Academic research should be more oriented to economic development, the President said in his opening address to the three-day general assembly of the Academia Sinica on its 50th anniversary.
Reviewing developments in the last half century, President Chiang said growth of the Academia Sinica has paralleled that of the country. Both have forged ahead against a backdrop of chaos and adverse developments, he said.
He told the scholars that the guiding principle for development is that it should be sought through stability.
Self-reliance must be stressed in national reconstruction, he added.
As to science development, President Chiang said, cultivation of scientific manpower should be given top attention.
At the same time, the President stressed, science development must not be pursued at the expense of the humanities and social sciences.
He called on the academicians to marshal their limited resources to achieve maximum results.
Dr. Chien Shih-liang, president of the Academia Sinica, opened the conference. He said the academy, which is the highest research organ in the Republic of China, now has 14 institutes and 84 academicians in addition to an advisory board of 36 prominent scholars.
President Chiang Ching-kuo invited eight industrial and business leaders for a discussion of their reactions to the recent upward revaluation of the New Taiwan dollar against the U.S. dollar. The exchange rate was changed from 38:1 to 36:1
The leaders told the President that industry is trying to modernize production and automate so as to raise productivity and improve its competitive edge in the international marketplace. They suggested the government:
- Study distribution of manpower resources and raise the quality and quantity of skilled labor. The economy is moving fast, they said, but labor-intensive industries remain the backbone of the economy and shortages of labor are beginning to hurt some industries.
- Pay attention to housing, schools, and public utilities in developing industrial parks. Mass transit should be given high priority.
- Raise the pay of civil servants to attract better men and raise the level of administrative efficiency.
- In protecting the welfare of labor, avoid punishment of management so as not to frighten domestic and overseas Chinese entrepreneurs.
- Provide different interest rates for large and small loans.
The President said:
- Government enterprises should lead the private sector in economic development.
- Labor should improve its quality so as to meet the requirements of advanced industries.
- Agriculture should receive as much attention as industry.
- Labor and management should work in harmony.
Premier Y.S. Sun told overseas Chinese scholars that their knowledge and experience are welcomed by the government.
Addressing the opening of the 1978 Modern Engineering and Technology Seminar at Taipei's Grand Hotel, the Premier urged overseas Chinese scholars to contribute their knowledge to national construction.
Some 2,300 Chinese engineers of Taiwan and 65 from the United States attended the seminar sponsored by the Chinese Institute of Engineers and Chinese Institute of Engineers of the U.S.
The first such seminar was held in 1966 when 24 engineers came from the United States.
H.C. Yen, president of the Chinese Institute of Engineers, said this was a turning point for the economic structure of the Republic of China as it progresses from developing to developed stage.
He said industries are becoming more technology-and capital-intensive.
"This is a new challenge for us," he said, and urged Chinese engineers in the U.S. to contribute more.
The Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of China and the United States cannot be replaced by a unilateral declaration of the U.S. government, Foreign Minister Shen Chang-huan declared.
The treaty, signed in 1954, was ratified by both countries in accordance with their constitutional processes. In the United States, the treaty carries the force of supreme law.
Shen was testifying before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Legislative Yuan. He reported to lawmakers on the latest developments in relations between the Republic of China and the United States. He also touched on related international developments, with special emphasis on U.S. relations with Soviet Russia.
Minister Shen emphasized the importance of the close ties between the Republic of China and the United States. They are allies and have important mutual interests, he said.
Any deals of the United States with the Chinese Communists will damage the long-standing friendship between the United States and the Republic of China and also seriously affect peace and stability of the whole Asian and Pacific region, he said.
This is why the Chinese government has been taking a firm stand against the so-called "Shanghai communique" and other arrangements between the United States and the Chinese Communists.
The "Shanghai communique" was signed in 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon and Chou En-lai.
It would be a serious mistake on the part of the government of the United States to believe that the Chinese Communists will play any important role in the maintenance of peace in Asia or in the world, Shen said.
