Mainland LED giant San’an has recently announced that it will purchase 19% shares from its Taiwan LED counterpart Forepi based on the price of NTD 19.6 per share. This move was well-received in an editorial published by a Taiwan mainstream media, which, at the mean time, is calling for more effort from Taiwan authority in expanding access for mainland capital to enter Taiwan and promoting cooperation across the strait.

The “Bridging plan” across the strait rolled out by economic department of Taiwan authority includes LED lighting, wireless cities and accurate logistics, but two-year implementation has proved the result to be lower than expectation. There are two primary reasons: first, during implementation, the original intent of this plan to promote enterprise and industry cooperation across the strait was twisted by some regions which turned the plan into a tool to attract investment; second, while cross-strait industrial cooperation required mutual participation and strategic alliance, Taiwan side posed constraints on mainland capital investing in Taiwan. Therefore, those which have expected equity participation and investment in Taiwan, have had to give up.

The editorial comments that the cross-strait cooperation in panel industry is a typical failure case. Given that large domestic demands for TV need great supply of panels, mainland expects to have panel production capability of its own and thus seeks for assistance from Taiwan panel makers. However, Taiwan, which considers panel to be a star industry and thereby keeps the panel technology constrained to Taiwan, has only allowed low-end panel technology exported to mainland. Consequently, without positive answers received from Taiwan authority and Taiwan panel industry after the long watiting, multiple local governments in mainland finally turned to Korea to bring in panel technologies. As a result, Korea swiftly invested in building the most advanced panel facility in mainland China and Taiwan panel industry slipped into downturn due to overall excessive investment in panel industry.

This editorial concludes by saying that cross-strait cooperation will allow the integration of substantial market and advanced technology. Chinese people can grow the market to earn the money of others, at least not letting own money go into others’ pockets. But in order to realize this, cross-strait cooperation has to be accelerated and Taiwan authority needs a quick review of its policies on mainland capital and mainland’s access to Taiwan market and technology.