Based on a highly detailed study of Taiwanese entrepreneurship from its origins to the present, this book seeks to examine Sino-Taiwanese discord, taking a political economy approach. In her introduction, Françoise Mengin rightly stresses that this dispute cannot be understood without “combining social logics with that of conflict of sovereignty,” (p. 20) and without situating the inner workings of the movement in their historicity. One of the strength of this book is to have succeeded in thi..

Pesant, Tanguy Le

English

OpenEdition

 
China Perspectives 
2013/4 | 2013
Chinese Visions of Japan
Françoise Mengin, Fragments d’une guerre inachevée.
Les entrepreneurs taiwanais et la partition de la Chine 
(Fragments of an unfinished war: Taiwanese
entrepreneurs and China’s partition)
Paris, Karthala, 2013, 519 pp.
Tanguy Le Pesant
Translator: N. Jayaram
Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6336
DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.6336
ISSN: 1996-4617
Publisher
Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine
Printed version
Date of publication: 1 December 2013
Number of pages: 81-83
ISSN: 2070-3449
 
Electronic reference
Tanguy Le Pesant, « Françoise Mengin, Fragments d’une guerre inachevée. Les entrepreneurs taiwanais et
la partition de la Chine (Fragments of an unfinished war: Taiwanese entrepreneurs and China’s
partition) », China Perspectives [Online], 2013/4 | 2013, Online since 01 December 2013, connection on
24 September 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/6336  ; DOI : https://
doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.6336 
This text was automatically generated on 24 September 2020.
© All rights reserved
Françoise Mengin, Fragments d’une
guerre inachevée. Les entrepreneurs
taiwanais et la partition de la Chine 
(Fragments of an unfinished war:
Taiwanese entrepreneurs and
China’s partition)
Paris, Karthala, 2013, 519 pp.
Tanguy Le Pesant
Translation : N. Jayaram
Françoise Mengin, Fragments d’une guerre inachevée. Les entrepreneurs taiwana...
China Perspectives, 2013/4 | 2013
1
1 Based  on  a  highly  detailed  study  of
Taiwanese  entrepreneurship  from  its
origins to the present, this book seeks to
examine Sino-Taiwanese discord, taking a
political  economy  approach.  In  her
introduction,  Françoise  Mengin  rightly
stresses  that  this  dispute  cannot  be
understood  without  “combining  social
logics  with  that  of  conflict  of
sovereignty,” (p. 20) and without situating
the  inner  workings  of  the  movement  in
their  historicity.  One  of  the  strength  of
this book is to have succeeded in this task
with  the  help  of  an  impressive
bibliography  and  a  large  number  of
interviews  spread  over  15  years  that
reveal the logic and dynamics structuring
and  orienting  the  evolution  of  Taiwan-
China relations since World War II. At the
same time, the study of Taiwan’s case, of
its  entrepreneurs,  and  of  cross-strait
relations gives Mengin the opportunity to
reflect on more general academic discussions: the relevance of the developmental state
concept forged in the 1980s, the relations between transnational actors and the nation
state, the notion of border, the supposed existence of a Chinese capitalist spirit, or even
the issue of China’s democratisation.
2 The first of the four chapters is devoted to the genesis of Taiwanese entrepreneurship.
It  shows  that  considerations  of  an  exclusively  political  nature  lay  behind  the
Kuomintang (KMT) government’s  economic  choices:  the  colonial  regime clinging to
power and a war economy both meant to serve the project of recapturing the mainland
and completing the nationalist  revolution lead by the KMT, which retreated to the
island in 1949. Thus, while the measures adopted might have emanated from a clearly
anti-capitalist ideology or contributed ultimately to the rise of the private sector and
market  economy,  they  did  not  seek  so  much  to  optimise conditions  for  Taiwan’s
economic  development  as  to  ensure  the  party-state’s  cornering  of  a  maximum  of
resources and to prevent the birth of any interest group capable of rising against it.
Such monopoly over all key economic sectors helped control major private enterprises
in which the state was both the main supplier and the client. Major enterprises thus
remained  protected  and imprisoned in  a  rentier  economic  sphere  whose  logic  was
clearly  not  “developmental”:  the  state  did  not  hesitate  to  imperil  the  rise  of  some
sectors in order to preserve its interests, as was the case with the automobile industry.
Similarly, the stranglehold over the banking sector applied breaks to the growth of a
private sector free of the KMT state’s control and blocked the formation of any group of
major financiers who could have constituted a counter-power. As for measures that
ushered  in  Taiwan’s  prosperity  such  as  the  19-Point  Reform  of  1960  and  export
promotion, Mengin notes that they complied with military imperatives – to continue
financing the armed forces’  colossal  budget as well  as to be free of US aid and the
