In July of this year New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s host for 2021, held an un­precedented closed-door Informal Leaders’ Retreat on Covid-19. Morris Chang, founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manu­facturing Company (TSMC), who was serving as the “­leader’s representative” of Taiwan for the fifth time, emphas­ized at the retreat that Taiwan is willing to continue sharing its knowledge and experience in disease preven­tion and control, thus demonstrating its determination to act in solidarity with other APEC members in combating Covid-19 in order to help the global economy recover.

During 30 years as an APEC member, Taiwan has demonstrated its solid economic and trade power and its capacity to contribute to the international community.

Raising Taiwan’s international profile

APEC was launched in 1989 at the initiative of the Australian government, and Taiwan joined in 1991 ­under the name “Chinese Taipei.”

APEC is the highest-level international inter­govern­mental forum of which Taiwan is a member, notes Sharon S.N. Wu, director-general of the Department of International Organizations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

Besides the many meetings that are coordinated in advance, leaders attending APEC events take advantage of other leaders’ presence to make connections and build up friendships. For example, this happened when Morris Chang attended the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Vietnam in 2006. Because he had been a vice ­president at Texas Instruments for many years, when he encountered then US president George W. Bush, who had served as gover­nor of Texas, Bush immediately said to him, “I know you!” The two men communicated on very friendly terms at various events held around the leaders’ meeting. This kind of fruitful interaction can only take place in a meeting that leaders attend in person, rather than by video­conferencing.

At the 2006 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Vietnam, Morris Chang had very positive interactions with then US president George W. Bush. (MOFA file photo)

Contributing Taiwan’s development experience

APEC is a major forum for promoting economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. In order to make Taiwan’s voice heard on economic and trade issues, in 1997 the government commissioned the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research to establish an APEC Study Center (ASC) in Taipei. Its purpose is to research and formulate policy positions and initiatives, and serve as a know­ledge bank and support system for APEC parti­cipa­tion by public- and private-sector organ­iza­tions.

Former Taipei ASC executive director Lin Chien-fu (Jeff Lin), who is now chief economist at CTBC Financial Holding Company, suggests that Taiwan’s world-­leading position in high technology and its development experi­ence with small and medium-sized enterprises are among the major achievements that it can share with other countries through the APEC platform.

Lin cites digital technology as a case in point. In response to global trends related to digital technology, APEC’s Business Advisory Council (ABAC) formed a Digital Innovation Working Group (DIWG) in 2018. The group’s first chairman was one of Taiwan’s appointees to ABAC, PChome Online chairman Jan Hung-tze.

Thanks to Jan’s efforts, the first Digital Innovation Forum was co-hosted in Taipei by ABAC Chinese Taipei and ABAC Papua New Guinea. In his role as chairman, Jan invited world-class “A-listers” such as former Esto­nian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Skype co-founder Geoffrey Prentice to Taiwan for the forum. Participants at the event discussed “ABCDE” issues—Artificial intelli­gence, Blockchain, the Cloud, Data, and Ecosystems for industry—and it was also an opportunity for Taiwan to show the world its techno­logical capabilities.

Thanks to efforts by Jan Hung-tze, one of Taiwan’s appointees to ABAC, in 2018 Taiwan hosted the first Digital Innovation Forum, for which world-class “A listers” came to Taiwan. From left to right: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Bosch Taiwan managing director Bernd Berkey, Skype co-founder Geoffrey Prentice, and Gogoro CEO Horace Luke. (courtesy of CNA)

Dr. Ted Chang (right), chief technology officer at Quanta Computer and one of Taiwan’s appointees to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), co-hosted a videoconference with Canada’s Jan De Silva (left), chair of the ABAC Digital Working Group. (courtesy of DIO)

Lin Chien-fu, formerly executive director of the APEC Study Center in Taipei, says that given the US’s current major Indo–­Pacific strategy and the US–China trade war, there is scope for Taiwan to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Full mobilization

Over the past 30 years, the range of issues handled through APEC has been broad and deep, and as a result it has become the international platform with which the largest number of Taiwan’s governmental organiza­tions engage. According to statistics from MOFA’s Department of International Organizations (DIO), at first only a dozen or so Taiwanese ministries and agencies were parti­cipa­ting in APEC, but now more than 60 public and private organizations do so.

DIO director-general Sharon Wu, who attended the APEC Senior Officials’ Meeting in September 2021, was Taiwan’s representative in the APEC Business Mobility Group 20 years ago. She says with a smile: “I started at the bottom in APEC, and meetings from 20 years ago seem like events that happened yesterday. How time flies!”

