRL to restore stability to the beef trade and rebuild trust within the U.S.-Taiwan economic relationship.

U.S. officials note the political reality of the strength of the agricultural lobby in the United States, with powerful political figures such as Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, coming from cattle-raising states. But they stress that the crux of the dispute is a question of principle, not the dollar value of beef exports to Taiwan, which represents a tiny proportion of the total bilateral trade. They cite the longstanding role of the United States in bolstering Taiwan’s security and offering support within the international community, and clearly expect that assistance to be reciprocated.

— By Don Shapiro 28

美牛爭議 牽動敏感神經

台

灣 仍然禁止進口美國牛肉特定品項， 已被美國視為有失厚道，不利友邦之 間應有的合作。華盛頓州2003年發現 牛隻帶有狂牛症（BSE）後，台灣決定全面停 止美牛進口。但出現病徵的牛事實上來自加拿 大，而且身上的肉從未流入市場。 近三年後，台灣有條件恢復進口美牛部分 品項，但排除內臟與帶骨牛肉。2009年10月， 雙方簽署協議重新開放帶骨牛肉與其他一些品 項，但立法院隨即修改食品衛生管理法，設下 「三管五卡」的禁令，實質上排除雙方已經同 意開放的絞肉與內臟。 雖然台灣的行動令美國政府既憤慨又失 望，但經過一年的沉澱，雙邊貿易暨投資架構 協定（TIFA）的定期談判似乎仍可望恢復。 事實上，美國貿易代表署代表團原訂2011年年 初訪問台灣，但台灣衛生署食品暨藥物管理局 （TFDA）禁止帶有瘦肉精的美牛進口，導致 TIFA談判再度喊停。美國農牧業者長期使用 瘦肉精以增加牲畜的瘦肉比例，但台灣雖然禁 用瘦肉精，以往並未將瘦肉精殘留列入進口篩 檢項目。而且，台灣從未制定瘦肉精的最高殘 留標準（MRL），結果變成瘦肉精完全不得檢 出。今年初開始，瘦肉精篩檢越來越頻繁，多 批美牛因此被海關查扣。 美國友台人士曾經不顧批評，呼籲就算牛 肉問題無法完全解決，TIFA談判也應恢復， 但瘦肉精風波讓他們覺得被自己人捅了一刀。 美方強調，迄無科學證據顯示合理範圍內的瘦 肉精殘留可能危害健康，且數百萬美國人每天 食用牛肉也沒有出現問題。 對台灣而言，政府擔憂消費者保護組織與 在野黨質疑公衛關卡失守，特別是三聚氰胺 （毒奶）與塑化劑風波殷鑑不遠。而且，雖然 台灣沒什麼本土牛肉產製，但養豬產業卻勢力 龐大。由於瘦肉精也能用於豬隻，本土養豬業 者當然樂於以此為由阻擋美國豬肉扣關。 此外，總統與立委選戰明年一月就要舉 行，執政黨當然不願意牛肉爭議升高為焦點。 美方的期待是，選後不論哪一黨執政，台灣都 能建立瘦肉精殘留標準，以恢復美牛進口的常 態，並修補雙邊關係。 美國官員瞭解美國農牧業的遊說力量不容 小覷，出身農業州的政治人物，例如來自蒙大 拿州的聯邦參議院金融委員會主席包克斯，當 然力挺選區主要產業。但他們強調，牛肉爭議 的核心在於台灣是否願意做出正確決定，而不 是美牛出口多寡的問題，畢竟牛肉只佔雙邊貿 易總額的一小部份。他們認為，美國長期維護 台海安全，協助台灣參與國際社會，當然希望 台灣能展現應有作為。 — 撰文／沙蕩

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it would require the Secretary of State to report to Congress within 180 days of the bill’s passage on U.S. government plans to help Taiwan participate in the organization, to be followed up by annual briefings to Congress on the progress.

• Visa-free entry to the United States for Taiwanese travelers. The provision of visa-waiver privileges to Taiwan citizens would be a big boost to the U.S. tourism industry. In recent years, the main obstacle has been U.S. concern about the security of Taiwanese passports. Personal appearances were previously not required for passport applications, leading to cases of abuse in which valid Taiwan passports were being used by citizens of other countries seeking entry into the United States. Taiwan has since tightened up on the application process, and the Doorknock delegation was told by U.S. officials that only a final step of interagency consultation needs to take place before visawaiver for Taiwan could be implemented. That view was confirmed publicly by Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee attended by one of the Doorknock representatives. Campbell told the Committee that he is “very impressed with Taiwan’s efforts” to improve passport control, and that an announcement on visawaiver could be expected in the “very near term.”

AmCham plans to continue to track the progress of the TPA. “Some of the components of the bill are of more concern to us than others, and we will particularly urge members of Congress to support the provisions related to the economy and trade,” says AmCham President Andrea Wu.

Defense aspects The Doorknock week also coincided with widespread debate in Washington over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. The U.S. government had just approved the upgrading of 145 existing F-16A/B jet fighters in the Taiwan air force, but had not acted on Taiwan’s request for 66 new F-16C/D aircraft. A bill to require sale of the C/Ds was introduced in the Senate, but failed to pass.

AmCham has taken the position that as a business organization, it lacks the technical competence to judge precisely what equipment Taiwan needs to secure its defense. Rather, it has called on the U.S. government to continue to help Taiwan maintain its defense capability and to make decisions about weaponry sales to Taiwan on their own merits, without being influenced by pressure from China. The Chamber notes repeated public assurances from U.S. officials that a decision on the C/Ds remains open, and that Washington does not engage in consultations with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan.

Another heated issue during the Doorknock period was fallout from a Financial Times report quoting an unnamed senior U.S. official as expressing doubts about

訪問非常不利美國推動自身利益。TPA或許有助釐清美 國政策，鼓勵「美台部長級官員互訪，以增進商業、科 技與民間交流」。 • 參 與 國 際 事 務 ： T P A 同 樣 要 求 美 國 國 務 院 「 持 續 推 動年度計畫，以確保台灣有意義參與世界衛生大會 （WHA）」，以及國際民航組織（ICAO）等國際組 織。就ICAO部分，TPA要求國務卿在法案通過後180天 內向國會說明，美國將以何種策略協助台灣參與，並要 求國務院每年向國會說明進度。 • 免簽計畫納入台灣： 台灣訪美旅客不必再事先申請簽 證，必將非常有助美國觀光產業。美國不願將台灣納入 免簽計畫（VWP）的主因之一是台灣護照的安全度不 足。由於護照申辦不需本人到場，導致其他國家的偷渡 客得以持有效護照闖關。台灣已經強化申辦查核措施； 美國官員告也知叩門之旅代表團，在跨部會諮商完成 後，台灣就可正式納入免簽計畫。國務院亞太助卿康貝 爾曾在眾院外委會聽證會上公開證實上述說法，表示他 「非常肯定台灣改善護照管控的努力」，而免簽優惠可 望「很快」對外宣布。 商會將持續追蹤台灣政策法案的進度。商會執行長吳王小 珍表示，「法案某些條文對商會而言更為重要，希望國會議 員能夠支持經貿相關議題」。

國防議題 叩門之旅代表團於華府之際，正巧親自見證對台軍售引發 的熱烈討論。美國政府當時剛剛宣布，升級台灣現有145架 F-16 A/B型戰機，但擱置台灣採購66架F-16 C/D的要求。要求 出售C/D型的議案雖曾送交參院，但無法獲得通過。 台北市美國商會的立場是，商會是商業組織，欠缺足夠的 技術知識以判斷適合台灣的武器。但商會的呼籲是，美國政 府應該持續協助台灣維持防衛力量，並且依實際需求決定軍 售項目，不應受制於中國的施壓。商會注意到美國官員多次 公開保證，政府尚未決定是否出售C/D型戰機，且美國不會 就對台軍售與中國諮商。 發生在叩門之旅期間的另一個熱門話題是，英國金融時報 的報導指出，匿名美國資深官員質疑民進黨主席、總統參選 人蔡英文無法平穩處理兩岸關係。相關發言被視為不當干涉 他國選舉，而國務院稍後予以否認。康貝爾在聽證會上被問 到此事時表示，「美國不會選邊站；任何一方當選，美國都 會與之合作」。 完成表定議題的說明與討論後，叩門之旅代表團也曾多次 表明，美台都必須更為積極強化雙邊關係。近年的趨勢是， 華府與台北的官員都越來越注意中國，雖然北京對全球的重 要性確實越來越高，但不該因此忽略美台之間的長期友誼。 商會不斷提醒華府人士，特別是國會成員，許多因素都讓 台灣具有重要價值，除了活力十足的民主政治，美國第九大 貿易伙伴，也是美國企業技術合作的重要對象。就在美台暫 停經濟議題談判的這幾年間（這多少與牛肉議題有關），台 灣不僅完成兩岸間的經濟合作架構協議（ECFA），也與日 本達成雙邊投資協議。 同樣的，台灣也眼見南韓這個最大競爭對手，完成與美國 及歐盟的自由貿易協定（FTA）。商會執行長吳王小珍說， 「商會想要傳達的訊息是，台灣與美國如果能緊密合作，將 能更有效強化整體貿易競爭力」。 在緊湊的訪問會談之外，代表團非常高興能夠應邀參加10 月5日的華府中華民國國慶酒會。1979年斷交後隔了多年， 國慶酒會今年才首度在雙橡園重現。美方以往雖因中國施 壓，要求台灣駐美代表處不得於雙橡園舉辦雙十酒會，但武 昌起義屆滿百年，美方今年顯然為此破例。商會會長魏世民 說：「我們很榮興能夠與其他台灣的友人一道參加這個別具 歷史意義的活動」。

