Ending Taiwan’s Economic Stagnation: The Implications of the Elections of Presidents Tsai and Trump

Abstract

Taiwan’s economy has slowed down significantly since the late 1990s (Clark and Tan, 2012; Copper, 2016; Lin, 2016). Not surprisingly, growing economic stagnation has become a salient political issue in the early 2000s (Clark, Ho, and Tan, 2017; Copper, 2016; Wu, 2013). In addition, Taiwan’s position in the Taipei-Beijing-Washington triangle has been destabilized by the 2016 presidential victories of Tsai Ing-wen and Donald Trump, who among other things advocated major shifts in economic strategies for their nations. This paper, then, examines the implications of these two new presidencies for Taiwan’s economic evolution. The first section describes the increasing economic stress on Taiwan; and the second discusses the impact of President Tsai and Trump on the country’s economic future.