Suchergebnisse

Since the 1970s development studies have conveyed an impression of Taiwanese firms as being active small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) with flexibility to successfully survive in a competitive global market. On the contrary, we use the unbalanced panel data of 2,969 top manufacturers during 2002–2015 to explore why and how Taiwanese firms expanded their scale and scope of operations in the new century. Our findings indicate that Taiwanese subcontractors are caught in a dilemma between the expansion of operational scale in China and industrial upgrading in Taiwan. Scale expansion can exploit the large cheap labour pool in China with minimal effort for most smes but significantly reduces the firms' profit rates. Industrial upgrading is capital-intensive and profitable for a few Taiwanese firms but challenging for most smes to attract long-term investment in research and development. The 'subcontractors' dilemma' explains Taiwanese firms' struggles for survive in the US–China trade conflicts.

The household registration (hukou) system has been widely recognized as a key contributory factor to social inequality and tensions in China yet it remains intact despite a series of institutional reforms. What explains the resilience of the system? In this study, we address this puzzle by drawing on policy documents, statistical data and interviews. We argue that the hukou system remains because it is used to protect the beneficiaries of welfare provision and to ensure pivotal groups continue to offer political support. We find that owing to the reforms, a formidable barrier has been erected between the guarded cities and other regions to protect healthcare and education resources from inbound migrant workers. Consequently, the institutional reforms of the hukou system serve as a political contrivance for the survival of the Chinese party-state regime. The findings contribute to emerging literature on China's political control by elaborating political elites' subtle tactics through various institutions at central and local levels. We expect the new "Great Wall" established under Xi's administration to be an even stronger barrier than before for migrants during the current pandemic and in the future. (China Q/GIGA)

This study aims to investigate the global pattern of social media disinformation dissemination among regimes. We assume that autocracies adopting Internet censorship and spreading disinformation online to domestic population are more probable to apply Internet disinformation to attack their neighboring democracies than neighboring autocracies for their geopolitical interests. The autocracy promotion hypothesis is confirmed by the database integrated from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Digital Society Project (DSP) dataset (2000~2018) released in 2019. We also integrated socio-economic variables from different data sources from 137 countries to test the other hypotheses of domestic conditions facilitating the spread of Internet disinformation. Our empirical evidences show that democracies with a neighboring autocracy that adopted higher degree of Internet capacity would expose to higher risk suffering from foreign disinformation than other countries. In addition, the lower educational level of population, and the greater Internet coverage increase the possibility of disinformation campaign from abroad.

Nous décrivons dans cet article les caractéristiques spécifiques de la plus grande usine mondialisée – en termes de nombre d'employés – appartenant au groupe taiwanais Foxconn à Shenzen en Chine. Nous montrons que le fonctionnement de l'usine s'est articulé autour de trois éléments clés : (1) la globalisation interne ; (2) la fragmentation organisationnelle, le fractionnement vertical des business groups ( bg ) et la segmentation horizontale des employés appartenant à différentes nationalités ; (3) le despotisme sur le lieu de travail. Ces trois éléments nous conduisent à qualifier le fonctionnement de l'usine de « despotisme fragmenté mondialisé ». La structure organisationnelle de l'usine mondialisée est particulièrement utile pour expliquer les terribles conditions de travail en vigueur chez Foxconn et les suicides de travailleurs qui ont eu lieu en 2010.

This study examines the consequences of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 2022 Taiwan visit and China's military response, using survey data from 2,027 respondents in Taiwan and 4,575 in Shanghai. The visit achieved its goals: assuring Taiwan's public and creating a deterrent effect on China's public. In response, China's military exercises aimed to alleviate domestic concerns about US involvement (counter-deterrence) and to undermine Taiwan's confidence in US assurances (counter-assurance). The exercises had a slight counter-assurance effect but no significant counter-deterrence. This study highlights the complex interplay between military and non-military strategies in the Taiwan Strait's security environment and their roles in geopolitical stability.

Abstract. Suburban areas have experienced disproportionately more fatalities during major earthquakes. Place-based models attribute this spatial disparity to hazard, exposure, and social-vulnerability factors. However, the impact of migration on seismic fatality remains underexplored, primarily due to the challenges of accessing mobility data. In this study, we apply a geospatial method, the radiation model, to estimate migration patterns as a critical component of exposure and vulnerability. Analyzing the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake in Taiwan with Poisson regression across 4052 neighborhoods, we factor in migration inflow (i.e., population traveling from other neighborhoods), income of the migrants' origin, and the indigenous-population percentage among migrants, along with other risk factors proven in previous studies. Our findings indicate that migration inflow significantly correlates with an increased number of fatalities. Furthermore, a lower income in the neighborhood of the migrants' origin is significantly associated with more fatalities at their destination. An elevated proportion of the indigenous population in the migrants' original neighborhood also significantly correlates with an increased number of fatalities, although the impact of the Chi-Chi earthquake does not predominantly affect indigenous jurisdictions. This study underscores the seismic-fatality risk on the outskirts of megacities, where migrants from lower-income and historically marginalized groups are more likely to reside for precarious employment, emphasizing the need for affordable and safe living infrastructure for the migrating population. Addressing migrants' vulnerabilities in housing will not only reduce seismic-fatality risk but also improve preparedness against other disasters and public health emergencies.

""Adopts an evolutionary framework to examine how the Chinese state relates with non-state actors across several fields of governance: community, environment, public health, economics, labor, society, and religion; identifies areas where state-society interactions have shifted over time, ranging from constructive engagement to protracted conflict, thereby providing nuanced insight into the circumstances wherein the party-state exerts its coercive power versus engaging in more flexible responses"--Provided by publisher"--