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opposition presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s ability to deal with cross-Strait issues. The remarks, widely seen as improper photo : cna interference in the democratic process of another country, were The National Day celebration at Twin Oaks was an opportunity to meet with many later disavowed by the State Washington-based friends of Taiwan.

Department. Asked for comment by a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Kurt Similarly, Taiwan has watched as Korea – its number one Campbell said during his testimony that “we don’t take sides competitor in export markets – has successfully negotiated and we will cooperate with whoever is elected.” free trade agreements with both the United States and the In addition to the specific issues on its agenda, the European Union. “The AmCham message is that both Doorknock team also addressed the broader theme of the Taiwan and the United States could do much to strengthen need for greater attention in both Washington and Taipei their overall trade competitiveness by working more closely to deepening and solidifying the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. together,” notes Andrea Wu. In recent years, officials in both capitals have been focusing Aside from the heavy schedule of serious meetings primarily on their dealings with China – understandable during the week, the Doorknock team also had the pleasure given Beijing’s increasing importance on the world stage, but of being invited to Taiwan’s National Day festivities on unfortunate if it leads to the neglect of their longstanding ties October 5. For the first time in 32 years, this year’s event with one another.

– commemorating the 100th anniversary of the revolution A m C h a m r e m i n d e d i t s c o n t a c t s i n Wa s h i n g t o n , that led to the establishment of the Republic of China – particularly on Capitol Hill, of the many reasons why was held at the palatial Twin Oaks estate in Washington Taiwan matters, including its vibrant democracy, ranking as owned by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative the United States’ ninth largest trading partner, and status Office. Among the seemingly petty restrictions on TECRO’s as a source of technology partnership for leading American operations (imposed by the U.S. government due to pressure corporations. While government-to-government progress on from China) is a rule that Double Ten celebrations must the U.S.-Taiwan economic relationship has been in limbo for not be held at Twin Oaks, but a dispensation was received the past several years (in part because of the beef imbroglio), for the 100th anniversary. “We were honored to be able to Taiwan has concluded an Economic Cooperation Framework participate in this historic event along with so many other Agreement with China and signed a bilateral investment friends of Taiwan,” says Bill Wiseman. arrangement with Japan.

Mission to Washington

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The Doorknock team together with the two U.S. Senators from Illinois: Democrat Richard Durbin, left, and Mark Kirk, right.

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a c h y e a r, A m C h a m Ta i p e i s e n d s a d e l e g a t i o n t o Washington, D.C. for a round of discussions with executive branch officials dealing with U.S.-Taiwan affairs, members of Congress and their staff assistants, think tanks, scholars, and other organizations interested in the bilateral relationship. This year’s group, led by AmCham Chairman Bill Wiseman, held a total of 46 meetings between October 3 and 7, frequently splitting into teams to cover more appointments.

Other members of the 2011 Doorknock delegation included AmCham President Andrea Wu; Past Chairman Paul Cassingham, senior legal consultant at Yangming Partners; AmCham Senior Director Don Shapiro; and AmCham Director of Government & Public Affairs Angela Yu. They were joined for some meetings by Harrison Cook, Vice President for International Affairs for Eli Lilly and Co. in Washington.

The trip follows publication of the Chamber’s annual Taiwan White Paper, a compendium of recommendations to both the Taiwan and U.S. governments on how the business climate for multinational companies in Taiwan could be improved.

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Giving Taiwan Her Due Diplomatically isolated and often overshadowed and pressured by giant China, Taiwan is often deprived of the international attention she deserves.

BY J. BRUCE JACOBS

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Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse

By Shelley Rigger Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011, 232 pages.

ISBN-10: 1442204796.

ISBN-13: 978-1442204799

helley Rigger, Brown Professor of East Asian Studies and chair of the political science department at Davidson College in North Carolina, is a leading American specialist on Taiwan. Twenty years ago, when still a young scholar, she produced two important books on Taiwan politics, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party. Thus, we would expect more excellent work from this now mature scholar. Unfortunately, Why Taiwan Matters – although it commendably makes the case for Taiwan’s importance in the world as a vibrant democracy and vital link in the international technology supply chain – is filled with many major and minor errors and internal contradictions.

In the first paragraph of the Preface, Rigger tells us that she wishes to answer “the two questions I am asked most often about my work. What makes Taiwan so interesting to you? And, why is Taiwan such a big deal in U.S.-China relations?” The most direct answer to the second question comes in the short final chapter. While she quotes

a variety of people, ultimately she is clearest when she says that “lasting peace and stability cannot be built on a foundation of might-makes-right.” To reinforce this idea, she quotes Thucydides and goes on to note: “Today the privilege of invoking ‘what is fair and right’ is substantiated in international norms that condemn aggression, force and coercion and encourage negotiation, cooperation, and compromise.”

To reach this point, Rigger has some insightful sections in her book. Her analysis of Taiwan’s highest skyscraper, Taipei 101, draws some interesting parallels with Taiwan itself. “As a symbol of contemporary Taiwan, Taipei 101 cuts two ways. It captures Taiwan’s vitality and optimism; the fact that Taiwanese could finance such an undertaking reflects the island’s extraordinary economic dynamism. At the same time, the building’s solitary profile parallels Taiwan’s isolation. From a distance, it can look fragile, lonely and exposed.”

Rigger also writes interestingly in chapter 3 about some of Taiwan’s resourceful entrepreneurs in her disc u s s i o n o f t h e i s l a n d ’s e c o n o m i c

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books development. She notes how Wang Yung-ching challenged and competed successfully with the state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp., how Lin Yi-shou used his prowess in the steel industry to build a university, and how Tatung went from making Christmas tree lights to rice cookers and consumer electronics as well as building a technological university. Rigger’s discussion of rotating credit societies is also useful (though it should be noted that the proper Chinese term for these informal organizations is biaohui 標會, not hui.

In her discussion of democratization (chapter 4), Rigger draws some intriguing parallels between Jason Hu, the Mainlander and Kuomintang mayor of Greater Taichung, and Chen Chu, the Taiwanese and Democratic Progressive Party mayor of Greater Kaohsiung. She notes that both are “workaholics” and pragmatists, enjoy being among the people, and have suffered strokes. It is quite true that Jason Hu is a “liberal” among Mainlander KMT politicians, but Rigger fails to note that as the propaganda chief for Lien Chan’s 2000 presidential campaign, Hu focused on winning Mainlander rather than Taiwanese votes, thus condemning Lien’s campaign to a poor third-place showing.

Her analysis of Taiwan’s society (chapter 5) is also excellent, though spirit mediums (or shamans) have declined considerably since Taiwan implemented National Health Insurance in 1995 under President Lee Tenghui. Previously, shamans had made much of their income by providing medicines blessed by the local gods, but once National Health Insurance made Western medicines affordable to average Taiwanese, the demand for remedies from shamans declined precipitously.

Where then does Rigger get it wrong? First, her whole framing of Taiwan as a “Small Island” (subtitle) or even as a “tiny island” and a “small country” with a “small population” is simply wrong. In terms of population, Taiwan ranks in the top quarter of the world’s nations. It has 20% more people than Australia. In terms of

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area, Taiwan is larger than two-fifths of the world’s nations. In addition, as Rigger tells us, Taiwan is a “Global Powerhouse.” To call Taiwan “tiny” is misleading even if it is much smaller than China and the United States.

