For businessmen, the past two years have been a painful experience. The main reason stems from the election of a new government and its lack of experience in tackling the challenges at hand. Its leaders offer fresh ideas that inspire the public and, true, it is struggling to fulfill its responsibilities. But in the end, the new government isn't prepared. It doesn't understand the needs of business, and time must pass before it can catch up. Taiwan's system is not completely a cabinet system, and there is no balance of power between the parties. The big problem is the overall political structure, and this is a source of uncertainty for businessmen.

Opportunity. . . once lost, gone forever

Fortunately, Taiwan's domestic businesses have incredible powers of survival. They can relocate in Southeast Asia. They can move across the Taiwan Strait to mainland China. The regrettable part, however, is that this migration offshore could be much smoother if coordinated by the government.

A few years back, when I was the chairman of the Taiwan Textile Federation, my deepest wish was that I could help guide the relocation of Taiwan textile companies in China, and assure this occurred in an organized and planned fashion. This would have kept the industry intact-with its upstream and downstream producers together-and it would have improved their prospects. At the time, the PRC government favored the idea, but our own leaders lost sight of the benefits as they became mired in their own version of cross-strait relations. Now, in hindsight, we see that our textile factories left Taiwan for China anyway. And, they had to struggle on their own, facing shortages of manpower and financing, and taking on all kinds of risks. It is a pity. In recent years, Taiwan has forsaken many fine opportunities.

If compared to the recent debacle of the prohibition of relocating semiconductor eight-inch wafer fabrication plants in China, I feel that the Far Eastern Group and its many industrial divisions have been lucky. We have moved our Far Eastern Textile Company to Shanghai, our Asia Cement Co. to Jiangxi and Wuhan, and our U Ming Marine Transport Company to Wuhan.

These moves have spurred the growth of the Far Eastern Group. Many of my foreign friends congratulate me, saying that I am lucky to be located in a market of 1.3 billion consumers. Actually, I have spent the past years working day and night, seeking markets across the world. But now in China, a market with common language and culture, we have greatly expanded our domestic base.

The Far Eastern Group started out in textiles, but has since branched out into other industries. Now our goal is to become a technology company with telecommunications at its core. We expect fast growth for Far EasTone telecommunications. There is our newly established fixed-line network-Sparq*-which has been licensed by the government. And already we have an undersea trunk line (CTOC/APCM2) connecting Taiwan and Shanghai, where there are 50-60,000 Taiwan business people who will become the seed customers of our telecommunications services. I feel confident to say that in the next ten years, we will see uninterrupted growth without any major hitches.

Taiwan. . . where the sun never sets?

Then what, in contrast, is the outlook for Taiwan in the next ten years? Frankly, I'm a bit concerned, and what worries me is our thinking. Taiwan has already entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), becoming a part of the global village, so we should not tie our own hands. Here is an example. Great Britain is also an island nation, but due to its understanding of its own limitations, it has from the earliest days encouraged its businesses to invest around the world. The result was an empire in which the sun never set.

What about Taiwan's industrial policy of leaving its roots at home, and its hope of creating Technology Island? The concept is great. But it must take account of the resources on hand. Our water resources are insufficient. Our electrical power is insufficient. With the exception of Taipei's Mass Rapid Transit System and the island's high-speed train project, Taiwan's government has done little in terms of major infrastructure. Our most precious resource is our people. Clearly, the government must win their hearts and keep them on the island, because attempting to restrict their mobility will be of no use. It will push them in the opposite direction.

Our biggest problem today is that we are open-minded when it comes to theory, but we become stuck when trying to implement new ideas. Last year the Economic Development Advisory Conference passed over 300 resolutions, but in the end nothing came of them because of "technical problems." For instance, no one is opposed to the policy of "the three links," but discussions break down over issues of national dignity and equal treatment. Clearly, this is our national policy as well as an important issue for our industries, so these political deadlocks must be resolved instead of simply blaming the Chinese Communists for each failure.

In principle, we want liberalization, but we lack methods to make it happen. The examples are too numerous. The telecommunications industry is to be opened up, for example, and the government granted licenses to three operators, but required them to create their own networks; they are not allowed to use the network already installed by Chunghwa Telecom. So each new operator has been digging up the island, creating four redundant networks. This is an extraordinary waste of resources!

When confronted with such a situation, we don't know who to present our case to. The former Minister of Transportation Yeh Chu-lan offered us some help. But she was busy, and her term in office was short. Our officials-big or small-are incapable of understanding problems, let alone solving them. In this world of lightning change, when an opportunity is missed, a second chance is long in coming.