Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 21, 1991, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press january Page 7 Road work in Taiwan More useful to the military than a modern sewage system or clean air Taiwan enters new Era by Terence Moore Winnipeg free press Taipei the years of Taiwan economic hyper which routinely exceeded 10 per cent per year through the 1970s and Are probably wage rates have the protected internal mar Ket has been opened to foreign Competition and environmental standards Are starting to been the next stages of growth will not be so Taiwan Early economic successes in International Trade were based on Low wages and labor intensive clothing and toys and plastic goods could be made in Taiwan for the and european markets far cheaper than in most other econ taiwanese manufacturers benefited from a in disciplined labor Force and from government policies that helped Taiwan workers have higher ambitions Chiu Gen eral Secretary of the chinese federation of said in a recent interview that this resulted More from changes in Taiwan society than from the efforts of the Trade Union which is still in its Industrial workers in the Early 1970s had usually grown up in farming families and regarded Sal Aried work As a supplement to the family workers now entering the labor Market More often grew up in Urban families with fewer ties to the they regard wages As their whole the taiwanese workers traditional View of the employer As a father figure taking care of the employees interests Dies Chiu but in the Large scale enterprises which Are beginning to take shape in the old per Sonal links Between owner and worker Are harder to wages have been driven up More by shortage of labor than by Indus trial Taiwan is closed to immigrants because the govern ment considers that the islands 20 million population should not be increased by hence the main Way to attract workers has been to bid up in response to employers the government is experimenting now with temporary admission of guest workers from Mainland China to work for contractors on Public works because of rising wage rates and International the shoe factories and toy factories that were once the leading Edge of the Taiwan Export sector Are in de Hong Kong firms in those Fields have taken advantage of cheaper labor across the Border in the Zhenzhen special economic zone of the Peoples Republic of their Taiwan competitors had to follow Small Taiwan manufacturers in the late 1980s started moving their work to Fukien province on the political Union the Mainland authorities Wel come Taiwan investment because they need any development capital they can they also appear to believe that economic integration with Taiwan is a step toward the political Union they dream Taiwan investors who build plants on the mainly in Fukien Are required to take on a Mainland partner and Call the Enterprise a joint they tend to disguise their Partick because Taiwan Kuomintang or some members of oppose Taiwan in vestment in the Taiwan government policy at the moment permits modest Mainland investments by Small firms that Are not vital to the Taiwan econ the next change of policy could forbid taiwanese investment on the Mainland and impose penal ties on Taiwan firms that have plants on the As a taiwanese firms try not to draw attention to their Mainland joint they also invest for a Quick return in Case they Are Sud Denly required to close their main land Taiwan investors encounter obstacles in taking profits out of the Peoples that problem rarely because the Taiwan joint ventures in Fukien rarely show a Accord ing to a japanese academic who studied 200 such joint ventures taiwanese investors clearly do draw rewards from their Mainland joint because they keep operating their plants and opening new but they Are careful not to report profits which would be subject to taxation and restrict japanese investors sometimes As do North that chivas Legal system is poorly developed and that they cannot find out As precisely As they would like what their obligations taiwanese flourish in the Mainland Environ ment where they Are free to bar gain for the most advantageous terms they can the nimbleness and creativity of Small scale taiwanese manufacturers and their immediate grasp of the Means for dealing with Chi Nese Public authorities give them a head Start Over other foreigners in the Mainland the vast labor Pool on the combined with Beijing hunger for Industrial ensure that Taiwan based firms can continue to Prosper even As wage rates on Taiwan while Taiwan economic system is said to be capitalist and not com the Kuomintang state plays a decisive role in directing the Taiwan it does not allow Market forces to operate despite its free Enterprise strategic economic sectors including steel and ship building Are government con capital flows Are subject to strict government the government attempts finely tuned management of the National econ omy and generally though sometimes with consequences such As rapid Money sup ply growth or speculative booms in real estate and securities which it had not one result of Taiwan past eco nomic growth is that Taiwan con Sumers Are now a magnificent Market for an increasing Range of the tatting a Home appliance and Industrial equipment now makes and markets a line of personal computers conceived for taiwanese Taiwan