‘Completely Opening Up’? – An Empirical Study of Xi Jinping’s New Taiwan Policy

本项目建议书以申请人早期的研究为基础。​本研究以行动者为中心的制度主义为基础，以“连结社群”为概念，著重于探讨中国大陆近来吸引台资与人力资本的优惠政策的执行情况，以及政策对象与台湾政府的回应。因此，本项目评估了中国目前的台湾政策，从中央政府的角度来看，该政策既服务于中国的地方经济发展，也服务于更有效的“统一战线”战略，以“赢得台湾人的心”，这是社会经济一体化的先决条件，并最终实现政治上的“重新统一”。从经验上看，该项目侧重于福建省（厦门、福州、平潭）和广东省（东莞、广州）的不同地区，这些地区自20世纪70年代末中国“改革开放”政策开始以来一直是台湾投资和人力资本的“传统”目的地。它调查了中国大陆对-à-vis台湾的优惠政策在福建和广东地方层面的实施情况，以及这些政策针对的不同台湾选民的反应——最明显的是企业家、大学教师、专业人士、白领工人和学生。​作为第一个研究这些问题的项目，它将为当前两岸关系的动态和中国经济的改革和转型提供新的见解。

This project proposal builds on earlier research conducted by the applicant. It investigates China’s new Taiwan policy approach, initiated by the government of Xi Jinping after the eruption of Taiwan’s ‘Sunflower Movement’ in spring 2014 and the change of government in Taiwan in 2016. Based on actor-centered institutionalism and the concept of ‘linkage community’, this project focuses on the implementation of China’s recent preferential policies aiming to attract Taiwanese investment and human capital on the one hand and on the responses of both the addressees of these policies and the Taiwan government on the other. This project thus assesses China’s current Taiwan policy which, from the perspective of the central government, serves both local economic development in China and a more effective ‘United Front’ strategy to ‘win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese’ , a precondition for socio-economic integration and, eventually, political ‘re-unification’. Empirically, the project focuses on different localities in Fujian province (Xiamen, Fuzhou, Pingtan) and Guangdong province (Dongguan, Guangzhou) which have been ‘traditional’ destinations of Taiwanese investment and human capital since the start of China’s ‘reform and opening up’ policies in the later 1970s. It investigates the implementation of China’s preferential policies vis-à-vis Taiwan at the local level in Fujian and Guangdong and the response of different Taiwanese constituencies targeted by these policies – most notably entrepreneurs, university teachers, professionals, white collar workers and students. This project combines a comprehensive study of the cross-strait political economy, including the migration of Taiwanese capital and labour to China, and – since recently – back to Taiwan, with an analysis of China's new Pilot Free Trade Zone Policy, thus building on an earlier preliminary study on the new PFTZ policy in Fujian. As the first project to look into these issues, it will generate new insights into both the current dynamics of the cross-strait relationship and the ongoing reform and transformation of the Chinese economy.