Globalization for Nation-Building: Taiwan’s Industrial and Technology Policies for the High-Technology Sectors

In the spectrum of East Asian technology policies from the explicitly technonationalist strategies of Korea and Japan to the MNC-embracing policies of Singapore, Taiwanese policy occupies an intermediate position. Taiwan has used technoglobalist means to leverage ongoing international linkages in order to realize the technonationalist ends of enhancing the ability of domestic firms to play in global markets. These technohybrid tactics have sometimes engendered dependence on and sometimes interdependence with the outside world. The contradiction between the nation-building project and the technoglobal one is only resolved through sacrificing the technonationalist ambition of more complete control over the forefront of technology.