When I saw this article the other day on how there is a plan to bring a Universal-like(key word being like) theme park to southern Taiwan my snark meter went off the scale. I’ve been here too long and heard to0 many idealistic glorious plans only to see them all become glorious mud fences in their execution.

Firstly, the best of the local amusement parks are mediocre with the worst being totally lmae and that si the majority of them. Here in central Taiwan the big myth for years was how Disneyland was coming to Houli where there is a huge tract of TaiSugar land(TaiSugar being the largest property owner in Taiwan and also owned by the government of Taiwan). Of course I never believed that knowing only too well that Disney was way to savvy to locate there. However, the real possible deal was with Warner Brothers. They actually sent people here and were getting close to going forward when the whole thing was submarined in red tape because a favor was owed to Yang Tien Sheng who really wanted to do a racetrack but was surreptitiously floating a plan for his own amusement park on that site. His racetrack dream probably took too much power of positive thinking and payoffs, much more than he had budgeted no doubt and was scotched. We did in fact get the underwhelming Mala Bay Yamay Resorts a water park not quite on steroids-yawn. No pizazz or sizzle of an internationally successful entertainment company to wow the rubes. No Disney not even a Warner’s. Sad because the Taiwanese are such family people and don’t mind spending money on their families. It’s too bad they get so few quality options locally and usually have to go overseas to enjoy something decent.

So here we are again(full story here):

“We will build a theme park next to our film studio. It will something like Universal Studios, ” said Tsai Yueh-hsun, who is currently turning his award-winning police drama Black and White into a full-length motion picture.

“We have already sent people to Universal Studios and other theme parks to learn from their expertise, ” the director of Taiwan’s first Hollywood-style TV drama said during a recent interview with Taiwan’s Chinese-language daily Liberty Times.

OK color me cynical not even guardedly optimistic that this thing even if it happens and I sense it probably will, should just be another empty box or fizz-less can of soda. One can only hope…

..what did they say? Well here in Taiwan with four seats up for grabs in the National Assembly the DPP got 3 while the ruling KMT only got 1. The DPP are claiming this as a mandate”

Su Chia-chuan, said the results were a demonstration of voters’ trust in the opposition party.

Well maybe or at least partly. I feel more strongly it is a trend which is due probably more to the immediacy of mass communications via the Internet than political strategy superiority of a given party or candidate. We live in the era of what I like to call “mayfly politics.” Where you win your election and need to hit the ground with your feet running as fast as a broadband connection. The stop watch starts ticking the moment you win and the people don’t have patience for anything anymore. So if you can’t maintain whatever spin, or momentum, or charm that got you elected you will be replaced by the other guys just like with the Democrats losing a seat that was fixed in granite it was so secure: Ted Kennedy’s to Scott Brown.

Who knows maybe what the people of  Taiwan will get is something better than what they were offered. Sadly, I feel what the Internet makes ever clearer everyone is playing the same old game and money is hard to beat anywhere.

Waking up like a previously sleeping Tiger. Each year I get to go through two sets of separate but un-equal year end holidays: one for the west and one for here in Greater China. To say this is distracting would be an understatement. It can be fun although having 9 out of 11 days of cold rain and grayness is not entirely my idea of fun. The Blockbuster man was the winner this holiday with 15 rentals from us.

I’m exhilarated I have work to do in these challenging economic times  and am about to go visit with one of my factory partners on a new order. I hope everyone has a great Year of the Tiger as we all try to make a little more sense of our new age and present reality.

I hope Taiwan and China’s relations continue to improve as well as China with the rest of the world. Hopefully there will be a little more Peace and Understanding happening although that will surely be spun and manipulated for someone’s political agenda.

Adult reality is so complicated and can cause headaches. I want to go back to a more innocent time. Like when the characters in the picture would have amused me, but alas…

Today over on Peking Duck I read some disturbing news about one of my favorite authors from pre-Internet days: John Naisbitt. He wrote Megatrends which was kind of like the Freakenomics of its day, answering many questions you’d never think to ask but were fascinated knowing the answers to. I had no idea he and his wife were even living in China.

