by Brian Hioe 語言: English Photo Credit: Another Believer/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0 RACISM AGAINST the prospect of introducing Indian migrant workers has again taken place in Taiwan. The prospect of Taiwan allowing India to become the fifth major country to provide blue-collar migrant work dates to 2023, when the Lai administration began negotiating with the Indian government to allow migrant workers. This development in itself is not surprising. Trade between India and Taiwan has increased significantly in past decades, going from 1.19 billion USD in 2001 to 12.5 billion USD in 2025. A bilateral trade agreement was inked in 2018 and there have been visits to Taiwan by Indian parliamentarians. Even so, racist backlash was relatively quick to break out in Taiwanese society. An online petition against Indian migrant workers and calls for a protest to be held against Indian migrant workers occurred immediately. Backlash largely revolved around claims that Indians would sexually assault Taiwanese women, depicting Indians as violent, sexually depraved, and uncontrollable. Though plans are still for Indian blue-collar migrant workers to be introduced, there has been relatively little news since then. After the backlash, the government has emphasized that only 1,000 Indian migrant workers would come to Taiwan in the first batch, arriving at the earliest this year. The Lai administration, likewise, criticized reports that Taiwan would see a flood of 100,000 Indian migrant workers as disinformation from the Chinese government. The KMT has gone on the attack in recent days, however, claiming that Taiwan will soon see a flood of Indian migrant workers and that this would be dangerous to Taiwanese society. At a press conference, KMT legislator Huang Chien-pin cited statistics by the Indian National Crime Records Bureau that there were 445,256 reported crimes against women in India in 2022, including 31,000 cases of sexual assault, which is equal to 85 cases of sexual assault per day. The KMT has, too, cited a petition signed by over 30,000 against Indian migrant workers. One notes, of course, that India is a country with a population of over 1.45 billion people. Such selective use of statistics is intended to fearmonger in Taiwan, with its much smaller population of 23 million. The KMT has pointed to the large number of migrant workers who have absconded from the job to suggest that there are loopholes that should be fixed before Indian migrant workers are allowed into Taiwan. Of Taiwan’s more than 800,000 migrant workers, over 80,000 have absconded from the job. In this sense, the KMT alleges that because of the significant number of migrant workers who abscond from the job, “runaway” Indian migrant workers will sexually assault women–as though if Indian migrant workers are simply locked away at their workplaces, this will not be an issue. The KMT would also be leveraging on the fact that the general public is probably not aware that there are already over 5,000 Indian residents of Taiwan, who work in white-collar positions, and there has clearly been no wave of sexual assaults. A petition against Indian migrant workers launched in April has now collected over 36,000 signatures. The petition claims that Indian migrant workers who have committed sexual assaults in India generally had prior criminal records, as a result of which “police clearance certificates are wholly incapable of filtering out potential risks related to sexual offenses or cultural differences.” In this sense, the petition associates Indians with sexual assault against women as a given. Such racism proves deeply ironic. Indian migrant workers would be coming to Taiwan because of labor shortages in fields that are considered “dirty, dangerous, and demeaning”. As such, Indian migrant workers would be taking on jobs that Taiwanese themselves do not want to undertake. This is why, in past decades, since Taiwan was opened up to blue-collar migrant work, migrant workers have taken on employment in fields ranging from taking care of the elderly, factory work in hazardous conditions, backbreaking agricultural work, and work on migrant fishing vessels that do not return to shore for years at a time. It proves absurd and tragic to see racism against Indians, then, especially when this is framed as protecting Taiwanese. It is, of course, that Indian workers would be taking these “dirty, dangerous, and demeaning” jobs that Taiwanese do not want to carry out. All this goes to point to the prevalence of racist attitudes in Taiwan. Though this is amplified by the KMT, in defending the policy aim of importing Indian migrant labor, the Lai administration has also resorted to racialized stereotypes. It is claimed that Taiwan would be importing migrant workers from northeastern India, claimed to be more able to fit into Taiwanese society due to their skin tone, diet, and religion. In this sense, the DPP has criticized the KMT for seeking to leverage on the issue when the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the Lai administration with the Indian government was previously approved by the legislature, which is currently controlled by the KMT. The KMT has denied approving the MOU, however, claiming that it sought to rigorously review the MOU and that the DPP sought to pass it by rubber stamp. Yet it is the KMT, of course, that currently holds the majority in the legislature. For now, the Ministry of Labor appears to have decided not to rock the boat on the issue. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han has stated that the plan would proceed only under careful review. Even if the DPP emphasizes that the initial wave of Indian migrant workers would be saw, it is probable that the KMT will exaggerate their numbers to drum up outrage.