Chapter Nineteenth Crossing 1970

  The year 1970 has passed and the second year of the 70s is about to begin. In the past year, this was the most important year for Taiwan, with major changes in Taiwan's politics and economy.

  Firstly, the tense relationship between Taiwan and mainland China has been alleviated. Although no agreement was signed for the time being, peaceful reunification has become a consensus between both sides, and it is believed that Taiwan and mainland China will have a bright future soon. Secondly, the outstanding performance of the Taiwanese Nationalist Government in the Diaoyu Islands incident also reversed its image in the eyes of the Taiwanese people. The recovery of the Diaoyu Islands greatly enhanced the image of the Nationalist Government and boosted the morale of the island's residents. Especially after the successful completion of the Jakarta rescue operation, the government's prestige reached an all-time high.

  Following Taiwan's rapid economic development and the improvement of public order, the Taiwanese people have greatly recognized the current government. The island's public opinion generally believes that after Chiang Ching-kuo took power, Taiwan is gradually moving in a good direction, and they are very optimistic about the future of Taiwan under Chiang Ching-kuo's control after Chiang Kai-shek's death.

  The only ones who are not happy are the Taiwanese independence forces on the island. After Lin Feng's several blows, it is now possible for everyone to openly discuss Taiwan independence on the surface of the island. Many Taiwanese independence activists have fled to Japan or the United States, and some have gone into hiding, waiting for an opportunity.

  In 1970, Taiwan's industry achieved great success. First, China Steel Corporation was reorganized from a purely government-owned enterprise to a joint venture. After the reorganization, the government held only 40% of the shares and became the largest shareholder. However, according to regulations, the government had only financial supervision rights in the company, while other management and decision-making aspects were executed by the shareholders' meeting composed of other shareholders.

  Of course, the government can get dividends and a large amount of taxes from enterprises every year without having to manage them carefully. Under the premise that Lin Feng provided part of the funds, a large number of equipment and new technologies, he also got 30% of the shares and became the largest private shareholder.

  Apart from this, the Chiang family also invested a large sum of money to buy 5% of the shares. The remaining 10% of the shares were bought by local Taiwanese families and individuals. Of course, this share is definitely not enough to satisfy these people's appetite, but under the authority of the Chiang family and Lin Feng, they can only compete for this 10% of the shares.

  Taiwan's so-called traditional five major families, Keelung's Yan family, Taichung's Lin family, Changhua's Lin family and Kaohsiung's Chen family, they either owned a large amount of land at that time or had good relations with the rulers, thus engaging in licensed industries, representing the first generation of Taiwan's native capitalists.

  As the KMT government came to Taiwan, while developing industries, a new generation of entrepreneurial families emerged, such as the Formosa Plastics Group Wang family, Far Eastern Group Xu family, Cathay and Fubon Financial Holding Co. Tsai family, Shin Kong and Taiwan New Wu family.

  For these national capitalists, Lin Feng basically supports their development as long as they follow the law and develop according to government plans without trying to influence the government with economic power. Lin still encourages these national capitals to go international.

  After a fierce struggle, the new and old financial groups finally shook hands and made peace, each getting 5% of the shares; the remaining 15% of the shares will be scattered among ordinary Taiwanese people, which can be purchased by every citizen over 16 years old with an ID card, and no one is allowed to buy repeatedly.

  To ensure that every citizen can get their own shares, the government on the one hand publicizes the importance of this share purchase, and on the other hand increases assistance to poor citizens. Ultimately making these shares flow in the direction they should go. At the same time, in order to avoid malicious acquisition of ordinary people's shares, the government stipulates that all these shares are not allowed to be privately transferred.

  After the reorganization of China Iron and Steel Company, many key technologies were initially controlled by some intelligent robots. Now, after several months of study and training, some technical workers have mastered these technologies. After all, for these experienced steelworkers, many new technologies are just improvements on existing ones.

  Currently, Chinese steel companies can produce high-quality, high value-added and high-tech varieties including ABA-grade high-quality steel. The steel produced by this steel mill will meet the needs of various aspects such as military and economy, even Lin Feng's long-planned deep-sea oil extraction plan can be implemented.

  This year, another key project is the nuclear fusion power plant. Compared with the fission reaction of current nuclear power plants, the radioactivity of nuclear fusion is extremely small, and no nuclear waste is produced, which can be recycled. Nuclear fusion uses isotopes of hydrogen such as deuterium and tritium to undergo fusion reactions at high temperatures of tens of millions of degrees Celsius to produce a huge "artificial sun".

  Nuclear fusion has two major advantages over nuclear fission. One is that the amount of nuclear fusion energy stored on Earth is much richer than nuclear fission energy. Power plants built using laser-induced nuclear fusion principles are called controlled nuclear fusion power plants, and their main fuel is deuterium. Deuterium exists in large quantities in heavy water in seawater, especially in the top 3 meters or so of ocean water.

  According to calculations, every liter of seawater contains 0.03 grams of deuterium, so there are 450 trillion tons of deuterium in the seawater on Earth alone. The deuterium contained in one liter of seawater can provide energy equivalent to that released by burning 300 liters of gasoline through nuclear fusion.

