Introduction: To recover Taiwan, we need to better understand Taiwan.
王剑 | 作者 砺石商业评论 | 出品
For a long time, everything that happened in the land of Taiwan has always touched people's hearts.
In the recently concluded general election in Taiwan, Lai Qingde, a representative of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who is more radical than Tsai Ing-wen, was elected, and many people expressed great concern about this.
Actually, you don't have to.
The future of the Taiwan region is determined by the 1.4 billion Chinese, and no matter who is elected or in power, it cannot change the fact that Taiwan is part of China.
If you want to understand the historical relationship between Taiwan and the mainland, you might as well start with the past and present life of this treasure island.
1
The stormy past life of Taiwan
In ancient times, Taiwan and the mainland were connected as a whole. Later, due to the movement of the earth's crust, the connected parts sank into the sea to form a strait, and the island of Taiwan at the other end gradually emerged from the water.
Taiwan's appearance in Chinese history books can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms period more than 1,700 years ago.
In 230 A.D., Sun Quan of Eastern Wu sent 10,000 officers and soldiers to arrive at "Yizhou" (Taiwan), and the "Chronicles of Linhai Soil" written by Shen Ying, a native of Wu, left the earliest historical record of Taiwan.
At the beginning of the 7th century, Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty sent people to Taiwan to "visit foreign customs" and "comfort" the local residents. In the 600 years from the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, residents in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, along the coast of the mainland, flowed into Penghu or moved to Taiwan to escape the war.
With the increase in population and trade exchanges, Taiwan has gradually entered the field of vision of rulers of various dynasties and generations, and is no longer regarded as an overseas island.
In 1120 A.D. (the second year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty), Taiwan Island, Penghu, Diaoyu Dao and their affiliated islands were placed under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou, Fujian; during the Southern Song Dynasty, Penghu was placed under the jurisdiction of Jinjiang County in Quanzhou, Fujian, and the economic, political, and cultural ties between the mainland and Taiwan became more and more frequent.
Between 1335 and 1340 AD, the Yuan Dynasty set up a "Inspection Department" in Penghu to govern the civil affairs of Penghu and Taiwan, which meant that China officially established a special political agency in Taiwan to declare sovereignty.
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Taiwan's exchanges with the mainland became more frequent. During the Yongle period of Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, when Zheng He went to Nanyang, he stayed in Taiwan many times.
Before the Ming Dynasty, the name of Taiwan varied from one dynasty to another. During the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, it was called "Yizhou", in the Sui and Tang dynasties, it was called "Liuqiu", and in the Song Dynasty, it was called "Liuqiu" or "Liuqiu".
During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, referring to the name of the minority "Taiwowan" in southern Taiwan (meaning the land of the sea), the name "Taiwan" was officially used in official documents.
It is worth mentioning that "Taiwan" during the Ming Dynasty mainly referred to Tainan in the Taiwan region. It was not until the Qing Dynasty that the whole island was officially named "Taiwan".
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, in order to curb the Japanese who constantly harassed the mainland, the Ming Dynasty government set up "guerrillas" in Penghu, and "Spring and Autumn Flood Guard" at the same time stationed troops in Keelung and Tamsui Second Port.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, residents of the southeastern coastal areas migrated to Taiwan on a large scale again to escape the war.
At this time, European colonists also discovered Taiwan, a "treasure land of feng shui", and the Spanish and Dutch colonists also fought fierce wars for this.
In the end, the Netherlands won, and Taiwan became a Dutch colony.
After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, Zheng Chenggong, who aimed to oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty, led hundreds of warships from Kinmen to Taiwan in the name of recruiting generals from the Southern Ming Dynasty, drove out the Dutch colonists who had been entrenched in Taiwan for 38 years, and established the Zheng regime.
Subsequently, the Zheng family governed Taiwan for 22 years, and promoted the rapid development of Taiwan's economy and culture through the establishment of industry and commerce, the development of trade, the establishment of schools, and the improvement of agricultural production methods, which is known as the "Ming Zheng Era" (1662~1683).
However, due to the confrontation between the Zheng regime and the Qing government at that time, it was not tolerated by the Qing rulers.
