Taiwanese businessman Liao helps produce China's missile

Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Xiamen, China

The Foreign Affairs Ministry of China invited six Indonesian journalists, including one from The Jakarta Post, to visit the country in late November. The following is the first of a series of articles based on the visit.

Liao Wanlung has only one year left before he retires. The Taiwanese businessman founded the Xiamen-based CB Carbide Group in 1994. With an investment of over US$100 million, it is the world's largest privately owned carbide minerals company.

CB, which stands for Chuen Bao, is headquartered in Taiwan. It is among the top ten in the world in the industry, and its products have been used in Chinese rockets and missiles. Carbide is a very hard material made of carbon and one or more heavy metals. Widely used in military missiles, it is also a component of numerous products that we use on a daily basis.

"I first came to China in 1987, and I have spent 300 days each year in China since then," he told visiting Indonesian journalists in his modern office in Xiamen. The city in the southeastern province of Fujian is about 1,700 kilometers southeast of Beijing and borders on Taiwan Strait. It was one of the first designated economic zones when China reformed its economy.

Liao said he was thankful to Deng Xiaoping -- the late Chinese leader who launched China's economic reform in 1978, which made it possible for Taiwanese businessmen to invest in China.

Indeed, Liao is a fine example of Chinese-Taiwanese brotherhood as he is also thankful to Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of the first Taiwan president, Chiang Kai-shek, who gave him his first capital of 100,000 yuan (about US$10,000) to start his business.

"I am thankful to these two people in my life," said Liao, his head bowing solemnly as he referred to Deng and Chiang.

With about 1,000 workers, 20 of them Taiwanese, and with a product output ranked fifth in the world in the industry, Liao will have nothing to worry about when he leaves his company.

About 15 years ago, he said, Taiwanese businessmen were urged to invest overseas, including China in the north, and Southeast Asia in the south.

"Those who invested in the south, like in the Philippines and Thailand, mostly failed, while those who invested in mainland China mostly succeeded," said Liao, who still holds Taiwanese citizenship.

Asked why the Taiwanese companies failed in the south, Liao cited three reasons: cultural and linguistic differences, the limited market, and inadequate resources.

"Furthermore, there is no other country in Asia whose government has expended so much energy -- and thought -- for the sake of businessmen as China," Liao said.

Xiamen, he said, was a testament in itself. When he first arrived here in the 1980s, the road from the airport was all mud.

"Now, you can see for yourself," he said with arms outspread as if to describe the mammoth changes that Xiamen -- which he added was not much different to Taiwan -- underwent.

Every day, ships ply the short distance between Xiamen harbor and nearby Jin Men islet, the closest islet controlled by Taiwan. About 100,000 Taiwanese now live in Xiamen city, the island part of the province.

Hong Chengzong, deputy director general of the Foreign Affairs Office of Xiamen Municipal Administration, said Xiamen had held regular cultural and sports events with Taiwan. It was not unusual, he said, for patients from Jin Men island to see doctors in Xiamen.

"How could you separate Xiamen from Taiwan, they are one family," he said.

Liao said there was no problem in terms of people-to-people relations.

"I met Chen Shui-bian last week," he said referring to the Taiwanese president, "I told him that Taiwan should not go to war with China. What's the benefit?"

China, Liao said, was the number one business partner of Taiwan with the latter enjoying a US$30-billion surplus every year.

Liao said only two Taiwanese did not want to have a good relationship with China: Chen Shui-bian and his deputy, Annette Lu.

Asked why Chen was reelected in the recent election, Liao said it was because most Taiwanese were blind followers of Chen.

"Chen said he would fight for democracy, but actually he wanted to fight for independence," Liao said.

In reply to a question, he said he preferred unification to the status quo.

"This line of thinking is shared by most businessmen and most Taiwanese," he said, "because the unification of China would bring mutual benefits for China and Taiwan."

Despite the continuing tension between China and Taiwan, businessmen and government officials in Xiamen said the common people there were not worried about a possible war. If anything, people-to-people relations would only grow closer in the near future, they suggested.

Hong said he had heard talk that mainland Chinese people might be able to visit nearby Jin Men island in the near future.

Taiwanese businessmen have been visiting China since the early 1980s, but the Taiwanese government is yet to allow mainlanders to visit Taiwan. China has considered Taiwan a renegade province since 1949, after the communists came to power. But Taiwan's businessmen have invested heavily in the mainland in the last 20 years. Up until last year, Taiwan's investment in Xiamen reached US$4.3 billion in over 2,000 projects.

From Xiamen island on the southern coast of China, Jin Men islet is clearly visible. One could actually swim across the 2,000-meter-wide sea to the Taiwan-controlled islet. A rocket missile is not needed, when the gap that exists can be bridged through good relations.