Taiwan belongs to the important set of “middle powers” that includes such other nations as Australia, South Korea, and various European nations. Middle powers cannot dominate the world in the face of great powers, but they do exert important influence. A better framing of Taiwan’s actual middle power status in the world would help her analysis.

The question of statehood Second, Rigger appears afraid to call Taiwan a “state.” She says, “Just calling Taiwan a ‘country’ is enough to make some readers drop this book in disgust.” But the best international law defining a state, “The Convention on Rights and Duties of States” signed at Montevideo on December 26, 1933, makes very clear that Taiwan is a sovereign state. Taiwan – or the Republic of China, to use its formal name – has all four “qualifications” required by Article 1 of the Convention to be a state: “a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.” In addition, Article 3 of the Convention makes clear that “the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by other states.

Even before recognition the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence…” Thus, recognition from other states is not necessary for a state to exist or to be sovereign. Rigger is wrong to deny that Taiwan is a sovereign state and to argue that lack of recognition denies it statehood or sovereignty.

As Rigger notes, in addition to the 23 states that recognize Taiwan form a l l y, t h e r e a r e s o m e 5 0 s t a t e s – including most of the world’s major nations – that maintain “officially unofficial” ties with Taiwan, have established offices in Taiwan, and host Taiwan’s offices in their own countries.

In most cases, it is no longer correct to say that “diplomats [are] ‘furloughed’ from government service” to serve in Taiwan. In fact, Taiwan has become a choice appointment for foreign-service officers. Many other sorts of restrictions that once faced Taiwan’s overseas offices no longer apply. These “officially unofficial” ties are vigorous and robust.

Third, in addition to making many historical errors of fact in her book, Rigger also shares with many policymakers in Washington a fundamental misunderstanding of Taiwan’s historical background that blurs the importance of Taiwan’s democratization as a key historical turning point. It is misleading to argue that the democratic government presided over by Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian, and Ma Ying-jeou is a continuation of the authoritarian government of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo.

The governments of the two Chiangs were colonial regimes that repressed Taiwanese as second-class citizens.

According to Joseph Wu’s book, Taiwan’s Democratization, which Rigger cites, under Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, Mainlanders – despite accounting for less than 15% of the population – always made up a majority of both the Kuomintang’s Central Standing Committee and the government’s cabinet. Under Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, Taiwanese, who number more than 85% of the island’s population, never served even once as premier, as minister of foreign affairs, national defence, education, economics, finance, or justice, or as director-general of the Government Information Office, nor did they ever hold any senior position within the military, security apparatus, or party. Only under Lee Teng-hui and with democratization did Taiwanese finally occupy a majority of the Central Standing Committee and the cabinet and begin to participate more fully in government.

Even though the Republic of China continues to exist, the seven sets of amendments to the Constitution since 1991 have in fact created a new regime.

It is naïve to assert, as Rigger does, that the 1947 Constitution was “demo-

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MAJOR MILESTONE—The 2000 election of the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian and running mate Annette Lu represented the first democratic transfer of political power in Taiwan history. photo : cna

cratic.” In the context of the difficulties facing those around the world who attempt to democratize, the description of the Constitution as having been “amended haphazardly” also strikes this reviewer as unduly harsh.

The numerous errors in Rigger’s treatment of Taiwan’s past mean that she gives more credence than necessary to Chinese Communist views of history. (The reviewer had prepared an Appendix with more than 20 such errors, but this has been deleted for reasons of space.) Only towards the very end of her book does she mention that Mao Zedong told Edgar Snow in his famous interview of 1936 that Taiwan should be independent. Despite quoting Alan Wachman’s book, Why Taiwan?, at length, she does not tell us that Wachman makes very clear that not until 1942 did either the Kuomintang or the Chinese Communist Party claim Taiwan for China. Wachman and numerous other sources unambiguously demonstrate the falsehood of China’s claim in its 2000 White Paper that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.” The Chinese claim to Taiwan is based on the colonial rule of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo. The regime of the Chiangs is now gone. Today no one claims that India belongs to Britain or that Algeria belongs to France. Why should we give any consideration to Chinese colonial

claims that Taiwan is its rightful possession?

The current recognition by many of the world’s nations that only “one China” exists dates back to the early 1970s when the Chinese Communists ruled China and Chiang Kai-shek ruled Taiwan. As Rigger finally says, the Taiwanese had no input into politics at the time, but she does not make the point that Taiwan’s departure from the United Nations resulted directly from Chiang Kai-shek’s own “one China” policy and had no input from the Taiwanese people. The “one China” policy also explains why Taiwan today has so many “officially unofficial” diplomatic ties around the world.

The existence of the Chiang Kai-shek colonial dictatorship in Taiwan in the early 1970s does not mean that people today have to consider China’s ahistorical and colonial claims seriously. To do so leads to many unnecessary compromises, policy errors, and pandering to China. One recent example is the U.S. National Security Council leak to the Financial Times during Tsai Ing-wen’s September 2011 visit to Washington, which said “she left us with distinct doubts about whether she is both willing and able to continue the stability in cross-Strait relations the region has enjoyed in recent years,” leading the newspaper to report that “the Obama

administration has warned that a victory by Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese opposition leader, in the island’s January presidential election could raise tensions with China.” Rigger does not pander to the Chinese, but she gives the Chinese claims much more credence than they deserve, a stance that narrows her policy options as well as those of Washington and Taiwan.

As noted earlier, Rigger quotes Thucydides about events 2,500 years ago. In looking for historical parallels, she could also look back less than 80 years to the racist and militaristic regimes of Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan. Like the Germany and Japan of that era, China today also uses racist arguments to claim territories including Taiwan. Like those countries, China today has aroused a fierce sense of nationalism among its people. And like those countries, China today is rapidly building its armed forces.

History has taught us that appeasing Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan did not stop their desires to expand and to glorify their fatherlands, nor did it moderate their ambition. Similarly, appeasing China today will not change the basic nature of its regime.

If we neglect this fact, we shall end up fighting a war that is much more destructive and costly than any war to date. Rigger is correct when she says that “lasting peace and stability cannot be built on a foundation of mightmakes-right.”

The above reservations aside, Why Taiwan Matters performs a useful service in outlining Taiwan’s signal contributions to democratic development and its crucial role in the international economy. At a time when so much of the world’s focus seems to be riveted on China, the book provides a case for why Taiwan also deserves attention. Sadly, it also contains many unnecessary factual errors that detract from its value.

— J. Bruce Jacobs, Professor of Asian Languages and Studies at Monash University in Australia, is the author of numerous books and articles about Taiwan politics.

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The View from 1972: U.S. Companies’ Contribution 1972年的觀察紀錄：美國企業對台灣發展的貢獻

In 1972, AmCham Taipei hired a young American journalist in Taipei named Don Shapiro to do a special three-month research project on U.S.-invested companies’ contributions to Taiwan’s economic development. The project involved a survey to which 47 companies responded, plus interviews with about 15 executives. The finished report, entitled “American Investors and Taiwan’s Development,” sheds light on an important period of the Chamber’s history, when a large proportion of the member companies were engaged in manufacturing. It shows the role of multinational companies in helping to build Taiwan into a highly competitive production center for the world market. Excerpts from the report, published here for the first time, follow below. 台北市美國商會1972年聘用一位常駐台北的年青的美國記者沙蕩進行為期三個月的專案研究，以瞭解美國企業對 台灣經濟發展的貢獻。期間有47家廠商接受調查，及15位主管接受訪談。名為「美國投資者與台灣的發展」的最 終報告，展現了商會歷史上重要一頁，因為當時大多數的會員企業都是製造業者。報告也凸顯了，在台灣發展成 為優勢產製中心的過程中，跨國企業所扮演的角色。底下是當年報告的部分內容，這也是報告首度公開。

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merican-invested companies have generally regarded the business environment in Taiwan as exceedingly favorable.

Among the advantageous factors they cite are the availability of labor that is dexterous, dependable, and quick to learn, as well as inexpensive relative to American levels; the supply of welleducated technical talent; the social stability; and the cooperative attitude of the government.

Because they have enjoyed a fundamentally excellent investment climate in the ROC, the American investors feel a sense of satisfaction and pride in the contributions they have in turn been able to make to Taiwan’s economic development. These include the job opportunities provided and the money injected into the economy through payroll payments,

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RCA and other U.S.-invested companies established the foundation for Taiwan's IT industry. photo : GIo

taxes, and domestic procurement. Other contributions include the technical assistance and guidance that many investors have provided to their suppliers and

customers, the technology and knowhow introduced to Taiwan industry, the vocational and management training given to employees, and the R&D programs established here. These factors have enabled Taiwan industry to hasten its pace of development substantially, learning from the experience that the American companies have accumulated over many years instead of going through a lengthy process of trial and error.