is a Tough Market to crack for computer companies aimed primarily at the american and european markets where the roman alphabet Tatung Sells its computers along with chinese character Taiwan highly educated Young their pockets and Bank accounts reflecting the nations full rising wages and Trade Are an eager Market for such High growth Public works Are also to keep Taiwan economic growth High through the current the governments billion in foreign built up partly in the belief that a War with the Peoples Republic was can be made available to finance government construction the government in the 1960s and 1970s generously financed railway and Highway projects that could help move troops about the Island in an works such As sewage treatment and Urban mass transit which did not interest the military were not Public tastes and political cur rents Are War with the Peoples Republic seems highly taiwanese who have travelled abroad know that the discomforts they live with filthy filthy chaotic traffic Tai Peis first subway line is under construction and sewage systems for the largest cities Are being rap idly court ruling May set precedent for guns Washington Church Bells were ringing 1990 out and 1991 in when one then one four burst of semiautomatic fire could be heard Over the tree lined residential streets of this cites Northwest it was a reminder of one differ ence Between living in James and in Northwest the persian Gulf is not the Only place in which mortal danger along with its Neo classical government officials and Washington offers the Opportunity to experience sudden sharing a roughly comparable population of with Washington is streets ahead in the brutality As the Echo of gunfire was so was an elderly Man about 25 blocks away in Northeast washing who walked into a Midnight drug buy in the lobby of his building and was shot twice through the ten blocks South of drunk singing on the sidewalk was shot five times for being too Washington 1991 homicide list was off to a brisk Winnipeg murder record Rose from 19 in 1989 to 20 in Washington murder record Rose from 434 in 1989 to 483 in in the year Ronald Reagan won his first Washington had Only 200 after rising the next year to it dropped to 175 and then 148 in drug violence took it Back up to 194 in to 225 in 1987 and 372 in David Macdonald Washington editor violence in happens mainly in the Northeast and Southeast Quad rants but has been moving closer to Capitol Hill and to it has become last syndicated columnist Jack Anderson was clubbed and robbed of at in the afternoon As he walked to his about eight blocks from the White three Days into seven blocks from lawyer Kenneth go Shom was driving along Pennsylva Nia Avenue in the late afternoon on his Way to pick up another a Man standing on the Street exchanged words with As go shorn drove the wearing the expensive casual clothes of a typical drug took out a calibre gun and fired about eight shots at one hit him in the Back of the this fatal outcome to what presumably was a minor traffic argument recalled another recent Inci shot dead a Bright High school student was driving some friends away from Union station when another car Cut them the student got out to protest and was shot dead by the other in 83 per cent of last years Homi guns were despite Laws restricting gun Possession and re Quiring registration in the District of a drive past the inviting gun shops in Maryland and Virginia tells lax gun Laws make it easy to put the weapon in the Glove compartment and drive into the Large number of guns in Washington and their frequent use is mainly explained by the drug including nightly fights to control sales guns Are being used in Inci dents unrelated to drug you can be shot anywhere for any one eventually caught in Southern were responsible for a drive by shooting in de Cember in Northwest they fired on children playing in the wounding one was a six Earold gun ownership restrictions annoy the National Rifle Assoc a whose Headquarters Are last the Era was even More annoyed when the supreme court of the United states declined to overturn a Federal appeals court decision that there is no constitutional right for a citizen to buy a machine outdated machine guns Are not yet being used on the streets of Washington but the Era says every citizen has a right to own one because the second amendment to the Constitution says that the right to Bear was written to Deal with conditions in the 18th the bar on private ownership of machine guns is until a 1986 Federal Law was it was the Law covered Only purchases of new before gun col lectors ready to undergo a Back ground Check and Register their weapons could buy machine the Era says did the supreme court Case involved a claim by a Georgia gun maker to the right to a licence to let him manufacture new machine guns for a Federal judge in Georgia ruled that he should get the Lith circuit court of appeals overturned saying the Laws intent to forbid private machine gun ownership was the supreme court confirmed that this Case is relevant to washing tons murder ordeal because gun control advocates think it is a significant change in court bar Bara who runs the Centre to prevent handgun says it makes it possible to debate the gun Issue on its merits rather than As something that has anything to do with constitutionally guaranteed Era official John