SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

The Passions of Taishangs in China: Business v.s. Politics

Abstract:

Taiwanese businesses have invested in China for almost three decades. Political issue has been always the most sensitive issue for Taiwanese businesses (Taishangs) in China. The most popular saying among them is: Being a businessman only talks about businesses. Nevertheless, due to the changing cross-Strait relationship, Taiwanese businesses in China more or less, unavoidably relate to political issues. More precisely, they have indirect influence on Taiwan’s mainland policies and they also engage into China’s local politics for instance the local People’s Congress.

This study aims to analyse Taishangs’ political attitude and/or their political anticipation across the Strait during a long time period. Archive data including local newspapers in three fieldwork cities: Tianjin, Kunshan, Dongguan is dated from 1987 to 2012.  Interview data including Taishangs, local officials from Taiwanese Affair Office (TAO) in three cities were collected during 2005, 2009 and 2012 field trips to China. The preliminary analysis revealed two points. Firstly, most Taishangs they don’t have strong political identity; however they don’t just talk about businesses only. Taishangs are keen to support those political parties which could be beneficial to their investment in China. As long as this party could lead to their prosperity, Taishangs welcome blue, green or even red to govern cross-Strait issues. Secondly, after living in China for more than two decades, most Taishangs have  not only built up firm connections with local Chinese officials to serve their investment purposes, but also assimilated themselves into the Chinese society.

Finally this study applies Taishangs’ attitudes towards three presentation elections: 2004, 2008 and 2012, to reveal most Taisangs’ emotional struggle: whether to be ‘a Taiwanese investor in China’ or ‘an investor in China who happen to be born in Taiwan’?

About the Speaker:

Dr. Chun-Yi Lee is an ESRC research fellow at the school of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham. Her current research project is: ‘Globalisation, national transformation and workers’ rights: An analysis of Chinese labour within the global economy’. This project aims to investigate the influence of different foreign investors on Chinese workers and labour rights. Using interviews, participant observation and cases studies, this project aims to examine the emergence of civil society in this dynamic interaction among the state, foreign capital, and labour in China. Chun-Yi received her PhD in 2008 from the University of Nottingham. Her book Taiwanese Business or Chinese Security Asset published by Routledge in October 2011 is based on her PhD research.