Through both direct contact with the American investors and personal lines of communication between the employees of Western companies and their counterparts in domestic businesses, local industry has been able to become familiar with the production and management practices of Western business organizations and to adopt those techniques they find appro-

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priate. Another channel for the passage of information and experience is the considerable number of technical and managerial personnel trained by American investors who subsequently start their own businesses or are hired by Taiwan companies. One American electronics company found that between January 1970 and May 1971, 24 of its salaried personnel left to work for local companies, most of them taking over positions of substantial responsibility – deputy general manager, plant manager, quality control manager, etc. – in the Taiwan companies.

The companies surveyed pioneered in bringing numerous manufacturing processes to Taiwan, including the production of color television sets (Admiral), double-sided printed circuit boards (Ampex), car radios (Bendix), b/w picture tubes (Clinton), high-precision plastic injection molding (Mattel), integrated circuits (Texas Instruments), and low-density polyethylene (USI Far East). In banking, First National City [today’s Citibank] introduced such concepts as term lending and cash-flow lending (based on balance sheet projections rather than the amount of security pledged).

The management of most Americaninvested companies in Taiwan consists

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of a mixture of expatriates and ROC citizens. At many companies, an expatriate is normally brought to Taiwan to provide training, sometimes specifically to train a Taiwan counterpart to succeed him. At Admiral, for example, a Taiwan manager may have the actual responsibility for a given position while an American counterpart acts as an adviser. In other instances, when a company is launching a new line of production, expatriates with previous experience with that line are brought in to help guide it into smooth operation. With regard to both management practices and technical operations, the expatriates bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to share with their Taiwan colleagues.

Because of the high cost of maintaining expatriates and their families overseas and the desire to reward and motivate promising local employees with promotions, the U.S.-invested companies are generally eager to replace most of their expatriates with Taiwanese as soon as local managers have gained the necessary experience. USI Far East, an investment of the National Distillers & Chemical Corp., and Bristol-Myers (Taiwan) have entirely Taiwanese management, and many other companies cite that as their goal.

國企業普遍認為台灣的經營環境非常有利。美商認為 的優點包括：勞工手巧、可靠、學習能力強，而且與 美國相比薪資較低；具備教育水準高的技術人才；社 會穩定；以及政府樂於配合的態度。 由於美商享有基本上非常優越的投資環境，美國投資人普 遍滿意與自豪於能對中華民國經濟發展做出貢獻，包括提供 工作機會，以及透過薪資、租稅、採購所挹注的資金。另外 也包括許多廠商提供技術協助與輔導給供應商與採購者，引 進產業發展所需的技術與知識，提供員工所需的職業與管理 訓練，以及創設研發計畫。由於台灣得以學習美商多年來累 積的經驗，省去自行摸索的時間與成本，台灣產業基礎因此 能夠快速發展。 經由與美國投資者的直接溝通，以及與西方企業員工或本 地合作伙伴的個人聯繫，台灣業者得以更加瞭解西方企業體 制下的產製與管理作風，也能引進覺得適合的技術。訊息與 經驗的另一個傳遞方式是，美商培訓的技術與管理人員，之 後獨立創業或是轉效其他台灣企業。某一家在1970年1月至 1971年5月間創立的美商電子公司，24名員工轉往台灣企業工 作，其中多數都取得不錯職位，如副總經理、廠長、品管主 任等。 受調企業引進眾多產製技術，包括將軍（暫譯）彩色電 視、安培（暫譯）雙面印刷電路板（PCB）、奔得士（暫譯）

Many American investors believe that the single most significant contribution they make to Taiwan’s economic development is the vocational, technical, and managerial training given to Taiwan employees. The training programs vary in their degree of formality from company to company. In some places a course system predominates; in others, most training is conducted onthe-job by supervisory personnel. In any case, each company puts great stress on educating its employees in the methods and concepts central to an efficient, high-quality operation.

General Instrument maintains one of the most comprehensive training programs, run by a Training Department with a staff of 15 and six dedicated classrooms. Every line operator hired

by GI goes through a week of full-time training before beginning work on the production floor. Skilled workers, such as machinists and toolmakers, attend periodic sessions over a year and a half.

The U.S.-invested companies apply rigid standards of quality and process control, and much of the training effort is spent in instilling an appreciation for the necessity of such controls and in teaching the relevant techniques.

Other skills which the companies often include in their training of higher-

車用收音機、台灣克林登的黑白映像管、美泰兒的精密塑膠 射出成型、德州儀器的積體電路、以及臺灣聚合化學品的低 密度聚乙烯。銀行業部分，（花旗銀行的前身）第一國家城 市銀行引進定期貸款與現金流量放款等概念，其中現金流量 放款改以廠商未來獲利能力為放款基準，一改過去只看擔保 價值的作法。 多數在台美商企業的管理階級都包含外籍與中華民國公 民。許多公司的狀況是，外籍員工到台灣的目的是提供教育 訓練，有時專為訓練台籍接任者而來。以將軍電視為例，台 籍經理可能實際負責某項業務，美籍主管只提供建議。其他 的狀況則是，當公司新開生產線時，具相關經驗的外籍會調 到台灣以協助營運。就管理方式與技術運作，外籍人士為台 籍員工帶來豐富的知識與經驗。 因為外籍員工與家屬派駐海外的費用高昂，同時台籍員工 也應該獲得升遷的獎賞與鼓勵，美商一般很願意讓台籍員工接 手，只要他們能夠掌握必要經驗。由國民製酒及化學公司與台 灣必治妥施貴寶合資成立的臺灣聚合化學品，其管理階層就全 為台籍，許多企業也表示他們的目標是全由台籍管理。 許多美商認為，他們對台灣經濟發展最重要的貢獻是職 業、技術與管理訓練。每一家公司在職訓練的方式都不一 樣，有些是以講課為主，其他則由專人指導、現場實作。不 論如何，每家企業都非常重視教育訓練，教導人員提升營運

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level personnel are budgeting and cost accounting, setting profit goals and planning for the needs of a department, and personnel management.

Technical assistance to local companies is another important contribution.

M ost m a j or A m er ic a n e le c tr o n ic s companies in Taiwan maintain an engineering group whose sole purpose is to locate promising local suppliers of parts and components and to work with the vendors to develop an acceptable quality level. Some of the pharmaceutical companies have been involved in similar efforts to upgrade the quality of chemical and packaging suppliers, and the plastics producers provide technical services for their customers among the processors in Taiwan.

The most dramatic results have been seen in the electronics field. Admiral’s purchases in Taiwan have risen from an initial 10% of its total materials to a current 75%, Philco-Ford’s from zero to 50%. General Instrument now has over 130 approval local vendors, compared to just 17 a year and a half ago. The purchases of the electronics companies, aside from components, include stamped and molded plastic and metal parts, tools and dies, and packing materials.

B u t t h e i n c r e a s e s i n l o c a l p u rchases have been made possible only

by lengthy, assiduous programs of technical assistance to potential suppliers.

The Taiwan manufacturers simply had not had sufficient industrial experience to turn out products on a consistent basis that could meet the rigorous quality standards required for the international market.

Beyond providing vendors with engineering drawings, specification sheets, and other technical data, the American companies frequently dispatch personnel to the suppliers’ plants for weeks or months at a time to give training and guidance. In some cases the assistance has extended to the vendors’ business operations with advice on budgeting, planning and accounting techniques.

One general manager commented that in the U.S., his company would charge consulting fees for the types of free services it provides its vendors in Taiwan.

General Instrument now assigns 12 engineers to working full-time in its vendors' plants; at one time, more than 20 engineers were engaged in this work. TRW ran a similar operation, which it called the Bootstrap Program.

Some companies have brought vendors’ employees into their own plants to go through the same training programs they give their own workers.