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pressures it entailed. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which managed
to benefit from this opportunity to emerge as the motor of Taiwan’s economy, did not
get direct state support. Rather, they grew on the strength of everything they were
excluded from. In line with recent studies, this chapter seeks to debunk the idea – ever
present  in  the  discourse  of  the  Kuomintang  and  its  supporters  –  that  Taiwan’s
“economic  miracle”  resulted  from  judicious  choices  made  by  the  government
throughout the dictatorship era. 
3 The next chapter reinforces the point. Faced with the diplomatic crisis of the 1970s, the
Kuomintang sought to benefit from the strong economic growth that was underway by
boosting its bruised legitimacy. Drawing inspiration from Michel Foucault and Jean-
François Bayart, the author sets out the characteristics of this process. She shows first
of all that while economic success certainly boosted the KMT state’s legitimacy, it was
only complementary legitimacy,  whose “core” remained the Greater China ideology
coupled with the achievement of  nationalist  revolution.  A few years ahead of  Deng
Xiaoping’s  China,  Chiang  Ching-kuo’s  Republic  of  China  entered  a  “Thermidorian
situation,” which Bayart defines as the passage “from one of Utopian mobilisation to
that of management reasoning,” the professionalisation of the ruling class meanwhile
happening alongside “the perpetuation of the ideology, vocabulary, and revolutionary
imagination” (p. 121). This professionalisation and the launch of the semi-conductor
industry  at  the  same  time  are  often  considered  solid  proofs  of  the  existence  of  a
developmental state in Taiwan. However Mengin refutes this thesis,  noting that the
industry’s  success  relied  mainly  on  a  handful  of  men  (including  the  ministers  of
economic affairs and of finance) assisted by some foreign advisers who often had to
fight against the state machinery’s reluctance, and that on the other hand, despite its
partial technocratisation, the state was far from being a homogenous team producing a
perfectly integrated and coherent economic policy. On the contrary, its different local
administrations and ramifications represented many bastions, fiefs, and challenges for
a ruling class closely linked to local factions and economic powers. This problem only
grew with the regime’s democratisation under president Lee Teng-hui. As for the rapid
growth of SMEs in the 1970s-1980s, it mainly occurred outside of the state regulation
framework and even transgressed it.  Unable to benefit  from protection or financial
support that the state channelled to some major groups, to which it also opened up
access to the internal market mostly under its  control,  the SMEs grew mainly with
family backing and by turning to multinationals’ sub-contracts.
4 The third chapter focuses on the taishang – Taiwanese entrepreneurs doing business in
China. It relies notably on numerous interviews conducted on both sides of the Taiwan
Strait  –  with Taiwanese entrepreneurs and with officials  of  various administrations
concerned with the relocation of production units to China. The extent of relocation is
presented as a consequence of the political and economic configurations analysed in
the first two chapters. First of all, the fact that the Sino-Taiwanese border remained
closed until  2008  –  direct  legacy  of  the  “unfinished war”  –  influenced the  taishang
’sinvestment choices.  By compelling people,  assets,  and capital  to transit  through a
third entity, successive Taiwanese governments actually allowed the taishang to be free
of  any control  they could have wielded over the relocations.  Similarly,  deprived of
Taipei’s  protection,  the taishang  were  goaded to  bargain  directly  with  China’s  local
bureaucracies and to form autonomous associations in order to defend their interests.
The heads of Taiwanese businesses also sought out in China conditions similar to those
in  Taiwan  during  the  dictatorship  era.  Referring  once  again  to  Bayart’s  work  on
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“liminal experience” (p. 281), Mengin shows that the taishang set out to profit from
their “in-between status – neither fully Chinese nor fully foreigners” in a strategy of
resource  accumulation  (economic,  social,  and  cultural  capital)  by  exploiting  the
existence of the border and not by pushing for its disappearance. Thus the taishang, like
many  others,  are  transnational  actors  who  use  borders  and  the  differentials  they
produce,  far  from  helping  build  a  post-national  world.  The  book  makes  here  two
important points. First, that the multiplication of transnational actors does not imply
an end to borders and territories. Second, the taishang’s presence and their investments
certainly do not contribute to the development of  democracy in China,  contrary to
what  the  KMT  hopes  or  wants  to  believe.  Their  collusion  with  Chinese  local
bureaucracies have boosted rentier monopoly practices and stoked labour exploitation