In 1683, the Qing government sent Shi Lang, the commander of the Fujian navy, to capture Taiwan, and Zheng Keshuang, the grandson of Zheng Chenggong, led the people to return to the Qing government. In the following year, the Qing government set up a sub-patrol of the Taixia Military Reserve Road and the Taiwan Prefecture, which was subordinate to Fujian Province.
By 1811 (the 16th year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty), Taiwan's population had reached 1.9 million, and it gradually formed a social population dominated by the Han nationality.
In 1885 (the 11th year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty), the Qing government officially established Taiwan as a separate province, and the first governor of Taiwan Province was Liu Mingchuan. During his tenure of office, he was known as the "father of Taiwan's modernization" because of his rapid economic and cultural progress due to the laying of railways, mines, electric wires, commercial ships, and enterprises.
In 1895, after the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, the defeated Qing government signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki with Japan, ceding Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Japan.
Historically, the 50 years (1895~1945) during Taiwan's occupation by Japan were called the "Japanese occupation period".
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1945, Taiwan returned to the sovereign jurisdiction of the Nationalist Government, and the establishment of Taiwan Province was restored.
In 1949, the Chiang Kai-shek clique withdrew from Taiwan, and more than 2 million mainlanders moved into Taiwan.
2
Taiwan during the Japanese occupation
There is always a feeling on the mainland that Taiwan does not seem to be as close to the motherland as Hong Kong and Macao.
The reason for this is naturally related to its special political background, but it is also related to the two important historical backgrounds of Taiwan's experience of the Japanese occupation period and the withdrawal of the Kuomintang from Taiwan.
After Japan seized Taiwan after the First Sino-Japanese War, it has always treated it as its "adopted son."
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan defeated Russia and China one after another, and became one of the great powers, and also made Taiwan an overseas colony of Japan, and established a military attache system in Taipei to be responsible for the administration of Taiwan.
Although the people of Taiwan were unwilling to be invaded by Japan, and round after round of uprisings broke out, they were eventually suppressed by Japan by force.
After the Japanese colonial authorities conquered Taiwan by force, they plundered Taiwan's resources and spared no effort to build Taiwan in order to maintain their long-term colonial rule.
In order to make Taiwan's resources better serve Japan's own construction, the colonial authorities pursued the colonial economic policy of "industrial Japan, agricultural Taiwan," and gradually formed a trade structure dominated by "rice and sugar" through the popularization of agricultural technology and the development of water conservancy and irrigation, which led to the development of Taiwan's agricultural product processing industry centered on the sugar industry.
At the same time, the Japanese colonial authorities also opened the western longitudinal line and the eastern trunk line of the Taiwan Railway, and actively built water conservancy, popularized agricultural science and technology, popularized medical and public health, and reformed the land system, thus further promoting the development of Taiwan's modernization.
Taiwan's economy and industry did achieve varying degrees of progress during the Japanese colonial period, but in the final analysis, they were all for the purpose of "blood transfusion" for Japan's war of aggression.
Taking Taiwan's most representative sugar trade as an example, during the Japanese colonial period, the production of cane sugar has been increasing, and the economic income has also been rising.
In the 20s of the 20th century, Taiwan's sugar production soared to 498,000 metric tons, worth more than 70 million silver dollars, and after 1930, it soared to 948,000 tons, worth nearly 200 million silver dollars, but almost all the proceeds went to Japan.
At the same time, all the revenues generated by Taiwan's mineral and forest development are also controlled by Japan. In addition, Japan also regards Taiwan as a dumping ground for industrial products, and its annual trade surplus with Taiwan reaches 300 million silver dollars.
It can be said that all of Japan's operating income in Taiwan eventually became an important economic source for Japan's huge "war machine."
In order to maintain Japan's long-term colonial rule over Taiwan, Japan actively promoted the "Imperial Folk Movement" throughout the island, strengthened the comprehensive Japaneseization of life and education, and continuously strengthened the education of Taiwanese enslavement through popularizing Japanese language education, changing Japanese names, wearing Japanese costumes, and setting up large-scale schools with Japanese colonial colors.
Due to the food rationing system in Taiwan at that time, the Taiwanese could only receive half of the food supply of the Japanese. However, the Taiwanese who have been "made emperor-nationalized" can get a quota similar to that of the Japanese, and this has caused many Taiwanese to become "imperial citizens" and become "pawns" of their wars of aggression.