  The water we use every day also contains a large amount of hydrogen, and the hydrogen extracted from the earth's crust can also provide a lot of fuel for fusion reactors. It is estimated that using hydrogen fusion can easily provide humanity with 50 million years of energy! It can be said to be truly inexhaustible and endless energy. As for tritium, although it does not exist in nature, it can be produced by neutron reactions with lithium, and seawater also contains a large amount of lithium. The second advantage is that it is both clean and safe.

  Because it does not produce radioactive substances that pollute the environment, it is clean. At the same time, controlled nuclear fusion reactions can be carried out stably and continuously in a thin gas, so it is safe.

  Currently, nuclear power plants mainly use the energy released by uranium nuclear fission reactions to generate electricity. However, uranium nuclear fission produces radioactive fission products, which can contaminate the environment and threaten human health if not disposed of properly. In contrast, fusion power plants do not produce radioactive pollution through the fusion reaction itself, and the lasers that trigger the fusion reaction also do not produce pollution. Therefore, fusion energy is a clean and non-polluting source of energy.

  Compared with nuclear fission power generation, nuclear fusion also has the characteristic of extremely low danger. Although super-heavy hydrogen is a radioactive substance, its potential radiation hazard is only one-thousandth that of nuclear power generation.

  Furthermore, in the event of a malfunction, the nuclear fusion reaction will automatically stop due to the decrease in plasma temperature, so there is no need to worry about losing control. Therefore, nuclear fusion reactors can be built in the suburbs of large cities.

  Apart from this, the ultimate goal of Linfeng's construction of a nuclear fusion reactor is still for the development of nuclear weapons. Nuclear fusion also has significant military uses, such as being able to develop truly "clean" nuclear weapons.

  As early as the 1950s, hydrogen bombs had been successfully developed and equipped with troops. However, all hydrogen bombs used atomic bombs as igniters. The explosion of an atomic bomb produces a large amount of radioactive material, so this type of hydrogen bomb is called a "dirty hydrogen bomb".

  Using a laser as the ignition source, high-energy lasers directly induce deuterium-tritium to undergo thermonuclear fusion reactions. As a result, after the hydrogen bomb explodes, it does not produce radioactive fission products, so people call the hydrogen bomb made by the laser nuclear fusion method "clean hydrogen bomb". Traditional hydrogen bombs belong to second-generation nuclear weapons, while "clean hydrogen bombs" belong to fourth-generation nuclear weapons. Its development is not restricted by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

  As it does not produce residual nuclear radiation, it can be used as a "conventional weapon". Now Lin Feng is about to control this strategic high ground, so as to grasp the initiative in future wars.

  This year's last key construction project, also personally led by Lin Feng, is the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Park. This industrial park will be the foundation for Taiwan to seize the high ground of future information technology. To ensure the smooth implementation of the industrial park, Lin Feng personally met with Xu Xiansheng, President of National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan.

  Finally, Tsinghua University will build a single crystal silicon and semiconductor material laboratory, as well as a quartz optical fiber material laboratory. These two laboratories will provide support for the industrial park in terms of silicon integrated circuits and optoelectronic communication technology.

  Of course, President Xu Xian was also very happy. They only provided a portion of the researchers and got a full set of equipment for two laboratories and many advanced technical materials that were also very valuable to him. Although their research results ultimately had only 50% copyright, this was already very good. After all, for these researchers, having an ideal laboratory for academic research was what mattered most. Moreover, Lin Feng was a government official, so they didn't have to worry about their results being stolen by other countries.

  This year, Taiwan's fiscal revenue will reach NT$550 billion, a record high. However, Lin Feng knows that this amount is too little compared to Taiwan's massive investment plan. Most of the US loan has been spent, leaving only NT$1 billion worth of weapons and equipment.

  These weapons Lin Feng never intended to equip the Taiwanese troops, he planned to secretly sell these weapons to Middle Eastern Arab countries, which were in a fierce conflict with Israel and had a large shortage of weapons. Lin Feng believed that as long as the price was right, he would have no trouble finding buyers.

  However, the financial situation next year is still tense. It seems that the country cannot develop without a windfall, and we need to think of ways to get some funds. Suddenly, Lin Feng thought of the Japanese compensation issue. In the past, due to some subjective and objective problems on both sides, China gave up its claim for compensation from Japan. The Taiwan side was also forced to give up because of the US-Japan conspiracy. If Lin Feng remembered correctly, two years later, after the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and the US, and China and Japan, the mainland central government also gave up its claim for compensation from Japan.

  It can be said that there are two factors why China gave up its war reparations claims against Japan, according to Lin Feng. Firstly, the US and Japan colluded to cheat China, as the US needed to support Japan as a major force against communism, it was impossible for Japan to provide large sums of money to support China's development; secondly, there were factors from both mainland China and Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek had to accept Japan's extortion in order to maintain his so-called "legitimate" position.

  However, there is still an opportunity now. After Lin Feng's trip to the mainland, the mainland has shifted its policy to economic construction, and rural areas have completed reforms. Although the situation on the mainland is gradually improving, they also need a lot of local funding, and Lin Feng can cooperate with them to get this huge sum of money.