The United States will be disappointed, She said, if it thinks it can play the Chinese Communist regime off against the Soviet Union. This can only create new world tension and even touch off armed conflict.
He warned that the United States will be running a grave risk if it fails to see the innate anti-American nature of the Chinese Communists and trusts their promises and commitments.
Shen said the Republic of China has been a faithful ally of the United States. Should the United States choose to scrap the Mutual Defense Treaty to curry favor with the Chinese Communists, not only the government and people of the Republic of China but all other allies and friends of the United States would lose faith in U.S. commitments, he said.
Chinese Ambassador to Washington James Shen said that U.S. "normalization of relations" with Red China would lead to war.
He told a group of American students that the United States should maintain its relationship with the Republic of China for its own interest and the interest of the world.
Ambassador Shen told some 45 American high school graduates and seniors that the way in which the United States handles its relations with the Republic of China could have a serious impact not only on the peace and security of East Asia but also of the world.
He cautioned that any move by the United States to abandon the Republic of China on Taiwan or to abrogate the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Republic of China could lead to war in East Asia.
Because the United States has been a major Pacific power and will continue to be a major Pacific power, "if there is war in East Asia, we don't see how the United States can avoid being involved," Ambassador Shen said.
Welcoming the students to his Twin Oaks residence, Ambassador Shen emphasized the historical friendship between the United States and the Republic of China, He told them that had the government of the Republic of China been able to remain on the Chinese mainland, there would have no Korean and Vietnam wars in which thousands of Americans were killed while fighting to protect Asian people from Communist domination.
He said the U.S. government should maintain its diplomatic and defense relations with the Republic of China, and should not even consider the three Chinese Communist conditions for "normalizing relations."
Acceptance of Red China's three conditions would be a mockery of President Carter's stand on human rights. "Can anybody deny that human rights do not exist on the Communist-held Chinese mainland?" the envoy asked.
Ambassador Shen warned against the notion of playing off Communist China against the Soviet Union.
He asked, "What guarantee is there that Communist China will cooperate with the United States in such an endeavor1 And what guarantee is there that once the United States is involved in war with the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communists would not sit it out or even join forces with the Russians because, after all, they are both Communists?"
Ambassador Shen called attention to various public opinion polls indicating that a majority of Americans are opposed to improving relations with Red China at the cost of injury to the Republic of China. He said he hoped the Carter administration would heed public opinion as reflected in these polls.
Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Company, predicted car sales in Taiwan will increase "almost fivefold" by 1987.
Ford made the projection at a reception he gave in Taipei to honor government officials and business leaders of the Republic of China,
He said the increase is made possible "due to steadily rising economic growth, local production and stimulus of the government investment in road and highway construction."
"This bright outlook is no accident," he continued. "It reflects the healthy and productive business environment which the Republic of China has created in this decade, the industry and skill of each person and the sympathetic nurturing of private sector investment."
During his stay in Taipei, Ford called on President Chiang Ching-kuo. The President noted the quality of Ford Lio Ho Motor Company products.
At a planeside press conference prior to departure, he said his company "has great confidence in the Republic of China's future."
"We see it as a country that offers a very attractive economic environment and a warm welcome to companies such as Ford, which are able and willing to contribute to its growth and stability," he said.
Ford and his party of nine, including Donald E. Petersen, executive vice president in charge of the company's international automotive operations, were impressed by the "astonishing and sustained rate of economic growth" in the Republic of China.
However, "while the automotive industry has made considerable progress under the sound and competent administration of the government, it has still not reached the maturity necessary to compete effectively and totally on the international market," Ford said.
"The domestic industry still needs to make substantial increases in its volume base while domestic supply industries need time to readjust their capacity and their level of technology to the rapidly growing, increasingly sophisticated market."
Ford urged the government to adjust its "automotive policy in such a way and rate that the industry can cope without predicating quality or financial viability."
This was Ford's second trip to Taipei. He last visited here in 1971. He said: "I must admit, however, that the trip has more than usual significance for me because of the development and importance of Ford's business since my last visit in 1971."