These Taiwanese who were stationed to work in the puppet Manchurian regime and occupied areas had a lower status than the Japanese, but higher than the Chinese mainland, but they were not completely trusted by the Japanese.
For this reason, Taiwanese writer Wu Xunliu wrote the book "Orphans of Asia" to show the embarrassing identity of Taiwanese people.
Ethnic belonging and identity have always been both tangled and confused for Taiwanese during the Japanese colonial period.
A Taiwanese writer also once recalled: After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945 and the liberation of Taiwan was announced, the Taiwanese who were still listening to the emperor's jade voice and weeping bitterly one moment ago suddenly realized that they were the victorious side, and immediately rejoiced and waited for the national army to receive them.
It is a pity that the long-awaited army of the motherland did not let the Taiwanese live a good life, but was ruthlessly and bloodily suppressed.
3
Taiwan's period of "rebellion".
Taiwan's recovery was a happy event, but after years of Japanese colonial rule, it also caused complicated emotional relations between the Kuomintang military and political personnel and the Taiwanese people.
After Taiwan's recovery, the Kuomintang authorities implemented "economic control" in Taiwan, bringing all important materials such as alcohol, tobacco, and salt into the government's monopoly and monopolizing them, causing Taiwan's economy to be depressed and its social life worse than during the Japanese occupation, which aroused the dissatisfaction of a large number of Taiwanese.
However, in the eyes of the Kuomintang military and political personnel stationed in Taiwan, Taiwan is almost everywhere a "fake Japanese devil" and a "slave who has lost the country," and they do not look down on it at all. In particular, when they saw a large number of Japanese-style buildings and shops in Taipei, their disdain in their hearts was even stronger, and they regarded everything they did as "righteous revenge".
At first, the Taiwanese were hopeful about the Kuomintang authorities who had entered Taiwan, but when they saw that corruption was rampant from top to bottom and targeted Taiwanese locals everywhere, contradictions arose.
At that time, there was a saying among the Taiwanese people that "dogs go to pigs", which means that the Japanese are dogs, but they can still take care of the home and the home, but the Kuomintang officials who come are pigs who can only eat, pull and sleep.
This shows how deeply the Taiwanese people have a grudge against them.
It was precisely this resentment that made what was originally just a trivial matter of confiscating tobacco vendors eventually brewed into the "228 Incident" that caused a sensation in Taiwan.
The incident was originally very simple, the tobacco management of the Kuomintang in Taipei detained a woman who was selling tobacco in the market, and was dissatisfied and blocked by the onlookers.
As a result, the explosive news of "people from other provinces killing Taiwanese" spread all over the streets and alleys of Taipei, causing a large number of Taipei citizens to rush to the streets to protest and besiege the "Taiwan Provincial Chief Executive's Office", which was the official residence of Chen Yi, the supreme ruler of Taiwan at the time.
Chen Yi, who was born in the military, was unrelenting, and immediately ordered the military and police to carry out a crackdown, killing and injuring hundreds of Taiwan residents, and spreading the crackdown to the entire island.
Although the Kuomintang won the victory in the end, it had already lost the support of the people in Taiwan, and the contradictions between them gradually deepened.
In 1949, after the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, millions of mainlanders flocked to the island, which had a population of less than 6 million. Because of the limited resources on the island, it has once again caused a large number of contradictions between people from Taiwan Province and "people from other provinces."
However, the Kuomintang authorities did not ease and appease this but pursued a more severe policy of impeachment and pressure on Taiwan.
During Chiang Kai-shek's stay in Taiwan, on the one hand, he was preparing for a counterattack on the mainland, and on the other hand, he was also out of anxiety about Taiwan, so he used martial law and the provisions of the mobilization period as the background to carry out "white terror" and arbitrarily arrested and disposed of all kinds of suspicious people, creating the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang in Taiwan after the war.
What is absurd is that this "mobilization and rebellion period order" that has no legal constraints actually lasted in Taiwan until May 1, 1991, and was implemented for 43 years.
However, Taiwan was also in the hands of Chiang Ching-kuo, the second-generation leader of the Chiang family, who realized Taiwan's transformation from an agrarian society to an industrial society and became one of the "Asian Tigers".
When Chiang Ching-kuo came to power, it was the most difficult period for Taiwan, and major diplomatic events such as the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan, China and the United States, and the severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Taiwan seriously affected Taiwan's economic stability.
