Abstract
This is an up-to-date, scholarly work that documents the relationship across the Taiwan Strait after the Sunflower Student Movement. Fundamental questions that the author aims to answer are: why has the peaceful development of institutionalized cross-Strait economic relations over the past few years come to the current deadlock, and why do the Taiwanese people not feel that there have been fruitful gains from the greater cross-Strait economic integration of the past few years, as the government proclaims?
These are indeed two very important questions and deserve to be explored by scholars and students interested in cross-Strait studies. The author sets out to answer these two important research questions from four main perspectives, namely integration in trade and investment, increased freedom of movement for people, deregulation in the financial market and, finally, putting cross-Strait economic integration in the regional context.
The author reflects on the difficulties faced by Taiwan in economic development. The main thrust lies on p. 37, where the author mentions problems in Taiwan’s transformation into a more service-oriented economy. The stagnation of economic growth in Taiwan since 2009 has in fact triggered various socio-economic problems domestically. Furthermore, it has affected Taiwan’s status in the international arena, not only in the cross-Strait relationship, but also in the regional context with Hong Kong and with the Association of South-East Asian Nations, as the author discusses extensively in the second half of the book.
The data in this book are rich and comprehensive; however, as a reader, there are two issues that I would wish to see better explored by the author. The first concerns the collection of data: the book includes much detailed information, but all of it comes from secondary resources, either newspaper reports or governmental policy reports. Not every book requires first-hand empirical data, but one might think, from an academic perspective, that if the novelty is not first-hand empirical data, then it should be a strong theoretical debate. However, throughout the book, the author does not seem to make enough space for theoretical debate. This leaves the reader seriously wondering to what extent this book can tell us about any ‘new’ development in the dynamic cross-Strait relationship. The merit of this book is the author’s systematic organization of second-hand empirical data, which is significant for its own value; however, I do think there was much potential for the author to push the book to another level.
A second problem concerns the answers that the author provides to the two principal questions outlined at the beginning of this review. The author gives four approaches to answering these questions, but none of these answers touches on the issue of the Taiwanese people’s identity. Identity is a blurry area, and I support the author’s approach of tackling these questions through trade and investment, people’s mobility, the financial market and the regional context. Nevertheless, I do think it would be important to include a chapter to discuss the conflicts between identity and economic development, taking account of all the perspectives that the author has discussed before delving deeper into a discussion about how these variables impact Taiwanese identity. Armed with this analysis, perhaps we would be able to provide more comprehensive answers to the two questions that the author set out to answer at the beginning of the book.
The value of this book is to provide policymakers, scholars, and students with systematic information on cross-Strait economic interaction. It is even more important for this book to be widely distributed in Taiwan’s new government. After the election in 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party resumed total control of Taiwan’s governance after a hiatus of eight years. This book is therefore important for the new government, to enable it to reflect upon the Kuomintang government era. Why did the measures set up by the Kuomintang to facilitate more cross-Strait collaboration, including trade and exchange of people, not open Taiwanese people’s hearts and minds to accept greater contact and integration with China? Furthermore, given that the Taiwanese economy has indeed declined in recent years, how can the Democratic Progressive Party government strike a balance between developing cross-Strait economic ties and the growing idea in Taiwan of strengthening the ‘island’s internal economic development’? This will be a big challenge. In this respect, I think this book provides very good insights which might contribute to the Taiwanese government’s mainland policymaking process.