Ford said he would not consider pulling out of Taiwan even if the U.S. recognized the Chinese Communists.
"Why do we have to pull out of Taiwan, as we are doing well here?" he asked.
He revealed that Ford has decided to invest US$2,000,000 for the expansion of its Taiwan subsidiary. Still under consideration is a second investment of US$20 million for further expansion.
General Juan Cheng-chang, director of the Bureau of Investigation, warned that the Chinese Communists have launched an all-out campaign to subvert the government on Taiwan.
He appealed to countrymen at home and abroad not to be deceived by the Communist tricks but to cooperate with the government.
It is reported that Red China has drastically revised its strategy and made use of the "Taiwan independence movement" and influential persons in Taiwan.
According to authoritative sources, a "Committee for Promoting the Taiwan Independence Movement" has been set up as a cover for Red China's subversive activities.
Under a revised "Taiwan work plan," Red China is launching political, economic, cultural, military and diplomatic subversion.
The plan stresses political subversion in the name of democracy and freedom.
Peiping's "embassy" in Tokyo is responsible for recruiting agents from among overseas Chinese and sending them to the mainland for indoctrination and training.
Agents are sent to Taiwan by arrangement of the "embassy," They are assigned a "list of influential personages in Taiwan" to serve as major targets.
The agents are told: "The so-called tai tu (Taiwan independence) is actually tai tu (poison of Taiwan), Our purpose is to destroy Taiwan by making use of this poison."
A special group responsible for the infiltration of Taiwan has been set up in every party organization in the coastal provinces and in Hongkong and Macao.
These organizations are responsible for recruiting persons who have relatives or friends in Taiwan and training them for subversive work, Trainees are sent to Taiwan under the guise of overseas Chinese students, religious workers, overseas Chinese visitors or relatives of Taiwan residents.
Several training institutes have been established in Fukien and Kwangtung to train subversives. The curriculum includes language, living habits, etc. The goal is to achieve absolute "Taiwanization" of the trainees.
Eighty-five to 90 per cent of ranking Communist cadres on the mainland are op· posed to the policy and rule of the Communist regime, Lt. Col. Fan Yuan-yen said on the first anniversary of his flight to freedom.
Fan, who flew to free China in his MIG 19, said that most of the Communist military men and cadres have lost faith in the regime after seeing so many power struggles among top level personnel and the downfall of so many leaders.
"Everyone on the mainland realizes that his future is uncertain and that none of the leaders is reliable," Fan said.
"You might be in power today, but the next day you could fall and vanish like Liu Shao-chi or Lin Piao. This uncertainty leads the people to have no thought of tomorrow, but to live only for today."
To show dissatisfaction with Communist totalitarian rule, the people and the army have been seizing every opportunity to revolt or violate the party's policy, Fan said.
He noted revolts in Paoting involving over 100,000 farmers and the killing of "high-ranking army officials" in Kunming following the Tienanmen riot.
He said many free democratic nations do not understand the true face of the Communist regime but that the people on the mainland do. Their understanding has led them to believe that the Communist regime will sooner or later collapse.
Fan broadcast a message to the Communist air force urging its members to fly to freedom.
Fan told them: "In the past year, even though I was scolded by many of you for my defection, I know that deep in your hearts you agree with me and would do the same thing if you had the same chance I did.
"I deeply feel that the Chinese people's suffering will not be ended unless the Communist regime is overthrown. I know many of you disagree with the Communist party, but it is no use if you do nothing.
"For the sake of the 800 million people, you should fly to free China. My experience has told me that it is not difficult. You will make it easily if you are determined.
"Do not let the chances flyaway. Take them and reach freedom. Good luck."
Construction of two repair docks will be started by the China Shipbuilding Corporation at Kaohsiung before the end of this year.
H.P. Yen, CSBC president, said the docks will cost NT$950 million (US$26,380,000). One will have capacity of 75,000 DWT and the other of 30,000 DWT. They will be completed in the next two years.
CSBC will build a 100,000 DWT repair dock at Taichung Harbor in the early 1980s.
