Q: Many people in the local news media have tried to interview you, but your schedule is so busy you rarely have the time. What is the most important work you are involved in right now?
Writing speeches on the plane
A: The most important thing is speaking engagements. I give about 200 a year, to audiences ranging from government agencies and corporations to trade associations and financial institutions. I spend three or four months out of the year traveling around Japan and other parts of the world--Hong Kong, Korea, the U.S. and elsewhere--including three or four trips to Taiwan. I'm so pressed for time I often have to write my speeches on the airplane.
Even though I'm a consultant for a number of companies, I don't actually run an enterprise of my own. All I have in Japan is a restaurant, a commercial-class hotel and a Japanese language school and in Taiwan the Yung Han bookstores, an art gallery and a financial magazine.
When I returned to Taiwan in 1972, 20 years ago, there simply weren't any decent bookstores. Culture and economics, I felt, are the twin wheels that drive a country's development, and businessmen, in particular, have to read a lot, so I founded Yung Han Bookstore to introduce books on Japanese-style management and various Japanese publications.
It's just a cultural and educational enterprise and doesn't make much money. Fortunately, I earn enough from a single lecture to live on for a month, so I don't have to worry about money.
Q: Even though you say you don't have any enterprises to speak of, haven't you been involved recently in a large-scale development plan in Taoyuan that will include high-class residential apartments and a department store?
A: Yes, I have. The total budget for the plan is over NT$10 billion, with joint investment by a number of large Japanese corporations including the Kumagai-gumi construction company and Yaohan department stores. It 's the first time I've tried to do anything in this area. Actually, finding investment partners won't be difficult, given the hundreds of corporate heads in the "Chiu alumni club."
The objectivity of an outsider
Q: As a foreigner, how did you manage to fit in in Japan, which is so xenophobic? Did you have any distressing experiences?
A: Even though the Japanese pay a lot of attention to ethnic background, they pay even more to education, experience and talent. If you just run a restaurant or a pachinko parlor, they won't think very much of you, of course. But my educational background--the graduate school of economics at Tokyo University--was better than most of theirs, and one of my novels won the Naoki Prize, so I've always been highly regarded and never looked down on by anyone.
After living in Hong Kong for six years, for instance, I became tired of the crowds and the mess and wanted to move to Japan, but I didn't have a passport from anywhere. Fortunately, an official at the Japanese consulate was an alumnus of Tokyo University and helped me get a visa without any problems. Also, when I wanted to become naturalized as Japanese citizen, I refused to adopt a two-character Japanese surname, and the prime minister at the time, Kakuei Tanaka, personally spoke up for me and arranged things.
In fact, instead of calling me a foreigner, it would be better to say I'm a "third party," viewing things from the standpoint of a disinterested observer. Thirty years ago, I predicted Japan's economy would surpass the U.S.'s. Nobody in Japan believed me, and now it's come true. In the same way, I remember when I went back to Taiwan 20 years ago, the country had just withdrawn from the UN and a lot of people were worried about the future. But I thought that as long as the economy thrived, Taiwan would develop and survive even if it was treated as an international orphan.
Profiting from failure
Q: You often have unique insights. What's your secret?
A: If there's a secret, it's the fact that I'm always "problem conscious"--wherever I am, I'm always thinking about problems, and besides pondering and puzzling over them, I make sure to go there and look into it. Before I buy stock in a company, I always visit the place first and find out how the people in charge think and so forth. You can't just rely on intuition. A few years ago, for instance, when I read about how people in Hong Kong were worried about 1997 and were emigrating in droves, I was curious and wanted to find out where they were all headed to. I verified what the newspapers were saying, and it turned out to be just as I had expected--Los Angeles, Vancouver and other places along the Pacific. After thinking about things like that, you start to put it all together. I've always written a lot to convey my ideas, and after a while it mounts up. So even though I'm not an industrialist really engaged in business or as talented as others at making money, I still have views of my own to offer up for reference.
Q: Have you ever made any predictions that failed?