In the face of Taiwan's unpredictable future, Chiang Ching-kuo showed extremely high economic construction and political ability.
4
Chiang Ching-kuo era
Taiwan was a province dominated by agriculture during the Japanese occupation, and until the death of Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan was still an economic development model that emphasized both workers and peasants.
For this reason, Chiang Ching-kuo continued to cut the national defense budget on the one hand and grasp economic construction on the other, so that Taiwan finally got out of the predicament and showed a completely new look.
In 1973, Chiang Ching-kuo proposed to complete nine major projects in five years, including the construction of the north-south highway on the island, the electrification of railways, the north-back railway from Hualien to Suao, Taichung Port, Suao Port, Taoyuan Zhongzheng "International" Airport, Kaohsiung Iron and Steel Plant, Kaohsiung Shipyard, petrochemical industry, and later nuclear power plants, which were later called Taiwan's "Top Ten Constructions".
In this process, although Chiang Ching-kuo implemented the strategy of "adjusting the economic structure and promoting economic upgrading" and focused on industrial upgrading, he still attached importance to the progress and development of agricultural technology and adopted a series of measures to improve Taiwan's agricultural level.
In addition to promoting agricultural mechanization in Taiwan, Chiang Ching-kuo also built water conservancy projects in the southern areas of Chia, Changhua, Lanyang, and Yunlin, which greatly improved Taiwan's agricultural production environment and promoted the development of agriculture.
At the same time, in order to get rid of small-scale peasant operations based on private ownership of small land and to achieve specialization, enterprise, and mechanization of agriculture, the Taiwan authorities, under the impetus of Chiang Ching-kuo, carried out the "second land reform," which led the gradual commercialization of the agricultural economy to capitalist agriculture, thus speeding up the process of modernization of local agriculture to a certain extent.
With the completion and commissioning of the "Ten Major Constructions", Chiang Ching-kuo announced the implementation of the "Twelve Constructions" on the basis of the "Ten Major Constructions", including the construction of the Taiwan Ring Island Railway Network, the East-West Railway, the improvement of traffic conditions in the Pingtung area of Kaohsiung, the expansion of the highway from Pingtung to Eluan, the expansion of the Kaohsiung Iron and Steel Plant, the construction of nuclear power plants No. 2 and No. 3, and the establishment of an agricultural mechanization fund.
With the successful completion of the above-mentioned plan, Taiwan has not only made remarkable achievements in the fields of infrastructure, transportation, and hydropower, but also has undergone significant changes in its social and economic structure.
By 1985, the proportion of Taiwan's industrial output value had risen from 17.9 percent 30 years ago to 52.2 percent, basically completing the transformation from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy.
In addition, Chiang Ching-kuo attaches great importance to the development of Taiwan's basic heavy industry and science and technology, not only through the shipbuilding industry to promote the accelerated development of a series of local industries such as steel, machinery, electronics, etc., but also to establish the Hsinchu Science and Technology Industrial Park, the implementation of the "three modernizations" (i.e., "business liberalization", "economic internationalization", "institutionalization") and other development strategies, to promote Taiwan's independent research and development capabilities, to help Taiwan successfully achieve industrial upgrading.
In his later years, Chiang Ching-kuo also opened the road to political democratization in Taiwan by gradually starting democratic reforms, that is, lifting "martial law," opening up the ban on the party and newspapers, and implementing the "reform of public opinion institutions."
What Taiwanese people remember most vividly of Chiang Ching-kuo is that he personally visited the countryside more than 200 times a year to implement the construction of water, electricity, and basic medical and health care, narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, and accelerate the construction of Taiwan's rural areas. Because of his pro-people style and pragmatic political style, he has won high praise at the top level in Taiwan and the mainland.
What is most commendable is Chiang Ching-kuo's adherence to the "one China" stance, his resolute attitude of opposing "Taiwan independence," and his policy of allowing some Taiwan personages to visit relatives on the mainland, which put an end to the situation in which compatriots on both sides of the strait have not had contact with each other for nearly 40 years.
This also proves once again that Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China.
Thanks to its superior geographical location and the relatively open economic philosophy of Taiwan's rulers, Taiwan's economic level has maintained rapid development for nearly 30 years.
5
Balanced development of Taiwan's economy
Since the 60s of the last century, Taiwan has gradually developed into an export-oriented economic system, and together with South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, it is known as the "Asian Tigers", and its economy has soared.
