Developing Trilateral Economic and Trade Cooperation between the Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan—The 1990s

Abstract

The favorable international and national environment and conditions in the 1980s have led to the initial formation of a triangular-shaped all-China economic (cooperation) sphere between the mainland and Taiwan province and Hong Kong. In 1990, China as a whole [that is, including Taiwan and Hong Kong— ed.] had a population of 1.16 billion. Its foreign trade and export were, respectively, over U.S. $400 billion and $210 billion, surpassing Great Britain and ranking fifth in the world after Germany, the United States, Japan, and France. Its foreign exchange reserves amounted to over U.S. $140 billion, ranking first in the world. It had become the fourth largest economic sphere after the three Western economic centers of the United States, Europe, and Japan. Since entering the nineties, economic relations between the two sides of the Taiwan straits have made headway toward "direct communications." This plus the fact that Hong Kong will be returned to China in 1997 has brought the China economic sphere into a stage of growth. Economic and material conditions are being prepared for the possible emergence in the twenty-first century of an all-China community—or the third stage (the stage of maturity) of the all-China economic sphere—and for direct communications between the two sides leading to eventual unification. The nineties will be a time marked by optimum deployment and reorganization of production factors—through cross-regional (lateral) movement of production factors—and a time of overall, multilevel economic and technical cooperation between the mainland and Taiwan and Hong Kong. It will be a time when the country can continue the miraculous economic development of the past forty years and again bring about a Chinese nationality that shares common prosperity and is wealthy and strong. The formation and development of the China economic sphere will become a focus of Asian and world attention.