During her remarks as Taiwan’s representative at this year’s Senior Officials’ Meeting, within the allotted two minutes of speaking time Wu confidently and ­fluently shared Taiwan’s experiences in disease prevention and in promoting post-pandemic economic recovery. She says: “These two minutes represented the real cap­abil­ities that Taiwan has built up, which give us something meaningful to say in the international arena.”

She says for example that during APEC’s annual minister­ial and leaders’ meetings in November of 2020, at the APEC CEO Dialogues Taiwan’s minister without port­folio Audrey Tang and minister of health and welfare Chen Shih-chung were invited to share Taiwan’s successful experience in controlling the spread of Covid-19. This was special in that it was the first time the CEO Dialogues took the initiative to invite ministerial-­level officials from Taiwan to address the group. It also reflected how Taiwan’s achievements in the fields of digital technology and public health have drawn the atten­tion and affirmation of the inter­national community.

Dr. Ted Chang, chief technology officer at Quanta Computer Inc., who is one of Taiwan’s appointees to ABAC, invited all ABAC members to share their countries’ accomplish­ments in applying digital technology to their healthcare systems. ABAC adopted the “Di­gital Health Case Study Report,” prepared by Chang, on corpora­tions’ transition to digital healthcare, making this the first substantive document produced by a Taiwan­ese ABAC appointee in recent years.

At the 2020 APEC “CEO Dialogues” group, minister without portfolio Audrey Tang shared Taiwan’s successful experience using digital technology to combat the spread of Covid-19.

Achievements in women’s empowerment

APEC is also one of the first international organ­iza­tions to make discussion of women’s role in the economy a permanent item on the agenda of ministerial-­level meetings.

HTC Corporation chairperson Cher Wang, one of Taiwan’s appointees to the second-­term ABAC, served as the first chair of the ABAC Women’s Forum, demonstrating superb leadership capabilities and providing a role model for female entrepreneurship. And Tina Lo, who won an Eisenhower Fellowship and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, represented Taiwan in ABAC in 2016. Both assignments reflect the importance Taiwan places on APEC’s recent attention to issues related to women and the economy.

When James Soong represented Taiwan at the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in 2017, he donated US$500,000 on behalf of Taiwan’s government to set up the APEC Women and the Economy Sub-Fund in cooperation with the US and Australia. Its goal is to promote the economic em­power­ment of women in the Asia-Pacific region. Soong also highlighted Taiwan’s accomplishments in women’s em­power­ment by citing the example of its first female president, Tsai Ing-wen.

In 2015 the Gender Equality Committee of Taiwan’s Executive Yuan was able to work with APEC host the Philippines to jointly organize the APEC Innovation for Women and Economic Development program, which was incorporated into the agenda of a ministerial-­level meeting: the APEC High-Level Policy Dialogue on Women and the Economy, within the APEC Women and the Economy Forum (WEF). The program was mentioned by name in the Leaders’ Declara­tion, and it continues to be an important ele­ment in Taiwan’s active participation in the WEF up to the present day.

Due to the impact of Covid-19, this year’s APEC Women and the Economy Forum was held online. Taiwan was represented by Wang Mei-hua (top row, left), minister of economic affairs. (courtesy of the Executive Yuan)

Breakthroughs and future outlook

Over the past 30 years, APEC members have faced countless difficulties. Examples include the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis; the first-ever failure to agree a Leaders’ Declaration, as a result of US-China trade tensions in 2018; and the cancellation of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in 2019 due to turmoil in the host country, Chile. Moreover, over the last two years, because of the Covid-19 pandemic many meetings that would normally have been held in person must now be conducted online.

Although APEC has faced many crises, for Taiwan the many meetings held each year under the APEC framework are all opportunities to raise its international profile. Sharon Wu points to data showing that Taiwan is also very energetic about proposing initiatives, with 15 programs earning APEC subsidies in 2021, the highest figure for any member, with subsidies totaling over US$1 million.

2021 is a watershed year for APEC. Last year was the deadline for achieving the Bogor Goals, adopted in 1994, for free and open trade and investment in the Asia-­Pacific region. APEC has also begun drafting implementa­tion plans for the Putrajaya Vision 2040. Just as Morris Chang emphasized at the Economic Leaders’ Meeting when he quoted the economist ­Michael Porter, only with free trade could technologies such as semi­conductors have de­veloped quickly, and can each country build on its competitive advantages and collectively bene­fit from free trade. Taiwan is an advocate of free trade, and is also a bene­ficiary of the free trade system, which is the most import­ant element in the spirit of APEC. 

This group photo of APEC economic leaders was taken at the 2018 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, held in Papua New Guinea. Taiwan was represented by TSMC founder Morris Chang (back row, fourth from left).

Sharon Wu, an APEC senior official and director-general of the Department of International Organizations at Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says that over the last 30 years Taiwan’s growth and contributions to the Asia–Pacific region through its participation in APEC have exceeded all initial expectations.