based  on  a  paternalistic  and  quasi-military  organisation  of  factories,  in  complete
contrast to Taiwan’s nascent democratic values. It has also led to the taishang being
subject to the one-China principle and thus serving Beijing’s irredentist policy.
5 The fourth chapter traces with great precision the stages of gradual opening of the
Sino-Taiwanese border in the decade starting in 2000. It shows how the Chen Shui-bian
government’s rejection of the one-China principle, the Chinese authorities’ persistent
refusal to negotiate with an administration that did not recognise the principle, and
the Kuomintang’s move to bypass the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led to a “de-
governmentalisation”  and  privatisation  of  the  bilateral  talks  process.  But  this
configuration  and  the  KMT’s  alacrity  to  reopen  dialogue  with  the  CPC  in  a  bid
to marginalise  the  DPP  and  more  broadly  the  cause  of  Taiwan  independence  also
opened a breach that the Beijing’s United Front policy stepped into. While the KMT’s
return  to  power  led  to  a  “re-governmentalisation”  of  talks  and  the  signing  of  18
agreements between June 2008 and August 2012, the Ma Ying-jeou government has also
made possible an unprecedented deployment of the United Front policy, the effects of
which threaten the survival of Taiwanese democracy. Cross-strait détente has taken
place  mainly  on  Beijing’s  conditions  and  to  its  benefit:  party-to-party  discussions
determine the rhythm and agenda of negotiations, which are then conducted by para-
governmental organs and tend to bypass parliamentary control mechanisms; Taiwan
seems increasingly reduced to the status of a mere economy on the international scene;
Taipei’s foreign policy shows disquieting signs of alignment with Beijing’s positions;
fear  of  offending  Chinese  authorities  has  led  to  forms  of  censorship  and  self-
censorship, be it in government practices that routinely hurt Taiwan’s sovereignty and
public freedoms or in some key sectors of society such as the media.
6 The  book  ends  with  a  pessimistic  conclusion  about  Taiwan’s  political  future.  Two
scenarios are set out. The first sees the dilution of the multi-party system through the
DPP’s inability to find a credible alternative to the one China principle and through the
continuation in power of the KMT, which would be seen in this context as the only
political  force  capable  of  negotiating  with  the  Chinese  authorities.  The  second
envisages a restructuring of Taiwan’s politics around a debate and political divisions
over  “politics  in China”  and  no  longer  “ with China.”  Of  course,  these  conclusions
underestimate the Taiwanese civil society’s resistance capacity, as well as the eventual
effects of a strengthening of identification with a Taiwanese nation state and growing
gap between the KMT government’s unificationist orientations and public aspirations.
However,  the  threats  facing  Taiwanese  democracy  are  real.  One  can  only  endorse
Mengin’s proposal of a new wave of works inspired by the neo-Gramscian approach of
Robert  Cox  in  order  to  analyse the  “development  and  mobilisation  of  an  interest
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coalition” that brings together “dominant politico-economic” forces on both sides of
the  Taiwan  strait  “around  norms,  institutions,  and  mechanisms.”  This  coalition
consists  of  CPC  and  KMT  leaders,  the  island’s  business  elite,  bureaucrats  and  local
lawmakers, academics, etc.
7 To sum up, this book achieves its objective – deciphering the Sino-Taiwanese dispute in
the light of political economy. For Taiwan specialists, it might appear to have dwelt too
long on some known points, especially in the first two chapters, but it also opens up
many paths of potentially fertile reflections. Furthermore, the attention to detail that
Mengin displays adds to the clarity of the demonstration and makes of the book a mine
of  information.  Perhaps  just  one  drawback  is  the  absence  of  at  least  a  few  pages
dedicated to the devastating consequences of the configuration studied on the labour
market and on living conditions in Taiwan (pressure on wages, deteriorating working
conditions,  real-estate  speculation,  etc.).  Resulting  social  tensions  can  have  a
significant impact on Taiwan’s political trajectory.
AUTHORS
TANGUY LE PESANT
Tanguy Lepesant is an assistant professor at National Central University, Taiwan, and associate
researcher at CEFC (leiposan@gmail.com).
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Françoise Mengin, Fragments d’une guerre inachevée. Les entrepreneurs taiwanais et la partition de la Chine (Fragments of an unfinished war: Taiwanese entrepreneurs and China’s partition)

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Françoise Mengin, Fragments d’une guerre inachevée. Les entrepreneurs taiwanais et la partition de la Chine (Fragments of an unfinished war: Taiwanese entrepreneurs and China’s partition)

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