Democratization, Industrial Policy, and Pollution Management in Taiwan

Pollution management policies in Taiwan have been shaped by the government's responses to internal and external shocks—particularly democratization and the loss of international recognition. ¹ Democratization, which commenced in 1986, forced the ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and the strong autonomous state it controlled to respond to public pressure to clean up the environment (Tang and Tang 1997, 1999). The loss of international recognition made the government of Taiwan sensitive to international criticism of its domestic policies, including its environmental policies (interviews with officials of the Council for Economic Planning and Development in Taiwan, November 1995). Pressure from overseas Chinese, particularly in the United States, to clean up the environment added to the growing calls for the government to stop the environmental deterioration that attended high-speed industrial growth. All of these contributed to an effective governmental response to environmental deterioration that resulted in significant improvement in ambient environmental quality, particularly air quality (TEPA 2000). Because the KMT and the public-sector institutions it created to manage Taiwan's equitable growth loom so large in the evolution of environmental management, the story of industrial pollution management begins with the KMT and its economic and industrial policies.