In 1971, Taiwan's GDP was $5.735 billion, an increase of 220 percent over 10 years ago, and by 1981, Taiwan's GDP had skyrocketed to $49.2 billion, an increase of 758 percent over 10 years earlier.
In the course of 30 years of development, Taiwan has gradually successfully transformed from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing industry. Among them, the share of agriculture in GDP has fallen from 35% in 1952 to 2% now, while the share of manufacturing has reached about 30%.
In the field of electronic equipment manufacturing, Taiwan has become the component production base of most of the world's electronic equipment, and high-tech industries have long replaced labor-intensive industries and low-end manufacturing.
These eliminated industries have been transferred to Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia, while Taiwan itself is immersed in high-tech OEM projects with higher added value.
Unlike Japan and South Korea, Taiwan's decades of development have mainly been dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises rather than large enterprise groups, and there have been no super large enterprises such as Samsung and Hyundai, only super foundries such as TSMC and Foxconn.
It is in the long-term OEM process that Taiwan has gradually developed four advantageous industries: semiconductors, electronic manufacturing, panel technology and precision instruments. Both its quality and technology are in the forefront of the world, and its position in the global industrial chain is more important.
Today, as a small island of only 36,000 square kilometers, Taiwan has a complete semiconductor industry chain, and its semiconductor manufacturing industry has made extraordinary achievements, such as the world's largest output value of wafer foundry, packaging and testing, and the world's second in IC design, and firmly controls the supply system of the world's semiconductor industry.
What is commendable is that Taiwan's advantageous industries are distributed in major cities in the province, especially in the six provincial municipalities where the population is concentrated, so that the development of the industrial base is very balanced.
It must be explained here that due to geographical area limitations, the scale of prefecture-level cities in Taiwan is roughly equivalent to a certain district of a prefecture-level city in China, and the urban agglomeration composed of prefecture-level cities and prefecture-level cities is similar to that of prefecture-level cities in the mainland.
Taiwan currently has six prefecture-level cities, customarily referred to as the "six capitals", namely Taipei (the provincial capital), New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
These six prefecture-level cities under the jurisdiction of the province have formed three major urban agglomerations in the north, central and south of Taiwan, among which the "Taipei Metropolitan Area", which is composed of three prefecture-level cities of Taipei + New Taipei + Taoyuan and a county-level city of Keelung, is the largest in area and the most economically developed.
According to statistics, the Taipei metropolitan area has a total land area of 3,679 square kilometers, a population of about 7 million, accounting for one-third of the province's total population, and nearly half of the province's total GDP.
In 2023, Taiwan's manufacturing sector will account for up to 30% of its GDP. Among them, Tainan's manufacturing industry accounts for 70%, Taoyuan's manufacturing industry accounts for 67%, Kaohsiung's manufacturing industry accounts for 60%, New Taipei's manufacturing accounts for 55%, Taichung's manufacturing accounts for 55%, and Taipei's manufacturing industry accounts for only 10%.
Taipei's manufacturing industry is not as good as other cities, mainly because of the limited urban area, only 271.8 square kilometers (only 1/4 of Hong Kong's), and the population density reaches nearly 10,000 people per square kilometer, ranking first in Taiwan Province.
With such a small space and high population density, it is naturally difficult for the manufacturing industry to survive, so it can only be distributed to the surrounding New Taipei and Taoyuan.
Taipei plays a role in the high-end service industry in the entire Taiwanese economy, accounting for nearly 90% of the related service industry, making the per capita GDP far higher than that of the mainland's first-tier cities.
In 2023, the top six provinces and cities in China in terms of per capita GDP are Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong, but none of them exceeded 200,000 yuan.
According to data released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Taiwan's per capita GDP is 220,000 yuan, while Taipei's per capita GDP is more than 300,000 yuan.
In fact, in addition to Taiwan's per capita GDP surpassing that of the mainland, its legal minimum wage, per capita disposable income, average wage, median per capita wage, and so on all exceed the overall level of the mainland.
Taiwan's overall economy and living standards are higher than those of the mainland, which is inseparable from the development of the manufacturing industry, and it is also the embodiment of its advantages in the road from foundry to production innovation, which is worth learning from.