In addition, if an important supplier

效能、品質的方法與概念。 通用器材公司具有最完善的訓練方案，其培訓部共有15名 專職人員及6間專用教室。每一位生產線操作員上線實作前， 都必須經過一週的全天訓練。機械工與機具員等技術人員一 年半內也需不定期上課。 美商對品質與生產管理的要求非常高，多數訓練都在強調 品管的必要性、與傳授相關技術。在高階人員的訓練中，則 常增加預算與成本評估的技巧，如設定利潤目標與擬定部門 需求，以及人員管理。 對台灣企業的技術協助是另一項重要貢獻。多數在台大型 美商電子公司都設有技術團隊，以尋找合適的元件供應商， 並協助對口廠商達到品質要求。部分製藥廠也有類似團隊， 以提升化工與包裝廠商的品質；塑膠業者則提供下游廠商必 要的產製技術。 最戲劇化的結果出現在電子業。將軍電視機在台的原料採 購額由全部的10%增加至75%；飛歌福特由完全沒有增加到 50%。通用器材公司一年半前只有17家台灣的協力廠，現在 已經有超過130家。美商電子廠的採購項目，除了元件外，還 包括沖切與成型的塑膠與金屬零件、工具與染料，及包裝材 料。 本土採購量的增加，得歸功於美商持續、全面地提供技術 協助。之前，台灣廠商根本不具備足夠的產製經驗，以提供

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encounters technical problems that the staff in Taiwan cannot solve, experts from the parent companies or other Asian affiliates may be called in to help.

RCA is now buying up to 450,000 plastic cabinets for television sets annually from a supplier to whom it had lent a total of nine technical advisors.

Clinton Taiwan worked with a vendor for six months to get an adequate plastic wafer for its picture tubes, and now is considering shipping the part back to the U.S. for use by its parent company as well.

One of the largest local electronics companies, China Electronics, has received technical assistance from several American-invested corporations on various products. Its vice president noted that the company has also benefited immeasurably from the strict inspection requirements of its customers: “In the Taiwan market most of the suppliers tend to be careless about quality and delivery. But under pressure from our buyers we have to be good. Our workers and engineers have improved greatly under that cost pressure. They have learned that everything must be perfect; if it is not perfect, it cannot be sent out. I think our standards now are close to those of American workers.”

品質穩定的產品，符合國際市場的品質要求。 美商除了提供工業設計、規格說明、技術資料給台灣廠 商，也常常派遣員工進駐數週或數月以提供訓練與指導。某 些案例中，美商的協助甚至延伸至預算、企畫、會計等領 域。一位美商總經理表示，在台灣免費提供的服務，在美國 可是都要收顧問費的。 通用器材現有12位工程師全程進駐下游廠商；人數最多的 時候曾經達到20人。美商TRW也有類似安排，稱為「提攜計 畫」。部分美商則是要求協力廠派員參加自己的實作訓練計 畫。此外，如果重要協力廠碰到美商在台分公司也不能解決 的問題，母公司或亞洲其他分公司還可能派員協助。 美國無線電公司（RCA）目前每年自台灣協力廠採購45萬 組塑膠製電視外框；RCA也派遣9名技術顧問。為了提升映像 管塑膠圓片的品質，台灣克林登曾經花了6個月協助供應商； 而現在，RCA考慮將元件出口回美國供母公司使用。 中國電子是台灣最大的業者之一，目前同時接受數家美商 的技術協助。其副董事長表示，顧客的嚴格檢查讓他們受益 良多，「台灣多數廠商都不太注意品質與運送，但在買家的 壓力下，我們必須非常注意。我們的工人與工程師在成本壓 力下都進步很多。他們瞭解每件事都必須做到最好；如果做 不到，就不能出貨。我認為我們現在的水準已經很接近美國 工人了。」

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Interview Taiwan Stock Exchange Update: Some Wins, Some Losses Schive Chi, one of Taiwan’s leading economists, has been chairman of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp. since 2008. His previous positions include Chair Professor at Shih Hsin University, president of the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance, Vice Chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, and chairman of the National Taiwan University economists department. He was interviewed for Taiwan Business TOPICS by Editor-in-Chief Don Shapiro.

IN THIS SURVEY

• Interview

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• Financial Ombudsman System Ready for Launch

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• DRAM Industry Woes Impact Bad Loan Ratios

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• Ongoing Legal Disputes over Lehman Assets

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What is your assessment of the current international economic situation?

When deep problems exist in any economy, the causes must have been there for a long time.

That also means there is no easy cure. In Chinese we have a saying: “A disease of seven years can’t be cured with a three-year-old herb.” A medical doctor can give you something to alleviate your pain, but for a chronic ailment, it will just relieve your symptoms, not cure your basic problem.

An economic crisis is the same. The United States and Europe created their current problems over decades. Now they have to do something, and the process can be painful. A good doctor can find a way to make it less painful, but he has to face up to identifying the real problem in order to find the best way to deal with it.

What will be the likely impact on Taiwan?

Economic growth will most likely be moderate, but I don’t think we’re headed for recession, which by Taiwan standards means growth of below 4% for two years. That doesn’t

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mean the coming year will be easy, however. Definitely not. But when any challenge comes, it is always a test as to how you will accommodate it. In that respect, Taiwan has an advantage. People lately have been talking about 3D in the IT industry – 3D chips, 3D DRAMs, and so on.

I said recently Taiwan has its own 3D – economically dynamic, socially very diversified, and politically very democratic. Taiwan is very used to operating in this changing world. In Taiwan, we have so many excellent industrialists who know how to be resilient. And if they fail, there will be someone to take over and continue.

Early in your tenure at the Stock Exchange, you set out four objectives you wanted to accomplish. What is their status?

I achieved two and failed in two.

The “four-in-one” plan failed [a reference to Schive’s proposal to merge Taiwan’s four exchanges into a single entity], but there were factors that were out of our control. Basically, it is up to the regulator to lay out a schedule.

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Do you still want to try to revive it?

I have many other things to do. It’s a question of how you allocate your time and effort. I’d rather concentrate on other things which yields more immediate benefits such as TDRs [Taiwan Depository Receipts] and IPOs The other “failure” was the goal of upgrading Taiwan on the FTSE index [from emerging to developed market status]. After spending almost three years working on it, we’re now at the stage where it doesn’t seem very meaningful in terms of benefit vs. cost. FTSE is still raising the issue of pre-funding, but we no longer have that requirement and have removed the penalty. It seems to be a communication gap. For whatever reason, some foreign institutional investors are still subject to pre-funding required by some local banks and brokers – putting in the money before tendering.

On another issue raised by FTSE it’s in the hands of the Central Bank. If you ask for a 24-hour market, that’s not up to us.

Overall, if FTSE wants to upgrade our status, that would be appreciated.

now is around NT$90 – sometimes even higher than Formosa Plastics, though of course the two are not really comparable. Then there is AIRTAC, a machine parts company, for which the price is over NT$200, the second highest in its category. KY Gourmet, the coffee chainstore [owner of the 85 Degrees brand] has a share price of over NT$200, next only to Formosa International Hotels in its sector. Then we have TPK, the touch panel maker, the highest in its sector, and Morningstar, next only to IC designer MediaTek. IML is also quite good, and there’s a bulk freight company, WISDOM, whose stock is also the highest in its sector, somewhere around NT$40. Another company, CoAdna, is in photo communication and is also the highest, at something like NT$140.

If you don’t open the door, these kinds of companies have no way to come in. So far these 11 companies have outperformed most of their local counterparts. In this regard, the result is really better than I expected and there will be more to come.

So developed market status is not that important?

That’s correct. By any standard, Taiwan’s capital market should be considered an advanced one. But if what we need to do to achieve it are things we cannot do anything about, why should we waste time on it? MSCI upgrading is also at the same stage.

In the short-term, the benefit [of upgrading] looks limited. In the longterm, of course, there is no reason why Taiwan should stay as an emerging market.

What’s in the pipeline?

Just yesterday we were contacted by a new company producing agro-chemicals, and we have around 40 others still in the pipeline – some of them quite big.

Next year we expect to have a lot more Japanese companies coming for IPOs and TDRs – that’s the area we’re working on.

Before the end of this year, we are also planning a trip to London, Paris, and Geneva to solicit some European companies to come here, especially in the hightech area.

Let’s go on to the successes.

One area of success was in encouraging offshore companies to do IPOs and issue TDR offerings on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. So far we’ve had 11 IPOs. Just a few weeks ago, I asked my colleagues to give me an analysis of their performance since being listed. To my surprise, for most of them their stock price has been number one or number two in their industry sector. An example is Asia Plastic Recycling, which does recycling of plastic footwear. The stock price

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Chairman Schive speaking at a recent conference in Taipei. photo : cna

When you speak to them, what do you emphasize about what Taiwan has to offer?

