INDO-PACIFIC:
Legislator Mark Ho criticized online disinformation efforts by hostile forces for painting Indian people in a misleading and negative light
By Jason Pan / Staff reporter
Representatives from the civic group Taiwan-India Association on Friday joined Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Mark Ho (何志偉) to endorse boosting bilateral trade collaboration in labor workforce management with India.
“India is a very important country for the New Southbound Policy, and we have close cooperation in bilateral trade, business and industry investment, while planning to bring Indian workers to fill in Taiwan’s acute labor shortage situation,” Ho told a press conference in Taipei.
“However, we have seen the circulation of disinformation online alleging our government will soon open up the country to 100,000 Indian migrant workers. They also claim that Taiwan would be full of sexual assault incidents, and even called for a street protest to oppose the policy,” he said.
Photo: CNA
“All these are rumors have no basis in truth. It is not possible to bring in 100,000 migrant workers in one shot… We believe it was part of ‘cognitive warfare’ efforts by foreign forces, to derail closer collaboration between Taiwan and India,” Ho said.
“We don’t want Taiwanese to have misleading notions about Indian citizens. We are here to tell everyone that Taiwanese are not hostile to Indians, that Taiwan is a country full of friendly and hospitable people,” he added.
Taiwan has a shortage of about 60,000 to 80,000 workers, said Hu Hsin-yeh (胡欣野), a senior officer from the Ministry of Labor’s Workforce Development Agency.
“Our workforce is dwindling due to Taiwan becoming an aging society with a low birthrate and a decline in workers under 45,” she said.
“Industry sectors have asked the government to deal with the labor shortage, although there are already more than 750,000 migrant workers in Taiwan, mainly from Southeast Asian countries,” she added.
Taiwan-India Association executive Sun Chi-pen (孫治本) cited information from 2020, indicating that more than 1.8 million Indians work abroad, and over half are in the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Oman, where they are hired to work on public projects, as well as in construction and the agriculture sector.
“We have not heard of major crimes, or sexual assault cases from these countries,” he said.
Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association Vice Chairman Tenzin Namda, who has Tibetan heritage and has obtained Indian citizenship, said that India has a population of about 1.4 billion and naturally there are a few “bad people.”
“But overall, India is a law-abiding society full of energetic activities. Most Indian citizens in the US are white-collar professionals working in the health and medicine, information technology and financial sectors.” he said.
“They are good quality talents, and have brought huge driving force to power US economic growth,” he said.
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