Bring in the Talent

Last month's issue of Taiwan Business TOPICS contained welcome evidence that awareness is growing of the critical importance of opening Taiwan's doors as widely as possible to the "best and brightest" from around the world.

As AmCham has repeatedly pointed out in the Taiwan White Paper and on other occasions, in today's increasingly competitive global environment, economies that can not only develop their own skilled personnel but also attract such talent from elsewhere will hold a crucial advantage. Rather than reduce the work opportunities for local job-seekers, which has been the traditional mindset, liberalization of policies governing the entry of foreign professionals in fact contributes to upgrading the capabilities of local employees and helps to stimulate the domestic economy.

U.S.-Taiwan Relationship Slips Further into Malaise

By Rupert J. Hammond-Chambers

The U.S.-China-Taiwan relationship remains one of the United States' most challenging foreign policy issues. The stakes are enormous; it's not simply the real prospect of U.S. forces involved in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, but that such a conflict would have a devastating effect on America's economy. Although media coverage of the blazing Asian economic engine understandably concentrates on China, much of that story is actually about Taiwan. It is Taiwan companies in China that build our cell phones, laptops, and next-generation iPods. If that supply chain is ever severed, the effects would ripple through our economy in a manner more reminiscent of the 1970s oil crisis than the present sub-prime adjustment.