A: Loads! I'll give you a book of mine--the title translates as Failed Predictions: 30 Chapters. Success means a lot of course, but failure can mean even more. Failure, too, can be turned to profit.
Q: What plans do you have for the future?
A: From now on, I'm going to spend half the year in Hong Kong and the other half in Tokyo. Why Hong Kong? One of the reasons is that you can't watch Asia from Japan--there's not enough concern about it or information here. Even more importantly, I feel that my major mission in the future is opening up the mainland. How the three-way relationship between Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland develops deserves careful consideration.
A federated greater China?
Q: Have you ever been to the mainland?
A: Of course. When I go there now, it's the same as when I went back to Taiwan 20 years ago. In April I'm going to take 60 Taiwanese and 60 Japanese businessmen there on an investment fact-finding tour. I plan to put up a Chiu building in Shanghai and Peking just like the one on Chung Shan North Rd. that got me started in Taiwan. And I'm not just going for investment. Young entrepreneurs there need teaching and guidance. They don't know enough about running a business and will have to be taught from scratch, just the way it used to be on Taiwan.
Q: From loyalty to your ancestral homeland as a young Chinese during the Japanese occupation, to exile overseas for supporting Taiwan independence, to today's concern for the future of China as a whole--how do you explain the course of your development?
A: How I turned in my youth from believing in "greater China" to Taiwan independence is all described in my novella Choshui River.
At the time of the February 28 Incident, I did indeed believe Taiwan independence would have been better. Now I think that awareness of greater China is there and steps can be taken toward reunification, but that doesn't mean centralization of power. The disintegration of the Soviet empire shows that China really shouldn't carry such a heavy millstone around its neck. Why not adopt a federal system and lot Shanghai, Kwangtung, Szechwan and the other local governments have a little more autonomy, leaving the central government to work out conflicts of interest?
Recently a visitor from the mainland came and asked me how to handle calls for Taiwan independence. I told him that Taiwan just wants its place in the sun and that the mainland shouldn't try to prevent it from developing room to survive internationally. He said that all Taiwan has to do is recognize its government as local. I told him quite frankly that he and the mainland weren't the only ones with say-so in the world. They wanted me to do my bit for reunification, and I said let's wait for the per capita income there [note: about US$325 a year at present] to grow threefold first--if it reaches US$1,000, there'll be major changes in the economy and the society.
Speaking as a whole, I'm very optimistic about the future of China. Over the past three years, people have been emigrating from Hong Hong for all their worth, but I've been investing. A 550-unitapartment building I bought into there has already climbed 50 percent in value, to the equivalent of NT$2 or 3 billion. My greatest mission in the future is to help China, Hong Kong and Taiwan promote cooperation and development and avoid sibling quarrels.
A look back at literature
Q: You're an international business guru now, but you used to write fiction and many people still miss it. Do you still write any? And if not, do you have any regrets?
A: I still have a story or two published every couple of years, but they're really hard to write. My concerns and thinking are on a completely different tack. In fiction you have to embellish things and add a lot of superfluous subplots--just the opposite of economics, where you strive for the lean and practical.
Actually, I don't have any regrets about not writing fiction any more. My stories were all about Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and even though they may have been fresh and interesting to Japanese readers and increased their understanding of China, they weren't able to strike a chord with them and fight their way into the Japanese literary mainstream. Also, there used to be a lot of taboos that novelists could be relied on to break through, but society is so free and open these days there's nothing for us to react against--all you can do is write a little about relationships. There's a lot less significance to it. I get a greater sense of accomplishment from my work now.
[Picture Caption]
"Even though I'm a consultant for a number of companies, I don't actually run an enterprise of my own."
"Instead of calling me a foreigner, it would be better to say I'm a 'third party,' viewing things from the standpoint of a disinterested observer."
"They wanted me to do my bit for reunification, and I said let'e wait for the per capita income there to grow threefold first."
"Instead of calling me a foreigner, it would be better to say I'm a 'third party,' viewing things from the standpoint of a disinterested observer.".
"They wanted me to do my bit for reunification, and I said let'e wait for the per capita income there to grow threefold first.".
