Hello people, I hope you are doing fine 
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Today I wanted to ask you, what economic policies should Taiwan pursue to make Taiwan great again.
- Get the birthrate up. Quintuple the child credit to get Taiwanese to multiply like rabbits.
- Simplify the bureaucratic hurdles for startups and businesses.
- More regional trade integration. Start with an FTA with the United States, then the CPTPP and other dominoes will fall.
- Make it easier to hire construction workers from SE Asia to fuel the construction boom and programmers from India.
- Do something about water shortages in the future.
Everything else, the private sectorâs got it.
Iâve only been here a short time, and have mostly learned from Forumosa, but Iâll say paths to immigration. This hits 1, 2, and 4 from the points above, but faces cultural as well as policy hurdlesâŚ
Yeah, I keep hearing here that Taiwanese look down on SE Asians. Regardless of whether the problem is as severe as claimed, theyâre definitely not averse to hiring them, and someone from another thread said that he already sees a lot of them working in construction.
Pathways to immigration is a different fish. If you want to compete with Canada, UK, Europe, US, Australia for skilled workers, youâre already losing if you only let in short term. If you want to get your birthrate up, immigrants. If you want more regional trade, immigrants. If you want more SE Asians and Indians to come here, immigrants. From bilingualism to national security, I think this is the political hurdle to overcome
Iâm always up for more open immigration. But itâs not a cure-all.
Explain how we would increase regional trade just by increasing immigration, when we donât have free trade agreements.
Taiwan cannot compete with Canada, UK, or any other developed countries regardless, at least not now, because of low wages. No one can compete with the United States. The US attracts talent effortlessly.
Taiwan per-capita GDP is in the bottom tenth of all advanced economies, according to the IMF.
Nothing is
Having more Indians doing business in Taiwan increases the lobby and and generally makes it easier and more sensible for India to increase trade. For example.
Yes, but at this point Taiwan isnât even playing. Lots of people want to get out of India and the Phils, and they go to Canada because they can, not because they prefer it to the US
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Also how would immigrants drive up the birth rate? Not doubting, just like to know.
The simple answer is culture, India and the Phils are overflowing with people, and the first generation or two in places like Canada are still likely to have big families (not always, and not indefinitely)
The cultures are different, so the reasons for big families arenât exactly the same
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Because Taiwan canât win, so it competes on its own level. US gets Filipina nurses, Taiwan gets maids.
It could choose to make itself more competitive by opening pathways to immigration
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Thereâs population growth, and thereâs population. You canât increase the former without increasing the latter (unless people start dying faster, which is usually considered a bad thing). At what point are people allowed to relax and say âokay maybe now we have enough humansâ? (This is not just a Taiwan issue for me.)
Thereâs urbanization, and there are cities. You canât increase the former without⌠I mean when is it enough, seriously?
Easier with less of the above, I think.
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Certainly not now, not even close for the whole world.
For Taiwan, the birthrate is low to the point of national suicide.
You want Taiwan to stay poor, is that what youâre saying?
Of course not. To stay poor you need to be poor. Isnât Taiwan supposed to be first world already?
What Iâm saying is, if youâre already massively urbanized and crowded, you should consider shifting the focus from quantity to quality.
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Being crowded is one thing.
More and more elderly being supported by fewer and fewer workers is a bigger problem.
Youâre also not going to get more quality when stubborn old people stuck in their ways run the show. We need new blood and new ideas.
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I live part of the year in Japan where population decline is in full swing. Itâs an interesting phenomenon: a first world country in population decline. My startup there is promoting the idea of using technology rather than old school immigration to solve the problem of labor shortages. Specifically using 5g network technology to allow workers in low cost countries with growing populations to telecommute to Japanese farms and nursing homes. That could be the future for Taiwan as well.
Sounds like IoT stuff?
Itâs hybrid person/robot technology rather than pure autonomous robotics. This company is doing it too:
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nice and interesting. but robots donât pay tax and contribute to social security. robots donât eat lunch or drink on the weekends. robots donât rent. I donât think itâs just a matter of labour shortage. Though the problem youâre solving is appropriate for short term, long run I donât know.
The companies that provide the telecommuting workers would pay taxes on that labor/service. More importantly, they would provide abundant, affordable farm laborers, factory workers and elder caregivers that would allow aging societies to transition to lower, steady state population levels without major disruptions.