Is The Taiwan Model of Growth, Human Resource Development and Equity Sustainable in The Twenty-First Century?

Taiwan's remarkable progress from the shattered former colony of a defeated power in 1945 to an ‘Asian tiger’ in the 1960s and 1970s, and a formidable producer and exporter of medium-and high-technology products after 1980, is well known, and has been much studied. Even among the fast-growing Asian economies, Taiwan stands out for its success in achieving both rapid growth and an equitable distribution of income. In the early 1950s, few observers would have predicted this success story. At that time, Taiwan was still struggling to regain levels of per capita output that had been reached in the final phase of the Japanese colonial era, and living standards for many people were well below their pre-war peak. In the last two years of the Pacific War, allied bombing of Taiwan had been intense and it was estimated that, by VJ Day in August 1945, three-quarters of the island's industrial capacity and two-thirds of the power generating capacity had been destroyed. At least half of the railway rolling stock and track was not functioning (Hsing 1971: 149).