Industrial Development of Taiwan Past Achievement and Future Challenges Beyond 2020

Before the arrival of the twenty-first century, Taiwan was widely regarded as a successful model of a country which had not only transformed herself from an underdeveloped economy into a high-tech industrialised island, but hadalso undergone a revolution from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. Taiwan is now experiencing a significant economic slowdown and facing multifaceted challenges including low productivity, stagnant innovation culture of small and medium-sized enterprises, ageing population, sustainable energy mix, pension reform, upgrading of human resources, devising competition policy to provide incentives for innovation as well as to limit abuses from monopolies, warding off competition from countries with lower labour cost and managing complicated cross-Strait relationship with China. The edited book looks at Taiwan’s past successful development model, summarises Taiwan’s current situation, outlines the future challenges beyond the year 2020 and provides policy recommendations in the aforementioned aspects. The contributors of this volume are accomplished veteran scholars in the fields. Several of them used to be policy-makers at the level of ministers or deputy ministers. The book offers not only academic contribution but policy-relevant insights.

1 Introduction; 2 How indigenous industrialisation began in post-war Taiwan; 3 Digital transformation and structural change in Taiwan’s national innovation system; 4 Japan’s national innovation system, small firms and patent system before and after the 1990s; 5 Post-catching-up science and technology trajectories: publishing and patenting activities of Taiwan; 6 Thirty years of economic relations across the Taiwan Strait: retrospect and prospects; 7 The PRC’s ‘Red Supply Chain’ and the Sino-American trade conflicts: measurements and effects on Taiwan; 8 Trade potential between ASEAN countries and Taiwan: the role played by information technologies; 9 Technological learning and innovations of manufacturing firms in selected ASEAN countries: an implication for future collaboration with Taiwan; 10 A prospect for Taiwan’s post-referendum energy policy; 11 Towards better environmental governance in Taiwan; 12 Taiwan population changes in the new century: causes and challenges; 13 Taiwan’s pension fund crisis: is the defined benefit plan the answer to an ageing society?; 14 The impact of populism on the growth of income: an empirical study of the four Asian NIEs; 15 Factors affecting the performance of outsourced preemployment training in Taiwan; 16 The semi-long-term low-wages dilemma in Taiwan: an examination of the role of SMEs and other institutional factors

Gee Sanis Professor Emeritus at National Central University. He was Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of the Council for Economic Planning and Development.Patarapong Intarakumnerd is Professor at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), Tokyo. He is Editor-in-Chief of Asian Journal of Technology Innovation.