6
Inspiration from the development of Taiwan's manufacturing industry
In the early days of Taiwan's manufacturing industry, certain economic benefits were obtained through OEM, but the disadvantages were also obvious.
On the one hand, the profit of OEM is very low, commonly known as "Maoshan Taoist (Mao 3 to 4)", which means that OEM often only has a gross profit margin of 3% to 4%; on the other hand, the volume and scale of OEM are always controlled in the hands of the entrusting party, and it is difficult for OEM manufacturers to achieve industrial upgrading, because their own substitutability is too high.
Therefore, Mr. Shi Zhenrong, the founder of Acer Computer, proposed a "smile curve" theory, which means a curve with two ends high and low in the middle, that is, product profits are mainly generated from the front end representing R&D and intellectual property and the back end representing brand marketing and service, and the manufacturing part with the lowest middle is the least profitable link.
This "smile curve" vividly reflects the embarrassing situation of Taiwan's early OEM industry.
But Taiwanese manufacturers have seized a historic opportunity, what the economist Richard Baldwin calls the "third phase of globalization."
According to his theory, the first stage of globalization is that countries produce goods and then buy and sell each other; the second stage is that developed countries transfer part of their production to overseas production, and then assemble and sell them themselves; and the third stage is that developed countries simply outsource all the production process and make money through the core technologies they have mastered.
This is just like Tesla and Apple today, R&D design and brand sales are in their own hands, but production can be carried out abroad to minimize production costs.
Taiwan has gradually understood this truth through the chip processing industry, and the core technology is always in the hands of the brand, and the money it makes is extremely limited.
As a result, TSMC, the leader of Taiwan's manufacturing industry, took the lead in standing up and contracting all chip production as a partner, so that the other party could focus on design.
The same is true of Foxconn, which has given Apple more room to focus on design and brand sales by letting Apple hand over iPhone production to itself.
In this process, both TSMC and Foxconn are not simply producing according to the drawings, but constantly innovating in production and equipment processes to make their products meet customer requirements and achieve technological upgrades.
This model, which the Taiwanese call "alliance capitalism", means that all partners invest together, participate in research and development, upgrade technology together, and bind each other together through interests and technology.
Many technology-based companies in Taiwan have subsequently followed this path, mastering the key manufacturing technologies of big brands, so that they will not be easily replaced, and they can also double their profits through technological innovation.
Take TSMC as an example, the gross profit margin of foundry chips was less than 10% initially, but through technological innovation cooperation, the gross profit margin was as high as 40% in the 90s, and even reached 60% in 2022......
At present, TSMC has almost monopolized the world's high-end chip manufacturing, and Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Apple's cutting-edge chips are all looking for TSMC foundry.
The province has 171 institutions of higher learning, including National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, National Cheng Kung University, National Sun Yat-sen University, National University of Science and Technology, National Central University, and Yangming Chiao Tung University, most of which are famous universities in the world and Asia.
With so many universities, Taiwan has one of the highest university penetration rates in the world. The popularization rate of university education has reached 99%, and the total number of people with master's and doctoral degrees has exceeded one million, with an average of one master's degree for every 20 people.
It can be said that Taiwan's economy has gradually risen in recent years, not only thanks to the demand of the global semiconductor industry, but also with sufficient human resources, so that Taiwan's semiconductor and other technology industries have obtained unprecedented high returns.
What is even more commendable is that even with sufficient intellectual and financial guarantees, Taiwan's technology manufacturers only focus on the development of new technologies in a specific field when they develop their own brands, try not to grab the "jobs" of their partners, and skillfully maintain the cooperative relationship between them.
To put it bluntly, Taiwan has realized the innovation drive of high-end manufacturing through the distinctive "alliance capitalism", and at the same time avoided direct competition with developed countries, thus finding a new path of high-quality development.
However, as far as Taiwan is concerned, its future economic development is still inseparable from the mainland.
7
Taiwan's economic development is inseparable from the mainland
Taiwan's economy is an export-oriented economy, and the total volume of import and export trade occupies a dominant position in the total economic output, and in particular, its economic dependence on the mainland has reached an incomprehensible level, and this is not only determined by Taiwan's geographical conditions, but also the inevitable result of its economic development.
In the 90s of the 20 th century, Taiwanese enterprises began to invest in the mainland, and more than 80,000 Taiwan-funded enterprises were registered, and more than one million Taiwan businessmen and their dependents lived in the mainland. At that time, the total trade volume between Taiwan and the mainland was less than 143.4 billion yuan, accounting for only about 8% of Taiwan's total foreign trade.
