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Mountain Times
By Scott Nicholson

Taiwanese consulate R.C. Wu’s first visit to Boone was accompanied by snow flurries, but he brought a message of warmth and optimism about his country’s American relations.

Wu, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta, visited U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx in her Boone office Tuesday. Wu, who is Taiwan’s diplomat for the southeastern United States, said not only were ties between the two countries important for the world economy, but for spreading peace and democracy through economic stability.

Wu said his country, part of the Republic of China, though its government is separate from that of the mainland People’s Republic of China, is the fifth-largest agricultural market for the United States, primarily for soybeans, tobacco, corn and poultry. Because North Carolina is a leading agricultural state, that creates an important bond between the two, he said. Because the country doesn’t grow its own food, but is one of the world’s top processors of food products, it plays a key role in the world’s food distribution system.

However, Taiwan’s biggest role is as a provider of technology, including computers, microchips and personal digital assistants. Wu said North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, founded 49 years ago, had served as a model for five similar parks in his home country.

Foxx, a member of the congressional caucus on Taiwan and also an agricultural committee member, said she wanted to learn more about the country so she could better explore possibilities for future growth. Foxx said most people only hear about conflict with other countries, but said most diplomatic work was based on building personal ties and peaceful relationships.

“On a day-to-day basis, most Americans don’t think about our relations with other countries,” Foxx said. “They hear about the troubles, but we deal with friendly relations and need to understand business.”

Wu said Taiwan had benefited from heavy American investment in business, and he believed that influence had spread to mainland China, where growth and an interest in democracy had stimulated the economy. From there, the economic stimulus “jumps to other Asian countries,” which he said made the governments more transparent and less militaristic. “Taiwan has about 40,000 investors in China,” Wu said, saying the country not only provided business capital but also management skills for the mainland’s booming economy.

He also said Taiwan had some unexpected exports: from the post-World War II era until 1990, Taiwan led the world in the number of foreign students pursuing graduate degrees overseas.

Wu said North Carolina’s scenic beauty would also appeal to his country’s citizens and benefit the state’s tourism industry. He said one in every three Taiwanese visits a foreign country each year, and his country is also a popular destination because it preserved many of the ancient Chinese cultural relics that were destroyed during the Communist revolution in China.

Wu said his country was torn apart by World War II, and America contributed money to help rebuild the country. For that reason, the residents remain grateful and are friendly toward Americans and other foreigners.

Foxx told Wu about the loss of the state’s manufactured jobs and encouraged Wu to promote the import of furniture, one of the industries most damaged over the last decade. Wu said his country was experiencing some of the same problems, as cheaper overseas labor could be found in China and Mexico. However, wages in China were skyrocketing, he said, which might cause a shift in manufacturing production. He said even though Taiwan had lost some of its manufacturing base, it remained strong in providing design and management. He suggested America should adopt a similar approach toward high-technology jobs and business skills.

“Now it’s a global village,” Wu said. “America is a locomotive to the world economy.”

Foxx said there were some domestic concerns about the level of foreign investment in the United States, but she said the investments had remained at traditional levels and that economies were interlinked. “It’s to everyone’s advantage to have a strong economy,” she said.

Wu invited Foxx to visit Taiwan, where he said he would schedule public investment seminars to show how the two countries’ economies could work together.