Geo-Strategic Trend - 75. page

Taiwan business investments in mainland China have dropped by almost half from 61.2 per cent to 33.3 per cent in the past decade. This suggests that Taiwanese businesses are fleeing China in large numbers. Those who are still doing business in China face mounting business risks.

Lin Zonghong, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Taiwan recently spoke at an online forum regarding Taiwan business investment risks in the mainland. According to Lin, Taiwan business investment in the mainland can be divided into three stages. The first stage was from 1992 to 2007. That was when Taiwan’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the mainland kept rising. By 2002, it passed 60 percent of its total FDI. From the 2008 global financial crisis to 2014 when the Sunflower Student Movement broke out in Taiwan, FDI from Taiwan in Mainland reached its peak. The Sunflower Student Movement refers to a movement in which a coalition of students and civic groups organized  to protest the passing of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the then ruling party, the  Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The third stage is post 2015 when Taiwan investments were withdrawn from the mainland and shifted to other southeast Asian countries and the U.S..

Lin believes that China’s FDI has been overstated because it includes investments from Hong Kong, which accounts for 75-80 percent of the total. Those investments from Hong Kong were originally from the mainland. They were re-directed through Hong Kong into the mainland just to qualify for foreign investment tax incentives. If the inflow from Hong Kong was excluded, China would have seen a negative FDI.

Since 2007, Taiwan businesses have been losing tax and labor benefits that they used to receive on the mainland. Many of them ended up moving to middle or western regions in China. In 2007, there were still 356 Taiwanese businesses in the mainland. By 2017, the number was 124. By 2020, only 108 were left. Also compared to Taiwan, business costs are higher in the mainland. The data suggests that the gross profit for Taiwan businesses operating in the mainland is less than it is for those operating in Taiwan.

Since Taiwan businesses entered the mainland in 1998, Taiwan has seen factory closures, unemployment, low wages among the younger generation and an increase in poverty. Lin reiterated that Taiwan businesses must understand the business risks in the mainland and look at the current business environment in the mainland as a warning for future business decisions.

Source: Epoch Times, October 17, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/10/17/n13310415.htm

China’s state-controlled Zijin Mining Group Co. acquired all the shares of Canada’s Neo Lithium Corp. for Canadian$6.50 per share in cash, for a total amount of C$960 million, making it the second acquisition a Chinese company has made within two months of a Canadian lithium mining company.

The transaction is still subject to consideration and approval at the Neo Lithium’s shareholders’ special meeting. It will also require regulatory and court approvals from the Chinese and from Canadian regulators.

Neo Lithium’s core asset is the Tres Quebradas (3Q) Lithium Project, a newly discovered lithium saline and brine reservoir complex in Catamarca Province, the biggest lithium producer in Argentina. It is estimated that its total lithium carbonate-equivalent resources are approximately 7.565 million tons. In September, Chinese electric vehicle battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) acquired all shares of Canada’s Millennial Lithium Corp. in a cash transaction worth Can$377 million. CATL, is a supplier to the U.S. company Tesla Inc. It also became the third-largest shareholder in Neo Lithium last year after purchasing 10 million of its shares.

Source: Radio France International, October 11, 2021
https://rfi.my/7oq3

Well-known Chinese news site Sina (NASDAQ: SINA) recently reported that Senior Taliban officials and U.S. representatives will hold talks to discuss the containment of extremist organizations in Afghanistan and relax the conditions for the evacuation of foreign citizens and Afghans from the country. The Taliban stated that they did not want US counter-terrorism assistance and warned Washington not to carry out any “over-the-horizon” attacks on Afghan territory from beyond the country’s borders. A U.S. official said that the U.S. will seek a Taliban commitment to allow Americans and other foreign nationals to leave Afghanistan, as well as Afghans who have worked for the U.S. military or government and other Afghan allies. Representatives of the Afghan Taliban Provisional Government traveled to Doha, where they will meet with the U.S. delegation. This is the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.

Source: Sina, October 9, 2021
https://news.sina.com.cn/w/2021-10-09/doc-iktzqtyu0493790.shtml

Pro-communism Chinese news site Kun Lun Ce recently reported, with the authorization of the Russian Communist Party, that on October 1, the City of Moscow sealed off the Central Building of the Russian Communist Party and arrested the leading cadres of the Russian Communist Party on a large scale. The Moscow City Government organized a siege of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and its Moscow City Committee. Internal Affairs, Public Security, National Guards, and the Taxation departments were Involved in the siege. The government mass-arrested and imprisoned the main cadres of the Russian Communist Party at all levels in the Central Federal District. The article mentioned that the Communist Party’s legal department did not recognize remote electronic voting results and some Party leadership members “arbitrarily” discussed the issue of elected representatives and voters online. The Russian Communist party called for the establishment of a committee to investigate the “political persecution.” Coincidentally, it was on October 3 to 4, 1993, that Yeltsin’s supporters in Moscow “violently” suppressed the Supreme Soviet.

Source: Kun Lun Ce, October 1, 2021
http://www.kunlunce.com/ssjj/ssjjhuanqiu/2021-10-04/155571.html