Bloomberg News
Date: December 12, 2015
By: Miaojung Lin

Taiwanese presidential hopeful Eric Chu said he opposed mainland Chinese

Taiwan’s ruling party Kuomintang presidential candidate Eric Chu.
Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/Bloomberg

investment in the island’s microchip designers, breaking with his ally, outgoing President Ma Ying-jeou, as he attempts to close a wide gap in the polls.

Chu, the chairman of Taiwan’s ruling party, the Kuomintang, described the $19 billion industry as too important to open to greater influence from the island’s former civil war rival. He was answering questions from Bloomberg about a proposal by Ma’s government to lift a ban on mainland Chinese investment in integrated-circuit-design companies such as the Hsinchu-based MediaTek Inc. as the global smartphone boom slows.

“We can cooperate together, but that one’s still very sensitive to our economy,” Chu said in an interview Friday at the KMT headquarters in Taipei. If elected president, Chu said he “would not allow that one, because it’s not yet the time.”     [FULL  STORY]