Q: Without doubt, "The Asian Regional Economy" was a very rare international conference for Taiwan in terms of both the scale of the conference and the status of the participants. Could you tell us about the origins of this conference?
A: For the Asia Society, one of the conference organizers, their purpose is in teaching Americans to understand Asia, and to be a bridge between North America and Asia. As far as the Institute for National Policy Research is concerned, we hope in a time when the nation's future is in dispute to provide citizens with an even broader perspective. Right now the whole world is moving from internationalism to regionalism. We hoped through this conference to understand how world leaders see Asian development.
As a result, the government could take this opportunity to put forth the role it hopes the R.O.C. on Taiwan will be able to play, and to build even more consensus with the business community. For business, so many business and political leaders came here all at once--usually just to see one of them would take who-knows-howmuch time and money. Now they could take this opportunity to build up their commercial network, in order to reduce dependence on the U.S. market and play an even more active role with neighboring nations.
Growth does not rely on bullets
In fact, we have reason to be confident. We are one of the few countries to have achieved economic growth without the use of military power -- what economic powers in recent times have not used political power? Today, not only do we have a great deal of international influence on external trade policy, it's the same for investment. Taiwan is still not like Japan, strong enough economically to invest heavily in the US and Europe--our capital mostly goes to Southeast Asia or mainland China --but this in turn correspondingly increases our impact within this region.
Q: From the perspective of Europe and North America, Asian regionalism has only flourished recently, and Asia is following behind. If you talk about integration, aren't you concerned that by the time we get more or less integrated the world will be moving in another direction?
A: This is a very interesting question. To be sure, in the past the militarily powerful countries like the U.S. and the Soviet Union built the international order. But that's not possible today. The Soviet Union has collapsed and the United States is not capable of leading the world order alone. Although they have not abandoned the dream of "world policeman," the world has already become one of pluralized collective bargaining--where pluralized regions, like the European Community or the North American Free Trade Area come together over regional problems, and representative elites from each region then bargain with each other. That is, in other words, using pluralized leadership to resolve regional problems, and then integrating into multilateral international organizations, and finally moving toward global integration.
No one knows how long this transitional period will take, but if Asia does not get on with the work of integration today, the vitality of this region will be tested. Because if you have no voice in the world, then you have no rights. As a result, despite the fact that the differences among the Asian nations in economies, resources and land mass are as enormous as they are, and the overall difficulty is as great as it is, if you don't act there will be no room for survival. Right now the formation of APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council), which holds an annual ministerial level meeting, is a good start.
Outdated issue?
Q: If you talk about regional economies, the "Greater Chinese Economic Grouping" has been a hot topic of late. Why isn't this the focus of the conference, rather than choosing what appears to be an outdated subject?
A: I feel that it is bad for both ourselves and the mainland to discuss the "Greater Chinese Economic Grouping." The mainland is too big. It's already quite something that Taiwan can invest in a Fukien and Hongkong can invest in a Kwangtung. But can the other areas of the mainland develop? I think that the main thing is how to effectively use the world's resources. The appellation "Greater Chinese Economic Grouping" is too exclusive of others.
As far as Taiwan is concerned, to promote this idea before its time is similarly without benefit. This will not only cut us off from the U.S., Japan, ASEAN, and other areas, it will be even harder to broaden our international space. In the end maybe we would be forced unavoidably to be "integrated" into mainland China.
Q: Lately there have been quite a few instances of international conferences in Taiwan. Besides "The Asian Regional Economy," recently the "Young Presidents' Organization" annual meeting was held in Taipei and it was widely rumored that Mikhail Gorbachev would be invited to speak. Although that didn't come to pass, it is already firmly decided that Mrs. Thatcher will come to Taiwan this August. Is there some special significance to these developments?
A: When we look at it, in the past the only "surplus capital nations" in the world were Japan, Germany and the U.S. But after 1990, with the reunification of the two Germanies, the F.R.G. has had to pour US$50 billion per year into the former East Germany; the U.S. has gone from being an economic great power to being the world's largest debtor nation; during the same time period, the communist economies of Eastern Europe and the USSR collapsed, causing a sudden squeeze in global capital demand. As a consequence, Taiwan, which was once only visible on the international map with a magnifying glass, now possessing the largest foreign reserves in the world, has suddenly become very important.
Getting out of the house
Taiwan has not only become the most important source of capital supply in the world, various opportunities presented by our evident consumer market and the Six-Year National Development Plan have made Taiwan even more a center of interest. Overall, since the leading force in the world has gone from the political to the economic, Taiwan is in the right place at the right time and has become an important player in the world.
Q: Was it extremely costly to hold such a large-scale conference and invite so many famous people?
A: To speak frankly, the expenses for holding this international conference were not small. But this particular conference won unprecedented unified support from twelve leading domestic corporations, so it was easy for us to handle it financially.
I think this is a very gratifying phenomenon-- in the past the first generation of entrepreneurs was busy building up their enterprises and struggling. Today the second generation stands on the shoulders of the first; they have received fine educations, and have a global porspective, and don't just keep an eye on what's going on inside their own houses.
Of course, neither were we taken for a ride. Some people are curious as to just how high a price we paid to get these famous people who came to speak. Not a dime. We only provided them with airplane tickets, hotels and meals. They came purely in order to spread their ideas.
[Picture Caption]
(photo by Vincent Chang)
Rafidah Aziz（photo by Chou Yeh-hui）
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