According to the Duck’s post they are coming out as “we really drank the koolaid” everything in China that is official must be good cheerleaders. That is sad. I know John and his wife are both very intelligent people with their spheres of influence. I’m not purporting that they be China haters since there is so much to be impressed by over China, historically and of late. However, it’s sad how many people will turn a blind eye to some significant problems or become a tour guide and point you to the fake Disneyland town diorama like Pyongyang has for the outsider to glimpse their contrived utopia.

I would truly love to see China demonstrate it’s greatness as a world citizen and leader but know that nothing is gained when we pretend the elephant isn’t in the room. It is encouraging to me that 1,000 brave souls from Shanghai have ventured to Beijing to protest the demolition of their houses to make way for the World Expo grounds. Hopefully they’ll be given some consideration by the government and a fair and reasonable plan can be made.

I wonder how the Naisbitt’s would handle,”Quake activist jailed for 5 years?”. It seems rather appalling when the man was speaking on behalf of the tens of thousands of unfortunate souls who lost lives, livelihoods and property in the devastating earthquakes.

I look forward to China’s increasing role as a world power and hope that there will be more and more meaningful dialogs with the Chinese government and it’s greatest resource-the  one billion plus people that it represents.

One of the saddest incidents during my stay in Taiwan was the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Bai Bing Bing’s (local singer and TV variety show star) daughter-Bai Hsiao-yen.

One of the most macabre details of the highly publicized event was Bai’s public threats and and taunts directed at the kidnappers while her daughter was in their possession. As a father it was hard for me to rationalize why a parent would dare to be so provocative when dealing with hardened criminals. Unfortunately, they raped and killed her daughter and mentioned that Bai’s goading was a motivating factor for having it end this way. This case also enabled DPP former Presidential candidate Frank Hsieh to steal the spotlight from Bai as a self appointed negotiator for Chen Chin-hsing’s surrender. Hsieh later used it to gain attention to begin his political career.

Bai’s attitude and actions seemed like a real disconnect for a mother who’s child is in serious danger. I encountered Bai Bing Bing once at the air port and she strutted around like a peacock so that might give some insight into her detachment. Anyhow, now she is outraged over talk of abolishing the death penalty mentioned here.

In an interview with local media, popular singer and entertainer, Bai Bing-bing said she will commit suicide if the majority back the policy during a national referendum.

Bai, who is currently taking law courses at the National Open University, even said she is willing to take up the job of executing convicted offenders sentenced to death.

I am not advocating the removal of the death penalty but this is a sensitive issue. I don’t think Bai’s histrionics are the appropriate forum for dealing with the deep array of issues that this encompasses. I only hope the people of Taiwan’s voice is heard clearly on this important issue.

This is classic. Hey George did you see that big elephant in the room? What elephant? Hey Hank did you see that big elephant? Ok The R.O.C. Navy claims to the press here that they didn’t see a Chinese submarine off souther Taiwan. Why would a Chinese submarine be there? What could it possibly hope to find?

The R.O.C Navy denied yesterday a media report that the nation’s naval battleships detected a suspected Chinese submarine off southwestern Taiwan during a military exercise on Jan. 27.

Quoting unnamed sources, the United Evening News reported that the submarine belonging to China was spotted at an area 24 nautical miles or 45 kilometers off the Zuoying naval base in Kaohsiung City, last Wednesday morning.

According to the report, the submarine was first discovered by one of the navy’s anti-sub S-70C helicopters, but the submarine was allowed to leave later on.

On this topic I’ll have to defer to my Chinese friends common sense approach to discussing the obvious,”If you already know why do you need to ask?” Indeed…

I read this article and it produced a mixed reaction. On the surface you’d think,”oh well, I guess that’s it for Taiwanese electronic firms, put a fork in it.”

The report showed that monthly salaries offered by some Chinese enterprises to high-ranking employees are already 20 percent to 30 percent higher than those granted by leading Taiwanese enterprises to their employees.

Liu Teh-chuan, manager of China operations division of the 1111 Job Bank, said that major enterprises in Zhejiang, Shanghai and Beijing want to raid high-end talents in the optoelectronics field from Taiwan, they can offer annual pay of NT$3 million to NT$5 million, at least 25 percent to 30 percent higher than offered by their Taiwanese counterparts. Some can even offer stock warrants to attract field talents from Taiwan.

