Taiwanese Business or Chinese Security Asset

This book investigates how China has used Taiwanese investment and treated Taiwanese investors to pursue political reunification. The book’s main supposition is that both Chinese central and local governments have strategic considerations with respect to Taiwanese businesses. Consequently, through detailed case studies of three cities: Tianjin, Kunshan and Dongguan, the author explores the changing interaction between Taiwanese businesses and the Chinese government, and seeks to provide an explanation of this changing pattern of interaction in the cross-strait political economy.

Through her unique empirical research, Lee shows how Chinese local governments, although being driven by short-term goals, also contribute to the goal of achieving political reunification, and argues that central and local governments complement each other as a consequence. By stressing the importance of long-term political goals and the state’s policy interests and preferences, this research intends to address the various political implications attached to Taiwanese investment in China. This timely and important study presents some of the first systematic empirical research published in English (or any other Western language) focusing on Taiwan’s entrepreneurs (taishang) on the Chinese mainland.

The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Taiwan Studies, Chinese Politics, Political Economy, Chinese Business and economics.