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Industrial technology key to being
competitive
By Lee Chia-tung §õ®a¦P
Thursday, Apr 15, 2010, Page 8
Just about every media outlet, as well as politicians of the ruling and
opposition parties, has recently been discussing an economic cooperation
framework agreement (ECFA) the Taiwanese government plans to sign with China. A
couple of days ago, a newspaper reported that US competitiveness guru Michael
Porter says Taiwan¡¦s competitiveness depends on signing an ECFA. I find this
assertion rather worrying.
It is more important to consider what kinds of products we should be making. If
we were to export nuclear power stations, high-speed railways, high-grade
engines and precision semiconductor devices, then the ECFA issue would not
matter so much for us.
On the other hand, if our industrial products do not have high added value, then
even if they can be sold abroad free of tariffs, there will come a day when
China can manufacture the same things cheaper. What use would an ECFA be to us
then? Therefore, our competitiveness is closely linked with the state of our
industrial technology.
Sadly, little attention has been paid to the state of our industrial technology
in recent years, at least in the media. There are political discussion programs
every night on television. It would be good to see a few opinion leaders talking
about this problem but, disappointingly, nobody seems to be interested.
How can Taiwan¡¦s industries be made more competitive? First, we have to realize
that it is not because of a lack of creativity that our industrial technology
lags behind that of other countries, nor is it because Taiwan has not put enough
emphasis on high technology. Rather, our weakness is in basic technology. As a
result, we often have to build our technologies on top of a technical base
provided by someone else. When other people¡¦s technology moves ahead, ours will
quickly fall behind. What is more, our lack of key technologies means that many
of our engineers, who may be very creative, cannot get their ideas off the
ground.
For example, they may want to make a special electronic device, only to find
that we can¡¦t design an amplifier with little noise. Perhaps they need a very
stable magnet, but nobody in Taiwan can make it. Another example is when someone
thinks of a design for a new kind of precision instrument, but Taiwan can¡¦t make
a precision control system and so the invention is left on the drawing board.
I would like to see the whole nation from top to bottom pay more attention to
the state of our industrial technology. We must realize that everything starts
out from the fundamentals. We need people who can make excellent components and
we need plenty of engineers who can design high-performance electronic circuits
and machinery. Without such engineers, Taiwan can¡¦t be competitive.
China seems to care a lot about its competitiveness. China has already started
exporting its high-speed rail technology and it is planning to build
medium-range passenger jets. China has some pretty good semiconductor equipment
makers, as well. We in Taiwan had better watch out.
People are always talking about ¡§keeping our roots in Taiwan,¡¨ but if those
roots are not deep then staying in Taiwan is pointless. If the roots of our
industrial technology grow deep, our industry will stay here. We need to foster
the notion of ¡§deep plowing Taiwan.¡¨ Only with a deep and robust technical basis
can we make products with high added value and only then can we be a highly
competitive country.
Lee Chia-tung is an honorary professor of National Chi Nan,
National Tsing Hua and Providence universities.
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