Semi-Peripheral Ascent and Changes in National Social Formation
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Semi-peripheral Ascent and Changes in National Social Formation: The Case of Taiwan (1987/88-2007) HUANG Chenwei Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy PhD in Politics School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Newcastle University, March 2011 NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology Author’s Declaration I certify that, to the best of my knowledge, all the material in this thesis represents my own work and that no material is included which has been submitted for any other award or qualification. Signature: ……………………………… Date: …………………………………… 1 Abstract The thesis uses Taiwan as a case study to examine the following argument: both the changes to the capitalist world-system and the political dynamics of domestic state- capital-labour relations determine national capitalist development and ascent trajectory. Taiwan was chosen as a case study because it demonstrates the particular developmental trajectory of semi-peripheral ascent (ascent from the semi-periphery) and of a rising East Asian economy. I study the case by firstly analysing Taiwan’s peripheral ascent (from the periphery to the semi-periphery) in the historical process. Secondly the thesis studies three sectors as a national case, namely the industrial sector, the financial sector, and the labour sector. The three sectors demonstrate the dynamics of a semi-peripheral ascent trajectory as they represent the development of industrial production, financial expansion, and anti-systemic movements, which are all keys to influence semi-peripheral ascent. The thesis finds that although there are opportunities for Taiwan’s semi-peripheral ascent, Taiwan has not yet ascended to the core. The reasons are (1) the state’s restrictions on the overseas expansion of Taiwanese industrial capital and financial capital, in particular to China; (2) Taiwanese industrial capital and financial capital still rely on capital from the core zone. The thesis therefore contributes to the study of semi-peripheral ascent by adding analysis of domestic state-capital-labour relations into the context of a changing capitalist world-system. 2 Declaration 1. All Chinese terms in this thesis are rendered by the Hanyu Pinyin system; however, most Taiwanese names are rendered by the Wade-Giles system. 2. Chapter Five (section 5-1) was published in Chen-wei Huang (2009), ‘Bilateralism and Multilateralism: Taiwan’s Trade Liberalisation Trajectory’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4 (1), p.37-59 3 Contents Chapter One :Introduction 9 1-1 Analytical Framework 12 1-2 Application to the Case Study of Taiwan 16 1-3 Research Method 19 1-4 Chapters Abstract and Main Arguments 21 Chapter 2: Rethinking National Capitalist Development 26 2-1 A Critique of the National Model Approach 27 2-2 Situate Ascent in the World-System Context: the World-System Perspective 44 2-3 Bringing in Domestic State-Capital-Labour Relations 63 Chapter Three: The Transition Age: Global Changes of the Capitalist World- System (1967/1973-2007) 74 3-1 ‘The transition age’- Kondratieff wave B-phase 75 3-2 The Main Changes of the Capitalist World-system during the B-phase 79 Chapter Four: Peripheral Ascent: Historical Study of Taiwan’s Capitalist Development before 1987 109 4-1 From the Periphery to the Semi-periphery 112 4-2 Dutch Hegemony 113 4-3 The British Hegemony (1858-1894) 116 4-4 Japanese Colonialism (1895-1945) 118 4-5 Post-war Peripheral Development and the US Hegemony 122 4-6 Ascend to the Semi-periphery: (1966-86) 134 Chapter Five: To Remain at the Semi-periphery or Move towards to the Core? The Transformation of Taiwan’s Industrialisation 155 5-1 Neoliberalism, the Decline of US Hegemony, and the Collapse of Taiwan’s Bureaucratic-corporate Capital 156 5-2 Development of Taiwanese-led and Export-led Electronics Industry 172 5-3 Increasing Economic Interaction with China 184 4 Chapter Six: The Rise of Private Financial Capital and the Increase of Financialisation 203 6-1. Neo-liberalism and Financial Liberalisation 204 6-2 Extending ‘Financialisation’: Financial Reforms (2000-2007) 215 6-3. The Dynamics of State-Capital Relations 222 Chapter Seven: Labour in Taiwan’s Semi-peripheral Ascent 236 7-1 The Rise of New Types of Labour Force and Polarisation of the Labour Market 238 7-2 Impact of Industrial Restructuring on Labour 252 7-3 Strengthening or Weakening of Organised Labour’s Resistance? 