With the rapid development of the mainland's economy, especially after China became the world's largest trading country, it has maintained a trade surplus with most countries and regions.
Taking 2023 as an example, the total import and export value of goods in mainland China will be 41.76 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.2%. Among them, exports were 23.77 trillion yuan, imports were 17.99 trillion yuan, and the trade surplus reached 5.78 trillion yuan.
However, there have been subtle changes in trade between the mainland and Taiwan.
According to the data of the past three years, in 2021, the mainland imported 1,614.5 billion yuan from Taiwan and exported 506.2 billion yuan to Taiwan, with a deficit of 1,108.3 billion yuan, in 2022, the mainland imported 1,708.262 billion yuan from Taiwan, and the mainland exported 585.370 billion yuan to Taiwan, with a deficit of 1,122.8 billion yuan, and in 2023, the mainland imported 1,430.289 billion yuan from Taiwan, and the mainland exported 491.366 billion yuan to Taiwan, with a deficit of only 938.9 billion yuan.
It is not difficult to see that in the past two years, Taiwan's total export trade to the mainland has exceeded one trillion yuan, which can be said to have benefited Taiwan a lot with a total GDP of only about 5 trillion yuan.
Since last year, Taiwan's trade deficit with the mainland has declined, to a large extent, due to the fact that the Taiwan authorities have continuously created incidents and obstructed cross-strait agreements on trade in services.
In fact, the trade deficit between the mainland and Taiwan, and most of the imported goods are actually "sponsored" in nature, not necessities. For example, Taiwan's related fresh exports to mainland China account for the highest proportion of white ribbon fish, citrus and frozen horse mackerel......
It can be said that even if the mainland does not import the above-mentioned goods, it will have no impact on social consumption demand, but the reverse may not be for Taiwan.
In 2022, mainland customs announced the suspension of the import of Taiwanese fruits due to the detection of harmful organisms in fruits exported from Taiwan many times, which immediately led to a 90.7% drop in Taiwan's pineapple exports, 51.6% less lotus mist, 45.4% less mangoes, and 58.5% less tea, making fruit farmers on the island complain.
Not only that, as the world's largest chip demand market, most of the mainland's imports from Taiwan are semiconductor chips, with a total amount of trillions of yuan.
In fact, from the perspective of chips alone, the trade between the mainland and Taiwan is a process of mutual cooperation.
The largest amount of goods imported by Taiwan from the mainland are precious metals, minerals and chemicals, all of which are used in semiconductor manufacturing materials for Taiwan.
Taiwan uses materials imported from the mainland to produce chips, and then exports the chips to the mainland, and the mainland assembles or manufactures them into end products and exports them overseas, achieving win-win cooperation at the end of the industrial chain.
However, in the pattern of the global chip industry, the cooperation between Taiwan and Chinese mainland is not only in the field of manufacturing, but also involves multiple levels such as technology research and development, market development and industrial chain integration. However, compared with Taiwan, the size and potential of the mainland market are the resource advantages that it has never been able to reach.
In terms of the consumer market and industrial structure, Taiwan's demand for the mainland is still far greater than the mainland's demand for Taiwan.
The mainland can not import fruits from Taiwan, and even many chips can be gradually replaced by chip companies such as SMIC and Huawei's HiSilicon Semiconductor, but for Taiwan, if it loses the mainland chip market, the losses could be very serious.
You must know that the output value of the semiconductor industry accounts for 16% of Taiwan's GDP, and employees account for 7% of the total employed population. If the chips cannot be sold to the mainland, it will inevitably have a major impact on Taiwan's economy and employment.
Therefore, if the Taiwan authorities continue to engage in "small moves," it will not only affect Taiwan's steady social and economic development, but will also be more likely to bring about unpredictable political risks.
As far as Taiwan is concerned, the core of economic development is to truly stand on the standpoint of safeguarding cross-strait relations, seek common ground while reserving differences, develop and build together with the mainland, and work together to create a better future.
This is a prerequisite for Taiwan's development, and it is also a situation that the mainland is willing to see.
After all, no matter what the future holds, the reality that the blood of compatriots on both sides of the strait is thicker than water will never change.