What goes around...

Corbett | July 16, 2008 8:58 AM

Andrew Leonard, who writes the interesting column called "About How The World Works" for Salon, often writes a lot about Taiwan. He says he has a "Taiwan fetish" from living there in the mid-80's, and I'm glad he does because Taiwan news seems to have been swallowed up completely by the whole China play. I'm glad someone still remembers there's a Taiwan out there.

I ran across this article entitled "From Soybeans to Subprime" which talks about the rise of the Tsai family and their Cathay Group.

The interesting undercurrent to the story, which unfortunately goes untold, is the similarity in the way business was done in Taiwan then to the way business is done in China now. You can even go a step further and say that Opening and Reform in China isn't much different than what's happened in Taiwan over the past 40 years.

During a random conversation the other day, the concept of li yi lian chi (etiquette, justice, integrity, and conscientious) was brought up. The context was fascinating because it was a Taiwanese explaining to a Chinese that he needed to think about these things in order to improve his life and find success. I found the conversation remarkable; first, because it was sound advice, second, because of the underlying political context, and third, because it sounded so very much like the "Harmonious Society" campaign we hear now leading up to the Olympics.

Li yi lian chi are the four Confucian ideals used as the main principle for CKS's "The New Life Movement" - back in 1934.

Category: Mr. Asia

Comments (1)

Comments

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Paul Denlinger

July 22, 2008 12:10 AM

I'd go so far as to say that what is happening now in China is a replay of what happened in Taiwan in the late 80s, right up to the Chiang Ching-kuo years.

The challenge for China is that the momentum for growth, and managing the expectations of a much larger group of people, introduces a much larger number of variables into the equation. While the possible upside is impressive, the price of failure, from the government's perspective, is much scarier.

This means that while Taiwan was able to maintain a democratic form of government while Chen Shui-Pian screwed up economic policy in preference to a hardline independence stance, the Chinese government would be in a much more precarious position if the global and domestic economic situation turned south.

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