257 Chapter Eight: Conclusion 272 Bibiography 281 Appendix 321 5 Tables and Figures Table 2-1: The period of K-wave and hegemonic cycle…………………………58 Table 3-1: Past average annual economic growth rates for world and world regions…77 Table 3-2: Some economic indicators in the manufacturing sector of 11 OECD countries……………………………………..81 Table 3-3: Some TNCs/FDI indicators between 1982 and 2007………………..87 Table 3-4: Nationality breakdown of the world top 500 industrial corporations… 88 Table 4-1: The periods of Taiwan’s changing structural position within the capitalist world-system…………………………….111 Table 4-2: Some indicators of key industries during 1973-1987………………….145 Table 4-3: Average wages of manufacturing workers in the 1970s…………….149 Table 5-1: Different types of contract manufacturers in the global IT industry……180 Table 5-2: The amount of Taiwanese FDI from 1993 to 2007……188 Table 5-3: The amount of Taiwanese FDI from 1993 to 2007 (unit: US$1,000; %)..189 Table 6-1: The timing of financial liberalisation and reform measures….206 Table 6-2: Different types of state financial support measures………224 Table 6-3: The distribution of Taiwan’s outward FDI and banks’ foreign branches (1987-2007)….230 Table 7-1: Number and percentage of Taiwanese employees in Hsinchu Science Park by education (1990, 1999, and 2007)…………….240 Table 7-2: Distribution of migrant workers by main sector over various years….. 244 Table 7-3: Wage and working hours’ gap between local junior labour and foreign labour in the manufacturing sector…..248 Table 7-4: Average monthly salary and working hours in the manufacturing sector………………248 Table 7-5: Requests rose by the labour movement…………263 Figure 5-1: The change of Taiwan’s tariff rate…………………163 Figure 5-2: Taiwan’s inward and outward FDI (1980-2005)………….186 Figure 5-3: The share of Taiwan’s export by destination…………..191 Figure 7-1: The annual growth rate of average real wages and of labour productivity in the manufacturing sector……………..256 6 Abbreviation ADB Asian Development Bank AMF Asian Monetary Fund APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Forum APT ASEAN plus Three (South Korea, Japan, and China) ARATS Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait (the PRC) ARF ASEAN Regional Forum ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations CALL Committee for Action on Labour Legislation CEPD Council for Economic Planning and Development CFL Chinese Federation of Labour CLA Council of Labour Affairs CM Contract Manufacturers CPC Communist Party of China DPP Democratic Progressive Party EOI Export-oriented Industrialisation EPZ Export Processing Zone ERSO Electronics Research and Service Organisation FDI Foreign Direct Investment FTA Free Trade Agreement FTAAP Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific GSP Generalized System of Preference HPAEs High-performing Asian Economies HSP Hsinchu Science Park ISI Import-substitution Industrialisation ITRI Industrial Technology Research Institute KMT Kuomintang (The Nationalist Party) IPE International Political Economy IR International Relations LRS Labour Right Association LSL Labour Standards Law M&A Merger and Acquisition 7 MAC Mainland Affairs Council NGO Non-governmental Organisation NSC New Security Concept NUC National Unification Council OBU Offshore Banking Units ODM Original Design Manufacturers OEM Original Equipment Manufacturers PRC People’s Republic of China QFII Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor RCA Radio Corporation of American ROC Republic of China SEF Strait Exchange Foundation (Taiwan) SEI Statue for Encouraging Investment SME Small-and-medium-size enterprises SOE State-owned Enterprises SUI Statue for the Upgrading of Industry TCTU Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions TIFA Trade and Investment Framework Agreement TLF Taiwan Labour Front TNC Transnational Corporation TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company TSU Taiwan Solidarity Union UMC United Microelectronics Corp 8 Chapter One :Introduction As a developing country, Taiwan’s economy experienced a great leap in terms of economic growth, industrialisation, increase in trading volume and accumulation of wealth during the first three to four decades of the post-war period. Taiwan has shifted from an export-led agrarian economy to an export-led industrialising economy in a mere 20 years (1945-1965). The gross national product (GNP) per capita increased from US$196 in 1952, to US$3,297 in 1985, and again to US$18,020 in 2008. Taiwan was the 16 th largest trading country in the world in 2008. This economic achievement has demonstrated the possibility of a peripheral country becoming a semi-peripheral state in the world economy. Various development studies and East Asian studies have researched the specific developmental experience of Taiwan.1 This thesis is concerned with not only how Taiwan ascended from a peripheral economy to a semi-peripheral economy, but also how Taiwan continues to struggle to ascend further, possibly to ‘core’ status. Taiwan has continued its economic ‘upward’ movement since the late 1980s (e.g., the beginning of capital- exports, a shift from labour-intensive to technological and capital intensive and export-led industrialisation). Whether Taiwan has ascended to a core economy or has remained at a semi-peripheral status is the concern of this thesis. What kind of strategies has Taiwan used, what are the opportunities and constraints that Taiwan has confronted, what are the key actors to drive the change, and what are the obstacles to ascend to the core? What do I mean by the term ‘ascent’? The term ‘ascent’ includes a double meaning of development. In the first meaning, ascent is a change of position in the capitalist world-system, for example, from the periphery to the semi-periphery.