Lenzi he said the decision is in no Way an indication of the courts support for a prohibition on firearms ownership nor is it a decision even remotely involving the second air Force association Mem Bers disappointed by the ruling have a near alternative in this months Issue of their for plus for the optional Walnut display Case they can Send away for a Gold plated firing air Force commemorative the legendary Tommy without refer ring to the relevant Federal the and says As an added advantage to veterans and arms it fires Only in the semiautomatic not full As a Albert makes a Good minister As a highways minister Albert Driedger charges outrageous Doest mind making his customers and offers no Choice of if he likes your you had better like because you will pay for it and heaven help you if you dont carry it with in spite of such an ant customer Albert has a profitable career ahead of him in the picture taking he has this marvelous sales if you wont pay him to take your he wont let you drive your As a every Manitoban who wants to drive a car will pay Albert each year for a about half of them wont even get a picture this but they will pay Albert believes that you should pay every picture or when Albert gets his new business sorted about three years from we will each pay Over four for each new Albert does throw in a Little plastic carrying but out of not beginning this year Manitoban will get a two part Drivers the part with the picture on it says it is a photo identification is part 1 of a 2 part Drivers and then repeats itself in in Case you Are Ever stopped while driving in the second part looks a lot like the old Drivers licence we Are used that the one you always have so much trouble sex outside of that it really is a Drivers this year it reads Drivers licence certificate part 2 and Pic insurance it also has a warn ing valid Only with photo card part Albert tells us we need photo licences to keep suspended Drivers off the Fred Cleverley by putting his new photo licence system into Albert has made it a bit More difficult to determine exactly when any Drivers licence in Manitoba the picture portion for be Good for four it has an expiry Date clearly printed on the the accompanying the Way it is folded by Alberts does it has to be unfolded to find out when it which is every at the end of the holders birth Day in the photo which you Are most Likely to first show to anyone who expires Long after your real licence police in Manitoba should have no trouble with the they will know that every one needs part but what of police officers in other provinces or states lots of jurisdictions Issue five year even if you dont have a licence certificate at what is to Stop you from flashing the photo with its Lon term expiry before some state trooper in Oklahoma and watch him nod in agreement that your licence is of our Drivers licence bureaucracy is obviously getting carried away with if the Manitoba liquor commission can Issue you a photo identification it is called a no hassle for Why does Albert need for the same thing what is the province doing getting into the picture taking business anyway Why cant we just provide our own like we do in the passport and have them laminated on to our licences Given the in sure there would be dozens of photo outfits out there who would be More than pleased to collect from or perhaps offer the explanation for our new complicated procedure is contained in one word Secu surely it would be possible to Trust those clerks Down in the motor vehicles Branch to look at pictures produced by Drivers along with their licence renewal applications and satisfy themselves that the picture being presented is of the individual doing the anyone who has worked his Way through Alberts picture taking process will know instinctively despite the need to prod uce two separate pieces of there Are lots of chances for a first there is the Long line to have the application then there is the Sam ple signature needed which Doest really come out All that Well to go on the photo and then there is the picture taking documentation there is that other Long line of people waiting to not until Albert gets the Cash in his hand Are licences handed those who have endured All three lineups by waiting for their during a Busy the picture cards Are handed out to whoever answers the there just int time to Check to make sure that the right card goes to the right would it be possible to forge a new Drivers licence Albert says and that is Why we Are paying so much for the who would want to forge one anyway Only someone who is intent on breaking the these Are the people Albert wants to get off the highways because they insist on driving when they Are not legally entitled to do will there be people who drive illegally after the whole photo system gets cemented into place of course there will will they get caught of course some they get caught without photo Drivers licences the new photo licences will be Handy to have As a Means of people outside Manitoba have never really believed those no photo documents we showed them were Drivers they will be Handy to Cash to prove who you Are and even to get age related but will an extra million a thanks to Alberts new photo keep suspended Drivers off the roads at that it or Albert should say doonesbury by Garry Trudeau 121 tue Man from a nations 5hiftin6 sans of Nalipi ;