Repair docks at Kaohsiung and Keelung have combined capacity of 4 million DWT a year.
In fiscal 1979, CSBC expects to net more than US$30 million from ship repairs compared with US$28 million in fiscal 1978 which ended June 30.
Yen estimates CSBC will gross more than NT$12 billion this year, including revenues from the construction of some 50 vessels.
Yen 'said the shipbuilding industry is still in the doldrums. "We can reach only 40 per cent of capacity this year. And we are lucky by comparison with most foreign shipbuilding enterprises," he said. In Japan, shipbuilding is at 25 per cent of capacity.
The government policy of "building Chinese ships at local shipyards" is a great help to CSBC', Yen said.
China Shipbuilding procures only 20 per cent of its materials from domestic sources. Yen hopes this can be increased to 75 per cent in the next two years. By 1980, China Steel Corporation and Taiwan Machinery Manufacturing Corporation will be supplying steel plates and main engines to CSBC.
Preliminary work for the newly undertaken 12 economic development projects is proceeding smoothly. These are details:
- Surveys for extension of the North-South Freeway from Kaohsiung to Pingtung have been completed and the roadbed tested.
- The route for one of the three cross-island highways has been set. Designing work on the Chiayi-Yushan and Shanlu-Shuili sections is under way. Construction will start in 1980 and the road will be opened to traffic at the end of 1985.
- Design work for widening of the Hualien-Taitung railroad has been completed and construction begun.
- Design work for the southern cross-island section of the round-the-island railroad will be completed by August of next year. Construction will get under way in 1980 and be completed in 1985.
- Second phase construction of Taichung Harbor is more than half complete. Work will be finished in October of next year.
- Designs for second phase construction at the China Steel Corporation's integrated mill has been completed.
- Preparatory work for construction of the first generator of the second nuclear power plant is behind schedule by 6.97 per cent. Construction will start in November of this year and be completed in June of 1985.
- Building of new towns is in the design stage.
- Construction of housing units is behind schedule, as is construction and repair of west coast dikes and river levees.
- Establishment of a fund to finance farm mechanization has been completed.
A scientist engaged in solar energy research and an American company signed an agreement to establish a solar energy distilled water plant in Taiwan.
The signatories are Prof. John C. Wang, former dean of the College of Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, and Dr. E. Ferdinand Emborn, international operations director of the World Patent Development Corporation.
The American company will put up US$2,500,000 and Prof. Wang will supply the know-how.
According to Wang, the use of solar energy to distill water will represent a considerable saving over processes employing electricity or oil as energy.
The raw water is completely isolated from the outside atmosphere as it enters the distilling device, thus preventing contamination. It is sterilized by the ultra-violet rays of sunlight.
The site has yet to be determined but will be in northern Taiwan. Some 100 technicians will be trained locally.
The distilled water will be for both export and domestic consumption.
Industries using distilled water include cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, beverages, chemical products, printing, painting, battery, electronics, electro-brassing, dyeing and weaving, and hospitals.
The Republic of China has the most advanced air traffic control system in the Western Pacific region, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported.
Donald Fink, writing from Taipei, said the Republic of China is an "integral part of the International Civil Aviation Organization" although it is no longer a member.
Quoting Mao Ying-tsu, director general of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, Fink said the Republic of China is installing the "newest radar system available" to ensure that Taiwan continues to function as part of the CAO network.
"Taiwan's airspace is quite crowded, due to the combination of heavy commercial traffic serving Taipei and overflying the island and the high military sortie rate maintained daily by the Chinese Air Force," Fink said.
Taipei International Airport has more than 250 takeoffs and landings a day, while the Taipei Air Traffic Control Center handles an additional 300 en route flights each day.
Fink said CAA is improving its air traffic control. The Taipei Flight Information Region was divided into two east-west terminal sectors and four en route sectors last year. Commercial traffic through the Taipei Flight Information Region is expected to exceed 180,000 flights this year, he added.