First, the capital market here is solid and healthy, and very good for mediumsized high-tech industries in terms of turnover, in terms of P/E ratio. And from the buy side, there are so many individuals here who are so knowledgeable about these industries. Number two, if you’re interested in the China or Asian market, you can use Taiwan as a steppingstone. We have used this approach to solicit Japanese companies and the

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results were excellent. We gave them the “Nike theory” – Tokyo is up here, Taipei is down there and Shanghai is over there.

To get to Shanghai, the best way is to swoosh down first.

Besides more choice, what are the implications for the Taiwanese investor?

There’s been a big change in tax policy to count worldwide income for personal income tax. Also the 50% estate tax has been reduced to 10%. So a lot of local rich people are now bringing money back to Taiwan that they previously kept overseas. That’s good for investment. There’s now more demand for investment vehicles.

This also relates to our fourth objec-

tive, which was to create more new products. In July we introduced the warrant market, for callable contracts. And for ETFs (Exchange-traded Funds), so far this year we have added three funds and next week there will be two more – with the underlying stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The merit is that a lot of foreign institutional investors can buy these ETFs instead of going to China.

And from 2013 we will overhaul our trading machine to move into continuous trading from the current batch operation.

investors. What has happened in that regard?

I can say that we feel more comfortable that the proportion of institutional investors has been increasing. One reason is the activity of the local pension funds.

For foreigners, in addition, the share of the market cap in the past few years has been about one-third. If you combine the domestic and foreign institutional investors, it is something like 53% in terms of transactions and market cap. It’s quite a healthy development.

The last time you were interviewed by TOPICS, in 2008, you also mentioned that you were seeking to increase the weight of institutional rather than retail

Do you have any new objectives?

What do you suggest? Think of something challenging but feasible – within reach.

Financial Ombudsman System Ready for Launch A new mechanism for handling disputes between financial institutions and retail investors will be introduced in January.

BY PHILIP LIU

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ollowing enactment of a Financial Consumer Protection Act by the Legislative Yuan in June, Taiwan is preparing to introduce a financial ombudsman mechanism from the beginning of next year as a means to more fairly and efficiently resolve disputes between financial-service providers and their customers, especially small investors. The law calls for establishment of a “financial transaction dispute-settlement center” as an independent public body, modeled on systems in place in the United Kingdom and Singapore.

Formulation of the law was prompted in part by the Lehman Brothers collapse of 2008, which left tens of thousands

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of local investors holding an estimated NT$40 billion (US$1.4 billion) in the company’s structured notes. The investors sought help from the government in obtaining redress from the local financial institutions that had sold the bonds as agents for Lehman. In the end, most investors were able to take back a portion of their investments as compensation.

“Common people need to have the wherewithal to handle disputes with financial institutions, considering the abundant resources of those organizations,” says lawmaker Tsai Chengyuan, one of the sponsors of the new legislation. “The new law can effectively protect their interests so they are

not forced to accept unreasonable settlements.” The legal protection is regarded as especially important at a time when financial products and services have become increasingly complicated, often beyond the ability of unsophisticated investors to fully understand.

In aiming to protect small investors, the new law is designed to exclude professional or wealthy individual investors from its coverage. Provisionally, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has defined small investors as those with assets of less than NT$30 million (US$1 million) or those engaging in a single investment valued at no more than NT$3 million (US$100,000). The FSC will later

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set more detailed thresholds for various types of financial products and services.

The law covers disputes between consumers and financial institutions in the fields of banking, insurance, securities, futures, e-certificates (such as Easy Card), and other financial services to be designated by the regulator. The types of transactions include deposits, loans, investment products (such as mutual funds and structured notes), insurance compensation, securities investments, and futures investments.

The financial transaction disputesettlement center will be set up as a corporate body with initial assets of NT$200 million (US$6.9 million), eventually increasing to NT$1 billion (US$34.5 million), to be contributed by both the private sector and the government. The government portion will come from budget appropriations over a five-year period. The center will also be allowed to collect annual fees and service fees from financial institutions to help fund its operations, and it will be run by a seven to 11-member board of directors consisting of scholars, experts, or other impartial persons selected by the regulator.

In addition to new cases, consumers will also be allowed to seek assistance from the center for unsettled financial disputes that happened in the past.

When a financial dispute occurs,

investors are advised to first talk directly to the financial institution involved to seek some resolution. Should the investor fail to obtain a satisfactory response from the financial institution within 30 days, he or she may then apply to the financial transaction dispute-settlement center for assistance.

After receiving the request, the center will first try to mediate a settlement. If that proves impossible, it will then refer the case to the center’s financial ombudsman committee to render a ruling. The financial institution will be charged a service fee for both the mediation service and ombudsman service, preliminarily set at NT$2,000 (US$69) and NT$10,000 (US$345) respectively.

Financial institutions will also be asked to pay annual fees in proportion to the number of complaints about it that the center receives.

The ombudsman committee will consist of nine to 25 members – again chosen from among scholars, experts, or other impartial parties – selected by the board of directors and approved by the regulator. The members will serve three-year terms, with no term limits. The committee chairperson will serve on a fulltime basis, while the other members will be considered part-time.

In general, the financial industry has been receptive to the financial

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ombudsman mechanism. They see it as allowing disputes to be handled in a more professional and objective manner that can help financial institutions protect their public reputations. In addition, the process should eliminate the opportunity for irate, politically well-connected customers to seek intervention from legislators – or if they have other sorts of connections, to ask consumer groups or even gangsters to apply pressure.

In addition, Wu I-kuei, president of Chinatrust Financial Holding, notes that in the past some judges rendered controversial verdicts in financial litigation, due to their lack of financial knowledge. The handling of such disputes by a professional institution could greatly reduce the number of such controversies, he says.

Chris James, president and CEO of Allianz Taiwan Life Insurance, is also supportive of the ombudsman mechanism, saying that the current system of dependence mainly on the regulatory bodies to resolve disputes has not functioned well. He cited the lengthy procedures, the strain on regulators’ manpower, and the ability of outside parties to exert pressure.

But he argues that for the ombudsman mechanism to function in an effective and efficient manner, participation on the committee by representatives from industry and consumer groups – not just

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scholars and experts – is essential, just as is done in the U.K. and Singapore. “The presence of industry representatives can provide technical know-how to facilitate the settlement of financial complaints,” says James.

Another problem, he says, is the retroactive nature of the new system, which will be allowed to take up past financial complaints. “The retroactive effect runs counter to accepted judicial principles and will impose unknown and unlimited liabilities on financial institutions,” he maintains.

How the process works Upon receiving a case, the chairperson will designate three or more members to undertake an investigation and then submit a report with its recommendation.

In principle, the process is to be conducted through a review of documents, but when necessary the relevant parties can be summoned to give testimony in

person. The recommendation report is to be referred to a meeting of the committee for review and the delivery of a final verdict, with the quorum for such meetings set at more than half of the total number of committee members and with approval of decisions coming from more than half of those in attendance.

The ruling is not mandatory, and becomes effective only upon the acceptance of the investor and the financial institution. However, the center intends to seek a general written agreement from financial institutions to accept the ombudsman committee’s rulings for cases involving less than a stipulated amount of payment to the consumer. The agreement would also apply to cases in which the payment under the ruling exceeds the ceiling but the consumer is willing to take a reduction to an amount equal to the ceiling.

The FSC has preliminarily decided to set the ceiling at NT$1 million (US$34,500) for investment-type prod-

ucts or services, such as mutual funds, structured notes, and investment-type insurance, and NT$100,000 (US$3,450) for non-investment type products or services, such as credit cards, cash cards, deposits, loans, and remittances.

Should the consumer decline to accept the ruling, he or she can still resort to litigation.

FSC Vice Chairman Wu Tang-chieh says he expects most financial institutions to sign the agreement and abide by the rulings of the ombudsman committee, since those refusing to do so would risk losing the trust of consumers.

The great majority of cases referred to the center are likely to end up in settlement via mediation rather than through a ruling of the ombudsman committee, according to the experience of the Bankers Association. The association receives some 500-600 complaints a year, of which fewer than 10 are solved through a formal ruling of its ombudsman committee.

DRAM Industry Woes Impact Bad Loan Ratios Local banks have a lot riding on whether the memory chip makers can turn their financials around.

BY ALAN PATTERSON

DRAM MAkER BORROwINgS ProMOS

Powerchip

Inotera

Nanya

Total (4 players)

2,661

23,246

17,813

14,018

57,738

51,563

27,943

31,601

37,082

148,189

4,013

4,238

-

-

8,251

58,237

55,427

49,414

51,100

214,178

Bank loans Current portion of long-term loans Long-term loans Short-term borrowings

Unit: nt$ million SoUrce: c ompanieS, data aS of 1Q11 for promoS and 2Q11 for other companieS

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A Report on the Capital Markets Sector

INDUSTRY F

CUS

T

he non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of Taiwanese banks rose in August for the first time in two years, Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said in October.

