That is one of the most ill-judged comments I have ever seen on this website, and scarcely deserves a response. But here, anyway, for you and any others whose poor understanding may need a little nursing:
English is at present the one and only international language. It is the lingua franca of international communication and commerce. Non-native speakers of English all over the world learn English as a second language, which is a core part of schooling almost wherever there is any kind of schooling worth having.
Chinese does not possess any such status. It is an important language, and more and more people are making an effort to learn it, but its international status doesn’t come anywhere near to that of English. One day, perhaps, if China’s economic power and influence grows enormously, Chinese may come to compete with English for top status as an international language, but it hasn’t come anywhere near to doing so yet.
Taiwan needs to be able to attract foreigners to visit and stay here. The government well understands how essential this is, primarily for its economic development, but also for other aspects of its development. It has mapped out policies that it believes can help it to meet this need, and these form a core element of Taiwan’s national development policy.
There are four main kinds of foreigners that it needs to attract: (1) business investors, (2) skilled workers, (3) tourists and (4) students. It’s hard to see how anyone with the slightest understanding of how things are both inside and outside Taiwan could need any kind of elaboration on this situation, but nonetheless:
(1) Taiwan is competing with just about every other country in the world for the precious foreign investment that fuels economic growth, job creation, rising incomes and a better standard of living for its own people, and heightened international importance. Such investment is even more important for Taiwan than for most other countries because Taiwan has almost no natural resources that it can tap into to feed its economic growth, but is almost entirely dependent on foreign trade as its driver of growth. It was foreign investment in Taiwan, with its accompanying transfer of technology and know-how from foreign investors, that enabled Taiwan to achieve its economic take-off half a century ago, and then sustain it. Taiwan desperately needs more such investment now, and the government is constantly striving to devise plans and projects that can make it more attractive to foreign investors, whether by establishing itself as an “Asia-Pacific Regional Operations Center”, setting up “Free Economic Pilot Zones”, reforming laws and regulations so as to make it easier to invest and do business here, signing free trade agreements, joining economic and trade groups, or whatever means it thinks feasible. Creating a more foreigner-friendly environment is just one part, but an important part, of meeting that need. If foreign executives and entrepreneurs find it relatively easy to live and function in Taiwan, they are more likely to choose this as an investment location. If they consider it to be a difficult place for themselves and/or key foreign staff to live and work because of a major language barrier and other difficulties, they are less likely to opt for investing in Taiwan, but instead choose one of the many other countries, both close to and far from Taiwan, where the regulatory and living environment is much friendlier to foreigners: think Singapore and Hong Kong for a start.
(2) Taiwan is suffering from a severe shortage of high-grade workers, abilities and expertise in many sectors of industry. This is caused in part by the shortcomings of its education system, which is failing to provide enough people with the kinds of knowledge, attributes and skill-sets needed by an advancing economy in the 21st century. It is also caused in part by a massive brain-drain, the worst of any country at or near Taiwan’s level of development, with tens of thousands of its best brains leaving to work in China or further afield because of better pay and career advancement prospects outside Taiwan. In today’s so-called “globalized” world, where the cream of the international workforce is highly mobile and will go to live and work in whichever place offers them the best combination of remuneration, benefits, and quality of life, every country is competing to lure the world’s best and brightest to their shores. Taiwan has hitherto failed miserably in this regard, as is evident from a comparison of the tiny number of white-collar foreigners who are living and working here versus the corresponding numbers in Singapore, Hong Kong and China, or in any advanced or advancing country on any other continent. Taiwan is usually at the bottom of a long list of locational choices for the crème-de-la-crème of non-Taiwanese talent, and it vitally needs to address that situation by making it considerably easier and more attractive for foreigners to live here, or else it will lag and further and further behind its competitors, and its economy will continue to lose its pep and stagnate as it has for the past decade and more. And then, all too soon, it can bid a final goodbye to its standing as one of Asia’s Four Little Dragons, and hello to companionship with rotting and dysfunctional backwaters like the Philippines.
(3) Tourism is the biggest global industry, providing more jobs than any other industry, and a primary contributor to the economies of many countries at all levels of development. Expansion of the tourism industry is a very important element of Taiwan’s overall economic development, and has been recognised as such by successive governments, green and blue, which have drawn up major policies for promoting its development, poured huge resources into plans and projects for this, and put it at the forefront of economic development targets. If a country wishes to successfully attract large numbers of international tourists from anywhere outside the Chinese-speaking world, it must be able to provide adequate English information and services for visitors who cannot speak, understand or read Chinese. Plenty of other countries have managed to achieve this, including countries with fewer resources and less advantageous conditions for doing so. If Taiwan fails to do at least the minimum that is called for in this regard, it will never become a major tourist destination (except for those dreadful hordes from across the traits), and will lose out on the massive rewards that it stands to gain by doing so.
(4) Fourth and last, there are the students. Once again, all advanced countries compete to attract international students to their universities and other educational institutions. Success in this regard carries a wide range of benefits that are self-evident enough not to need spelling out here. In Taiwan’s case, it particularly needs to attract as many of those students as possible so that it can integrate them into its society and induce them to stay to fill gaps in its workforce after they graduate. It also needs them to take up places in its universities and colleges that are left empty by the falling number of local enrolments as a consequence of the country’s lowest-in-the-world birth rate, a situation that is going to get worse with each passing year. It needs to be able to absorb young immigrants as early as possible, so that they are better able to assimilate into local society and contribute a whole lifetime of work and tax-paying to a country that must seek to rebalance one of the world’s fastest ageing populations, and do so by importing young foreigners to compensate for its own people’s reluctance to have more children, before it has a massive demographic time-bomb blowing up in it face. Universities and other institutions of higher education in non-English-speaking countries are competing to attract the best students by offering more and more courses in English, as well as by making it as easy as possible for international students to come to, live in and remain in their countries. Taiwan needs to do likewise if it is to have a chance of gaining a good share of this high-value human resource pool.
So, in summary: Far from being an act of generous but unnecessary philanthropy towards foreigners, the creation of a more foreigner-friendly environment is essential to the advancement of Taiwan’s own interests. It is something that Taiwan’s central and local governments had better get busy on and do as well as they possibly can, or else Taiwan will be the loser as thousands upon thousands of foreigners, who could be drawn here and contribute greatly to the country and its people, will instead choose to go to some other place where they can enjoy a more accommodating reception, and that other place can reap the benefits of their presence.[/quote]
"Taiwan needs to be able to attract foreigners to visit and stay here. The government well understands how essential this is, primarily for its economic development, but also for other aspects of its development. It has mapped out policies that it believes can help it to meet this need, and these form a core element of Taiwan’s national development policy. "
Taiwan needs to up its English agenda? Tell that to China which scaled back on their English teaching over the last year. Tell that to Japan which has no English skills. Taiwan can survive without needing to attract people from outside.
) I was at a train station asking for a timetable. Did it not ever occur to the young lady that those pieces of paper sitting almost directly under her round little nose had not only a purpose but also a name in English, and that one day some stupid big pointy nose might come along and request one, 
Did it not occur to her that it might be slightly unwise for someone so deeply afraid of conversing in the language native to the Britannic Isles to hide from the advancing tide of Anglophonic barbarians in the nations aspirationally international capital and busiest train station under a large sign emblazoned, in English, with the words INFORMATION DESK? That is not a good place to hide. She should have thought about Jiayi and the turkey rice industry, or something.
(at least I think that’s what it proves).