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KMT is to blame for
talent crisis
By Huang Tien-lin 黃天麟
Taiwan’s “talent crisis” has become a hot topic lately, on which everyone seems
to have their own view. National Science Council Minister Cyrus Chu (朱敬一) said
Taiwan is suffering from a talent gap, while Minister without Portfolio Kuan
Chung-ming (管中閔) said Taiwan is “driving the fish away to deep waters,” and
could deteriorate to a third-world country within the next three to five years.
A high-tech business owner even said his business is unable to recruit skilled
staff here, and that Taiwan is likely to export “Taiwanese migrant laborers” in
future.
Meanwhile, some have started to point fingers at others. Political commentator
Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔) said early last month that it is the lack of talent among
Taiwan’s political leaders that has caused the country problems.
Others blame the problem on education reform, while high-paid professionals
blame it on low unattractive salaries.
Does Taiwan really lack talented people? Take the following example:
In late 2009, Chen Li-yi (陳立宜), then-head director of Chi Mei Optoelectronics
Corp, and 200 staff resigned and moved to China where they established CSOT
Corp, China’s highest-generation panel manufacturer in just 17-and-a-half
months. This shows that Taiwan has talented people and that they are first-rate
professionals.
There are innumerable examples of China’s policy to recruit Taiwanese high-tech
talent. Some Chinese companies even pay Taiwanese professionals generously,
offering a “one-to-one” ratio — they offer the same figures as in their original
salaries, but in Chinese yuan rather than New Taiwan dollars. Who can resist
this? No wonder the chairman of a high-tech business recently said with a sigh
that China has lured more than 200 managers away from Taiwan’s machinery
industry.
Oddly, while academics discuss Taiwan’s “talent crisis” with such passion, no
one mentions the absence of a “technology protection law” for controlling the
outflow of technological talent.
In more technologically developed US, Japan and South Korea, technology and
talent have always been more strictly controlled. Had the Chi Mei case occurred
in South Korea, those who moved to China could have been charged with industrial
espionage, and the South Korean government could have arrested them at the
airport for taking confidential commercial information out of the country.
To ensure economic security, the US passed the Trading with the Enemy Act,
Atomic Energy Act, Export Administration Act and Economic Espionage Act in 1917,
1954, 1979 and 1996 respectively to protect sensitive advanced technology and
talent, and prevent them from leaving the country.
The Taiwanese government is not so stupid that it does not know how important a
technology protection law is.
In March 2002, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government lifted a ban
that prohibited Taiwanese chipmakers from building eight-inch wafer fabs in
China based on three conditions: the adoption of a technology protection law,
only allowing chipmakers that had operated advanced 12-inch wafer fabs at mass
production for at least six months in Taiwan to set up in China and limiting the
number of Taiwanese wafer fabs that could be established in China. Because of
this, the government drafted a national science and technology protection act
and regulations for high-tech talent working in the mainland area.
Unfortunately, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) repeatedly challenged and
blocked the drafts after they were submitted to the legislature in October of
the same year. This gave China sufficient time to absorb Taiwan’s advanced
technology.
After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) came to power in 2008, the Cabinet submitted
a letter to the legislature withdrawing certain draft bills proposed by the DPP
government, including the science and technology protection act, thus allowing
China to attract both Taiwanese technology and talent without any limitations.
That being so, the Chi Mei case was not very surprising.
It is not a matter of Taiwan lacking sufficient talent, it is a case of
enterprises complaining that there is none.
That is the fault of the KMT and the KMT government, because they blocked the
science and technology protection act and intentionally drove the nation’s
talent away.
Huang Tien-lin is a former presidential adviser.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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