The potential failure of some Taiwanese memory chip makers could threaten to send the NPL ratio for local banks even higher.

The domestic banking sector’s bad loan ratio edged up to 0.47% at the end of August from 0.46% in July, the FSC’s latest data showed. An NPL is a sum of borrowed money for which the debtor has not made scheduled payments for at least 90 days, meaning that the loan is either in default or close to it.

Taiwan memory-chip maker ProMOS Technologies owes about NT$57 billion (US$1.93 billion) on a syndicated loan to scores of state-run and private lenders, and it has halted interest payments on the loan. A ProMOS default would lift the overall bad loan ratio by another 0.26 percentage points, the local English-language newspaper Taipei Times reported Chang Kuo-ming, director-general of the FSC’s Banking Bureau, as saying in early October. The report added that the FSC has urged creditor banks to increase provisions, since a rescue package for the company is deemed unlikely.

ProMOS has failed to honor interest payments since July and has been suspended from trading shares on the overthe-counter Gretai Securities Market after it failed to disclose financial results for the first half of the year as is required of all listed firms, the Taipei Times said.

Eight government-linked banks with outstanding loans to ProMOS had an

average NPL ratio of 0.56% at the end of May, but if their loans to ProMOS become non-performing, the NPL ratio may rise to 0.9%, a June 23 China Economic News Service report said. The combined ProMOS loans of NT$39.1 billion from the eight banks account for twothirds of the banks’ total NPL of NT$57.2 billion, according to the CENS report.

P r o M O S , p e r h a p s t h e Ta i w a n dynamic random access memory (DRAM) maker in the most precarious position, has been unprofitable since the second quarter of 2007.

A group of Taiwan banks has helped keep at least four domestic DRAM companies afloat for years by providing the companies with loans, some of which have not been paid off on schedule. The Taiwan banks with the greatest exposure to the DRAM companies include Mega International Commercial Bank, Taipei Fubon Bank, First Commercial Bank, and Chinatrust, according to data provided by a foreign securities executive working in Taiwan who requested anonymity.

“There will be few survivors in the Taiwanese DRAM sector,” said the foreign securities executive, adding that some companies may be helped to survive by foreign DRAM makers with alliances in Taiwan. Creditor banks of ProMOS plan to approve an interest rate cut on a syndicated loan during October to allow the troubled DRAM maker more time to find a strategic partner, the Taipei Times reported on October 10, citing executives at creditor banks.

Ta i w a n ’s s i x D R A M m a k e r s a r e becoming less significant players as the worldwide memory-chip industry shrinks, and have become increasingly reliant on technology support from major multinational partners such as Elpida of Japan and Micron of the United States.

Micron holds a 30% stake in Taiwan’s Inotera Memories and has an alliance with Taiwan’s Nanya Technology, which also owns a 30% stake in Inotera. At the end of the second quarter, Nanya and Inotera had a cash asset or current ratio well under 1.0, market research firm IHS

BANk ExPOSURE TO DRAM INDUSTRY Cathay Exposure to Promos

350

Chang Hwa Chinatrust Bank 3,371

3,700

First

Fubon

1,800

570

Mega Shin kong Sinopac Taishin 2,800

670

-

1,400

Yuanta 1,000

Exposure to Powerchip

5,182

2,058

2,758

2,600

3,400

5,000

2,300

100

600

520

Total DRAM Exposure

6,662

12,142

12,000

13,140

15,600

17,500

4,000

1,500

7,500

5,300

Unit: nt$ million SoUrce: companieS

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INDUSTRY F

CUS

A Report on the Capital Markets Sector

iSuppli said in a September 21 report. A current ratio is a measure of a company's ability to pay back its short-term liabilities with its short-term assets. The higher the current ratio, the greater the company’s capability of meeting its obligations.

A 1.0 ratio suggests the companies would be unable to pay off debts if they came due, the report said.

Micron has a current ratio of a solid 2.3, IHS iSuppli said. Elpida could burn through its cash balance in a few quarters if DRAM market conditions deteriorate further, the report added.

Elpida has equity stakes in Taiwan’s Powerchip Semiconductor and Rexchip.

The company also buys DRAM chips from ProMOS and Winbond Electronics of Taiwan.

Degree of risk Few of the Taiwan banks are in the danger zone yet, based on measures used by the financial authorities. An NPL ratio exceeding 5% is considered to be a level that can wipe out a bank’s equity and threaten its survival, noted an August 14, 2009 report by Bloomberg News. “At a 3% level, I’d be concerned that there’s some underlying issue, and if they’re at 5%, chances are regulators have them classified as being in unsafe and unsound condition,” Walter Mix, a former commissioner of the California Department of Financial Institutions, was quoted as saying in the Bloomberg report.

ProMOS may not be the only concern for the Taiwan banks, since a number of other Taiwan DRAM makers are in trouble. Both in Taiwan and abroad, many companies in the industry are facing an endangered future, threatened by a combination of rising debt, declining revenue through the year 2013, and weakening growth in demand for personal computers, the main product in which DRAM chips are used.

For the Taiwan DRAM makers, cash flow has taken a huge hit. In the third quarter of 2011, sales revenue for the domestic industry plummeted by more than 50% to NT$39 billion from the same period a year ago. Powerchip and ProMOS led the plunge with declines in revenue of 67% and 74%, respectively.

44

The drop in sales revenue for the Taiwan DRAM makers has accelerated with each quarter this year. In the first quarter, sales fell by more than 20%, and in the second quarter by more than 30%.

A plunge in DRAM prices has worsened the overall balance sheet of the industry, IHS iSuppli said, with debt at DRAM makers continuing to pile up even as the cash needed to pay down obligations has become more difficult to obtain. Both Inotera and Nanya had about US$200 million in cash on hand at the end of the second quarter, the most recent period for which IHS iSuppli provided statistics.

Nanya and Inotera have both said they will cut capital spending this year.

Nanya’s capital expenditure for 2011 will plunge to NT$12 billion from NT$23 billion in 2010.

DRAM companies need to invest huge amounts of money for research and development and to buy advanced production equipment that helps the companies cut cost.

Nanya Technology’s parent, Nan Ya Plastics of the Formosa Plastics Group, in August issued corporate filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange disclosing two one-year loans it provided to Nanya Technology and Inotera. Nan Ya said it would lend NT$19 billion to Nanya and NT$13 billion to Inotera to support their working capital needs, according to the filings.

Foundering Fundraising In the meantime, Nanya said that it has shelved plans made earlier this year to issue new shares to fund equipment purchases and repay debt. The fundraising plans have halted as equity markets worldwide plunged in recent months on concerns about the European debt crisis.

Nanya had aimed to sell 700 million new shares to fund expansion, but that effort has been shelved, a Nanya official – who asked not to be named in line with company policy – said in an emailed message. Nanya originally wished to raise around NT$10 billion to upgrade its process technology and attempt to boost its market share to 10% worldwide. In the last five years, the company has raised

some NT$170 billion in equity and bond issues as well as loans to fund capital expenditures, dwarfing similar efforts from other Taiwanese DRAM companies. The Nanya share issue this year was expected to raise as much as the equivalent of US$370 million, according to IHS iSuppli.

Powerchip’s fundraising plans have also been stalled. The company’s board of directors earlier this year approved plans to issue up to 800 million new shares, which were to be sold either domestically or packaged for a global depository receipt (GDR) offering. The funds were be used to boost the company’s working capital, buy equipment and materials, and repay debts, Powerchip said, but the issuance has not taken place. The board also passed a resolution earlier this year to sell up to 400 million new shares via private placement. There has been no action yet on the private placement, Powerchip spokesman Eric Tang said in an emailed message.

The Taiwan DRAM makers need to raise the money through private placements, GDRs, and new shares, as their high debt-asset ratios make banks unlikely to lend them money.

Earlier, Powerchip was reportedly seeking a new extension on its repayments for NT$40 billion worth of loans.

As of February 28, the company’s debt ratio was 73%, Powerchip said in a March statement to the stock exchange authorities.

The company is aiming to reduce its exposure to unprofitable DRAM chips.

By the end of 2011, production of commodity DRAM will account for only 45% of Powerchip’s total output, compared with 67% a year earlier, the company said.