Liu noted that high-tech firms in both sides of the Taiwan Straits are expected to engage in a war for high-caliber talents in the first and second quarters of the year.

When in fact it really means that Taiwanese companies are going to be paying these people much more to keep them here. If salary conditions are equal very few Taiwanese are going to leave the comforts of home to go work in the mainland. Sure the mainland will help recruit away some people but should mostly benefit the Taiwanese with higher salaries to keep in Taiwan. Let’s check back in about 18 to 24 months and see-mark your calendars.

I was on another segment of American Public Media’s Marketplace with Scott Tong. Here is the link for this episode and to listen go here. Here is link from last one from back in Dec to listen go here.

Picking up where I left off from the last post below this one-here is a new article talking in more detail about Solar, LED and Electric Car markets and planned support for those industries.

I’m kind of excited about this. One of the reason the Taiwanese are so innovative is because they have been left to sink or swim on their own. The government here traditionally has offered little support other than the occasional tax incentive and in fact tends to follow the small and medium businesses lead when making policy. So a bit of the tail wagging the dog. While the role of small and medium businesses gets more and more challenging with conglomerates crowding the space, I know that they’ll always have a role because of their innovation and agility and ability to make decisions quickly. The conglomerates are very slow moving and take a long time trying to get things done by consensus, often missing the very markets they sought to enter and dominate.

I am very happy solar is one of the new technologies being promoted here since it’s potential for sustainable energy production. My hope is that they’ll come up with more environmentally friendly ways of producing the components for solar power. It’s a little disappointing and self-defeating when some environmentally friendly  product is produced when it does not utilize an environmentally friendly process itself.

LED’s are an exciting field. Here in Taiwan all of the traffic lights have been converted to LED using ones. China has similar plans:

The greatest growth drivers are government policies and legislation that favor energy saving. A few countries have already outlawed incandescent light bulbs, which lose some 70 percent of their energy to heat, and others plan to phase them out over the coming years. China, for instance, has instituted the “Ten Cities, Ten Thousand Lights” plan, a program to revamp six million traditional streetlights with LED lights by 2011.

Electric Vehicles are obviously another great concept that is becoming a reality with major players like Warren Buffet getting involved via his investment in BYD. The Taiwanese are already making soem maor strides in that direction as well:

E-One Moli Energy, which belongs to the Taiwan Cement group, supplies the lithium-ion battery for the Mini E electric vehicle by German carmaker BMW. Taichung-based Fukuta Electronics & Machinery Company produces the motor for the high-performance electric sports car, Tesla Roadster, made by industry newcomer, Tesla Motors. And even the company that helped the Californian electric vehicle maker design the system for the US$125,000 Roadster — AC Propulsion — is 80-percent funded by Taiwanese investors.

This post is in response to a news article reported here on 6 new industries that are expected to generate upwards of 400,00 jobs in Taiwan.

Officials of the Council of Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said the six emerging industrial sectors, which include the green energy, tourism, biotechnology and electric vehicle sectors have been listed for priority development for 2010, as part of efforts to rev up employment.

I think it is a great idea although I’m not sure of how many jobs it will really produce. The key of course is how serious the government is for it’s actual success. I think it’s very plausible with the high tech and light industrial background that Taiwan has. My only hope is that this isn’t some trail balloon the government is putting up to try to gauge the private sectors interest thereby determining what if any resources will be channeled into this scheme to make it work.

The tourism part is a no brainer here. One of Taiwan’s greatest assets is it’s unique geographic profile. It sits in the northern sub-tropical zone and it’s high Central Mountain range along the narrow island make it possible to go from alpine mountain environments to the coast in under 90 miles. There are all kinds of trails excellent for hiking and cycling where people can really experience what the Portuguese called Ihla Formosa-the Beautiful Island.

The others-Green Tech, Bio Tech and Electric vehicles all require much heavier capital intensive investments. These are where the government can really assist in making this dream come true by providing incentives for the private sector and educational system to re-toll or build factors and add related educational programs accordingly. Time will tell.