Book Talk: The Tiger Leading the Dragon, with Professor Shelley Rigger
The University of Washington Taiwan Studies Program will host Professor Shelley Rigger for a Book Talk on her recent publication – The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise.
This virtual event will take place at 3:30pm Pacific Time on Thursday, January 13th. Please fill out the RSVP to directly receive viewing links for the event: https://forms.gle/HRfpCj8yUqTrREFb7
How did the once-secretive, isolated People’s Republic of China become the factory to the world? Shelley Rigger convincingly demonstrates that the answer is Taiwan. She follows the evolution of Taiwan’s influence from the period when Deng Xiaoping lifted Mao’s prohibitions on business in the late 1970s, allowing investors from Taiwan to collaborate with local officials in the PRC to transform mainland China into a manufacturing powerhouse. After World War II, Taiwan’s fleet-footed export-oriented manufacturing firms became essential links in global supply chains. In the late 1980s, Taiwanese firms seized the opportunity to lower production costs by moving to the PRC, which was seeking foreign investment to fuel its industrial rise. Within a few years, Taiwan’s traditional manufacturing had largely relocated to the PRC, opening space for a wave of new business creation in information technology. The Tiger Leading the Dragon traces the development of the cross-Taiwan Strait economic relationship and explores how Taiwanese firms and individuals transformed Chinese business practices. It also reveals their contributions to Chinese consumer behavior, philanthropy, religion, popular culture, and law.