The Taiwanese DRAM companies, which employ about 20,000 workers, have received government assistance in the form of grants, tax rebates, and lowcost land in industrial parks, and the state-run banks hold more than NT$200 billion in debt from the companies. Bankruptcy for a Taiwan DRAM maker would therefore pose a major difficulty for the Taiwan government. Finding foreign partners to rescue the local companies is very likely high on the government’s agenda.

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A Report on the Capital Markets Sector

INDUSTRY F

CUS

Ongoing Legal Disputes over Lehman Assets

F

ollowing the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers three years ago, claims by and against various Lehman companies remain unresolved in many countries around the world, including Taiwan, where by some estimates the equivalent of as much as US$1 billion is at stake.

When Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, it became the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, with Lehman owning over US$600 billion in assets. A subsequent liquidation proceeding under the U.S. Securities Investor Protection Act of 1979 (SIPA) started against Lehman Brothers Inc., the Lehman Brothers entity that operated the Lehman Brothers North American broker/dealer business. In early October 2008, 15 more U.S.-based Lehman Brothers entities filed Chapter 11 petitions in the Bankruptcy Court and numerous non-U.S. Lehman entities filed for insolvency protection in various countries around the world.

In Hong Kong, the center of many Lehman operations in Asia, the company had nine entities. In Taiwan, Lehman entities engaged in a number of complex businesses including lending, the sale of structured notes, investing in securities, and trading of over-the-counter derivatives.

Trustees representing various groups of Lehman creditors abroad have made efforts to recover Lehman assets in Taiwan and collect debts owed to Lehman by Taiwan counterparties, yet those efforts have been tied up in various courts for more than three years, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“In Taiwan, legitimate and illegitimate efforts have been made to get at Lehman assets in Taiwan or to prevent such assets from being repatriated,” says a legal expert who requested anonymity. “If the assets leave Taiwan, newspapers here will run headlines about 'remittances leaving Taiwan while widows holding structured notes suffer.'"

Taiwan's financial authorities, including the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), have worked behind the scenes to block the transfer of Lehman assets out of Taiwan, largely in fear of the potential political backlash, according to the source.

The FSC denies the allegation. “Lehman Brothers’ assets in Taiwan and the procedures under which they are being handled involve private contracts that are to be settled by Lehman creditors and debtors in courts of law,” the FSC said to TOPICS in an emailed statement. “In accordance with Taiwan’s laws, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers would not be under any obligation to declare its assets to the FSC.”

The former Lehman Brothers headquarters in New York City. photo : wikipedia

Some legal disputes around the world related to Lehman Brothers remain unresolved because of their complexity, according to an FSC official who requested anonymity.

For example, the trustee of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s defunct brokerage in the United States said as recently as October 1 that a so-called house claim filed by Lehman Brothers International (Europe) should be rejected because the affiliate isn’t a customer of the brokerage, Bloomberg News reported.

The Lehman affiliate LBIE is seeking US$8.9 billion from the defunct Lehman brokerage, according to a bankruptcy court filing cited in the Bloomberg report.

Still, in Hong Kong it’s a different story. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) said on August 3 this year that it had reached an agreement with the liquidators for Lehman Hong Kong, one of the largest groups of LBHI's international affiliates, settling all intercompany claims between the U.S. debtors and Lehman Hong Kong. The agreement, which is subject to approval in U.S. Chapter 11 and Hong Kong proceedings later this year, settles over US$20 billion of complex intercompany relationships between LBHI's U.S. debtors and nine Hong Kong entities in liquidation.

— By Alan Patterson

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2011 Taipei International Travel Fair phot o s : Co urt es y o f tai wan Vi s i t o rs as s o Ci at i o n

T

t o u r i s m B u r e a u , r e p. o f C h i n a

46

he International Travel Fair (ITF), Taiwan's longest running and most popular travel-related trade show, isn't just for those working in the tourism and hospitality industries. Crowds of avid travelers come in search of information, inspiration, and super deals on accommodations and tour packages. Total attendance grew from 172,280 in 2006 to a record 214,467 last year, when the event was the subject of more than 1,500 reports in local and overseas media.

Every aspect of Taiwan's tourism industry has surged ahead in recent years. Now that mainland Chinese are now able to take vacations on the island, they've been coming in great numbers, lifting the tally of international arrivals to 5,567,277 last year, a 26.3% increase over 2009. Because Ta i w a n , “ t h e H e a r t o f A s i a , ” h a s successfully raised its profile in Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, and other markets as a shopping, adventure, and eco-tourism destination, 2011 arrival totals may well top 6.5 million.

Reflecting that increased interest, more and more guidebook publishers – among them France's Michelin and

the UK's Bradt – have come out with Taiwan travel guides.

The growth in outbound travel has also been spectacular. Total departures reached 9,415,074 in 2010, equal to four out of every ten Taiwan residents taking an international trip.

Consequently, dozens of countries and territories see the ITF as a top-tier promotional opportunity.

Given the healthy state of the industry, it's no surprise that this year's ITF promises to be bigger and better than any previous fair. Responding to growing demand for booths, the organizers have boosted exhibition space for the 2011 event by one-quarter.

This year's venue, Hall 1 and Hall 3 of the Taipei World Trade Center, will accommodate a record 1,500 booths.

The number of exhibitors (among them travel agencies, airlines, and other private-sector businesses, museums, plus dozens of national and local government tourism bodies) will grow from last year's 530 to nearly 700. Hall 3 will be given over entirely to hotels and resorts. And even more people than last year – around 230,000 – are expected to attend.

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s e e i n g ta i w a n As in recent years, the 2011 ITF will run from a Friday to the following Monday. There will be an opening ceremony at 10 a.m. on November 11, and members of the public will be admitted from midday. On Saturday November 12 and Sunday November 13, the fair will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On the final day, it'll stay open until 8 p.m.

However, for those in the travel trade, Thursday November 10 is also a key day, as it will see a high-profile press conference as well as the Travel Mart, an annual B2B gathering.

For those who can't attend the fair in person or who are seeking additional information, a parallel “Online International Travel Fair” will run from October 22 until February 28 next year.

At the actual ITF, each day will be enlivened by stage performances, with singers, musicians, and other entertainers from around the world showcasing their countries' characteristic cultures and national spirit. Previous editions of the fair have featured Maori dancers from New Zealand, traditional folk dancers from Brunei and India, Mongolian singers, Austrian classical musicians, and Chamorro dancers from Guam. The full schedule won't be confirmed until closer to the fair's opening day, but foreign visitors can be sure that several of the performances will also highlight Taiwan's ethnic diversity.

Lucky draws and seminars on various aspects of travel and tourism are additional attractions.

The ITF is truly international.

Around 60 countries or territories had an official presence at the 2010 event, six of them – Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, and the United States – each taking a dozen or more booths. At least as many overseas representatives are expected to participate in this year's fair.

On the domestic level, Taiwan's unspoiled eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung are invariably represented by multiple booths. Yilan, now less than an hour's drive from Taipei after the opening of the Xueshan Tunnel, had a very strong presence at the 2010 fair.

So did Miaoli, a county that boasts rich Hakka culture, splendid hill country, and Taiwan's foremost woodcarving

center. Invariably, visitors to ITF can learn about each and every corner of the Republic of China on Taiwan.

The central government's Council of Agriculture, which oversees Taiwan's pristine national forest recreation areas (much praised by birdwatchers), will promote these reserves, along with leisure farms where tourists can get closer to nature.

For participating businesses, the fair typically brings tangible and immediate results. During the four days of the 2010 event, total sales of NT$1.39 billion (US$45.6 million) were registered.

Those who come in the hope of snagging great travel deals will find that advance research on the strengths and specialties of particular exhibitors can really pay dividends. And because all exhibitors must meet a strict set of conditions, visitors to the fair can be sure that every single business repre-

sented here, even those sub-leasing space from larger enterprises, has met all of the Tourism Bureau's licensing and insurance requirements.

The venue, Hall 1 and Hall 3 of the Taipei World Trade Center, is located right beside Taipei 101 in the capital's modern and bustling Xinyi District.

Ticket prices will be the same as last year: NT$200 for adults and NT$150 for senior citizens and children less than 150 centimeters tall. Children under 120 centimeters will not be admitted, nor will pets. For more information, including details of nearby accommodation options and free shuttle buses to the venue, visit the fair's official website (www.taipeiitf.org.tw), or the website of Taiwan's Tourism Bureau (www. taiwan.net.tw), or contact the Taiwan Visitors Association, the not-for-profit organization running the event, at +886-2-2594-3261.

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