To further improve its services, CAA is planning to offer "radar handoff service" with the Hongkong region in the near future. "This will reduce the en route separation between aircraft from ten minutes to five minutes," Fink said. A similar service will be available in coordination with the Naha region next year.
The Taipei Flight Information Region comes under the direction of ICAO's Far East and Pacific Office in Bangkok. That office has been permitted to enter into a cooperative agreement with the Republic of China covering operation of the Taipei region, which is known as "Amber 1."
Taiwan "occupies a geographical location that makes it a key link in such Asian airways as Amber 1, linking Tokyo with Hongkong and Southeast Asia," Fink said.
An official of the Ministry of Communications said China Airlines has reached agreement to purchase a Boeing 747 200B plane to step up its Sino-U.S. flight service next year.
Free China will be the world's biggest ship-breaking country for the 11th consecutive year in 1978, according to the Taiwan Regional Association of the Old Ships Demolition
Engineering Industry. More than 200 ships of various types and sizes and exceeding 2 million light displacement tons will be dismantled in Taiwan, said C.L. Kao, executive secretary of the association.
Up to the end of June, 139 vessels of 1.42 million LDTs had been demolished at Kaohsiung and other ports.
This represents an increase of 47 ships and 670,000 LDTs over the same period last year. "The increase in shipbreaking was mainly due to growing demand for iron by the local steel and iron industry in the first six months of this year," Kao said.
Taiwan emerged as the world's leading ship breaker in 1968. More than 418,000 tons were demolished that year.
The number and tonnage of ships dismantled increased to 194 and 1.71 million LDTs in 1977.
Such export industries as hardware, construction, electronics, shipbuilding, auto and machine tools depend on shipbreaking for raw materials.
This year shapes up as the best for shipbreaking since 1974, when a number of companies went out of business because of the recession and the termination of government support.
In 1977, the industry feared competition of the China Steel Corporation and Taiwan's first integrated mill.
"The jitters were eased in the first half of this year," Kao said, "thanks to the increasing demand for raw materials in both domestic and foreign markets on the one hand and the successful export of China Steel products."
China Steel has exported more than 400,000 tons of its products to eight countries in recent months.
The mill has capacity of 1.35 million tons of high quality steel products annually and expected to export more than 60 per cent of its output this year.
"If the trend continues," Kao said, "local shipbreaking companies can survive and prosper."
There are 182 shipbreaking companies in Taiwan. They supply about 75 per cent of the materials, mostly steel bars, used by 300 iron and steel works in Taiwan.
Trailing Taiwan in shipbreaking in 1977 were Spain, India, Japan and South Korea.
Kao believes Japan might be a strong competitor. Although Japan ranked fourth in the industry last year, its shipbreaking capability could easily catch up with Taiwan in a couple of years," he said.
"There are indications the Japanese government might help the industry increase its dismantling capability."
South Korea is another rival. In 1977, the number of ships dismantled in that country was nearly 1 million tons.
The association has asked the government to provide more space for shipbreaking.
About 95 per cent of the ships are dismantled at Kaohsiung and the rest at Hualien and Keelung.
The Republic of China and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum to broaden the scope of their technical cooperation.
Economic Minister Chang Kwang-shih represented the Republic of China and Rida Obaid, executive director and chairman of the Board of the National Center of Science and Technology, signed for Saudi Arabia.
The memorandum provides:
- Scientific and technological cooperation in a spirit of understanding.
- Contacts and cooperation between scientists, engineers, scholars and institutions of research and higher learning.
- Exchange visits with each country paying the costs of local transportation, board and room. The dispatching country will pay international travel costs.
- Joint or contract research to solve scientific and technical problems.
- Establishment of a steering committee. The Republic of China agreed to dispatch any requested science and technology teams to Saudi Arabia at the latter's expense.
These projects will be undertaken expeditiously:
- Science and Technology Information Center and Instrumentation Center.
- Single Cell Protein Manufacture.
- Compound Fertilizer Research and Extension.
- Aquaculture and Fishery.
- Exchange of science and technology personnel, including scientists and engineers residing in the United States.