This book is a tough read, but to be fair, any book that tries to extensively chronicle relations between Taiwan and China from the onset of the Chinese Civil War up to the present day is bound to be due to the sheer complexity of the subject and ever-changing nuances and rhetoric surrounding the issue.
And this is a book that attempts to go beyond the usual history and politics of the situation that has long been more than a sovereignty issue, instead looking at it from an economic perspective, especially focusing on Taiwanese entrepreneurs who have been investing massively in China in recent decades.
These entrepreneurs, referred to as taishang (台商) in the book, have been relocating their operations to the very country that threatens Taiwan’s existence due to cheaper costs and preferential treatment from their status as both foreigners and “compatriots,” significantly impacting the relations between the two countries.
Written by Francoise Mengin, a senior research fellow at the Center of International Studies and Research in Paris, Fragments of an Unfinished War is a timely work, as economic exchanges with China have reached unprecedented levels and are only getting stronger while the political situation remains murky at best. How did we get here?
“It’s a matter of integrating social logics with the logics of the dispute over sovereignty, a project that requires analyzing Taiwanese entrepreneurship, including its strategy of locating its businesses to China, in all its historicity,” Mengin writes.
Mengin provides an exhaustively researched, extremely detailed account that doesn’t only explain the situation but also provides plenty of context and insight that helps the reader better understand one of the world’s more unusual political disputes through an original perspective. If you are already knowledgeable on this topic, it might get a bit tedious, but read on.
The book is divided into four chapters. The first looks at the genesis of Taiwanese entrepreneurship under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime after its retreat in 1949. Despite being anti-Communist, the KMT was also anti-capitalist, and most businesses were state-run or party-supported and focused on the domestic market. After the government started promoting exports and allowing foreign investment in 1960, small-and-medium enterprises (SME), who were without state support, took advantage of the opportunity and became key players in Taiwan’s economic growth.
The next chapter sees the KMT enter a “Thermidorian phase” as Taiwan’s international status plummets in the 1970s, seeking to re-legitimize its governance through managing the country and its economy while hanging on to its revolutionary ideals. This led to the professionalization of the political class and state promotion of the semiconductor industry. By 1976, the KMT recognized entrepreneurs as a “fully-fledged social group.” Mengin also discusses family-oriented businesses and how Taiwan didn’t have a true working class.
Mengin then focuses on the taishang and how, because of rising costs in Taiwan, they started investing in and eventually relocating to China, who gave them preferential treatment and incentives. This was also in part a by-product of the KMT’s policies, as there were no direct contacts with China and everything had to be passed through a third party.
SMEs thus were free of Taiwanese restrictions once they reached the third country and could do as they pleased. Once in China, they sought the favors of Chinese officials to help them in their endeavors and formed their own associations, eventually forming taishang communities.
Mengin mentions here that the KMT saw Taiwanese investment as bringing democracy to China, but the results were quite the opposite, as there was much self-censorship in order to survive, with some even joining the Chinese Communist Party.
On China’s part, it hoped that increased trade would lead to unification, but local officials concentrated on the economic side, seemingly benefiting more from the “status quo.” Either way, the taishang benefited from the closed border and protection from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Taishang also influenced politics in Taiwan, taking sides during elections and calling for further liberalization of cross-strait trade.
The final chapter provides a very detailed account of the economic opening of China and Taiwan since the turn of the century. As former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) government declined to recognize the “one China” principle, Beijing refused to talk to his government, resulting in privatization of cross-strait talks mainly carried out by the KMT and prominent taishang.
The interesting point throughout the book is that politics and direct mention of the status and relationship between the two states, the “one China” policy and unification, were mostly evaded and left out of the dialogue and interactions that ultimately aimed to serve such purposes.
This held true even during President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “re-governmentalization” of cross-strait relations after 2008 and the “opening up” of economic cooperation.
This “depoliticization” of the issue, Mengin says, has undermined Taiwan’s diplomatic and security abilities in the face of Beijing’s’ irredentist policy as Taiwan is still excluded from most international bodies, Beijing has been putting more pressure on activities that would even suggest independence and Taiwanese policy has become increasingly one of self-censorship as far as Taiwan being an independent country.
“Practices of self-censorship, if not outright censorship, cannot fail to become commonplace with the opening of the Taiwanese market to Chinese capital,” Mengin writes. “The fact remains that thanks to economic integration … Taiwan’s national security has deteriorated significantly.”
One topic Mengin doesn’t cover is the social aspects of the issue. Although it cannot be officially mentioned, the majority of Taiwanese do see themselves as separate from China and that Taiwan has been and will be an independent sovereign country. How will the public affect the future of Taiwan as the economic and political situation unfolds? Nevertheless, one can’t fit everything in one book and Mengin provides an excellent overview for a very complicated and often superficially-perceived issue, providing an invaluable resource for further research.
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