Taiwan's Transition Research Articles

Sensitizing just transition in Taiwan

ABSTRACT The concept of ‘just transition’ has gained prominence in global climate governance, including its integration into national climate policies. This paper examines Taiwan’s just transition policies since 2015, focusing on the government’s efforts to embed the concept in its climate strategies. Taiwan’s reliance on imported energy and its developmental state model provide a unique context for understanding the adaptation of just transition principles. Rather than offering a fixed definition, this paper views ‘just transition’ as a ‘sensitizing concept,’ providing flexible guidance for addressing climate-related social and economic challenges. Taiwan’s engagement with just transition gained momentum following global decarbonization trends, with the government officially adopting it as a key strategy in 2022 and incorporating it into the 2023 Climate Change Response Act. The paper highlights the evolution of Taiwan’s policy approach, showing how just transition has helped identify and mitigate potential negative impacts, such as labour market disruptions and regional inequalities. However, inconsistencies remain across government agencies, and the top-down nature of implementation has weakened local engagement and overlooked transnational dimensions. This paper argues for more robust stakeholder consultations and a deeper understanding of global supply chain impacts on just transition. Taiwan’s experience offers valuable insights for global just transition policymaking, emphasizing the importance of context-specific strategies and the need for continuous adaptation.

Towards Just and Integrated Energy Transition in Taiwan: A Socio-Spatial Perspective

Energy justice remains relatively under-researched outside of the Western context, especially in Asia. This paper addresses that gap by investigating the process of energy transition in Taiwan through the socio-spatial lens and institutional points of view. The paper underscores the urgency of recognizing and addressing the overlooked social injustices across different territories, advocating an integrated planning approach that incorporates a just energy transition perspective to reduce the uneven negative impacts of deploying renewable energies across communities and regional territories. Drawing on a case study of the Changhua region, the paper identifies conflicts arising from the rapid deployment of renewable energy, such as land use changes that displace farming activities and negatively affect rural stakeholders. The findings suggest the need to urgently address the gap between top–down goals in energy transition and bottom–up considerations to raise awareness and prevent injustices that risk deepening the existing socio-economic inequities. This paper also proposes a new framework for both new research and policy for (just) energy transition, incorporating distributional, procedural, and recognitional concerns together with a critical view on the cross-scale and cross-sectoral integration as part of the spatial planning process.

Public Opinion and the Energy Transition in East Asia: The Case of Taiwan

Previous research in Western nations has established a clear connection between pro-environmental public opinion and clean energy transition policies aligned with Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13. However, little is known about this relationship in East Asia, the most important region of the world in terms of carbon emissions. Using the International Social Survey Program and Taiwan Social Change Survey results from 2010 and 2020, this study examines public opinion in Taiwan on environmental issues, comparing it with opinion in a group of 18 OECD countries. Results show high but stable support for the environment and the energy transition in Taiwan over this period, with no indications of climate denial. However, willingness to make sacrifices for the environment is sharply lower among the lower half of the income distribution, highlighting existing socioeconomic disparities and inequality. Further, political engagement around environmental issues remains relatively low in Taiwan compared to engagement in the OECD comparison group. This disjunction suggests a unique model of public opinion and policy outcomes in Taiwan, which is clearly distinct from patterns in the West. Comprehending this model is vital, considering East Asia’s necessary role in a global clean energy transition.

Referendum as a policy instrument to enhance energy democracy in formulating energy transition path, agenda, and policies: A case study of Taiwan's referendums in 2018 and 2021

This study explores whether energy policy-related referendum initiatives in Taiwan can serve as effective policy instruments for the public to participate democratically in the formulation of energy policy and transition. Taiwan's conventional energy policy-making process is top-down, determined by the government, politicians, and experts. This process was challenged by five bottom-up energy-related referendum initiatives in 2018 and 2021, demanding a reduction in coal-fired electricity generation, electricity generation from nuclear energy instead, and an end to the expansion of large-scale fossil fuel energy infrastructure. The preferences of the general public and government for the energy transition agenda were in conflict. The results show that referendum is an effective and socially integrated policy instrument for enhancing energy democracy and guiding governmental energy transition in Taiwan, particularly by resisting the government's dominant coal-based energy agenda and facilitating a restructuring of the energy sector against various social and contextual pressures on energy preferences and contested policy goals. This bottom-up, exogenous rather than endogenous, and forced rather than voluntary energy policy formulation model corresponds to the international discussion on how energy democracy can change traditional structural power relations between the government and citizens in energy policy formulation and transition.

Future at play: Applying Reflexive Public Reason in the case of Taiwanese energy transition

Energy transitions around the world are characterised by the general assumption that new technologies for decarbonisation, digitalisation and electrification will provide a solution to slow down climate change. However, Ulrich Beck's work on the risk society and reflexive modernisation theory suggest that the previously assumed linear development model based on techno-scientific achievements is influencing the increasing levels of uncertainty and risk. Taiwan, the leading producer of semiconductors, plays a crucial role in the energy transition. Its complicated geopolitical situation has placed it at the centre of international political disputes. In addition to natural hazards related to Taiwan's geology, social, economic and technological challenges, there are political tensions that make any transition path highly uncertain. As a result, decisions are made in a contingent and highly uncertain environment. This paper aims to propose a new way of understanding energy transition paths through the proposed model of reflexive public reason. We contribute to the understanding of how reasoning for choosing particular futures evolves along with uncertainties and risks, ultimately leading to the emergence of new manufactured uncertainties. We describe the mechanisms behind public reason for the energy transition in Taiwan based on three types of sources: legal documents and policies on energy transition issued between 2005 and 2020 in the Republic of China (Taiwan), 150 press articles, and eight in-depth semi-structured interviews with SSH and STEM researchers working at universities in Taiwan.

Can Taiwan's “2025 Non-Nuclear Homeland” policy achieve the expected carbon emission reduction goals?

Taiwan's per capita carbon emissions ranks first in Asia. Whether Taiwan's current “2025 Non-Nuclear Homeland” energy transition policy can achieve the goal of greenhouse gas reduction is an issue that needs to be studied urgently. On the basis of studying the status quo of energy supply and demand and carbon emissions in Taiwan, this paper first uses an econometric model to predict Taiwan's energy demand from 2021 to 2030, and then uses a Markov chain model to predict its energy structure changes and CO2 emission trends under different scenarios, and evaluates the impact of its energy transition policies on carbon emission reduction goals. On this basis, by comparing the carbon trading markets on both sides of the Taiwan strait, the feasibility of and obstacles to the cross-strait cooperation in the carbon trading market are discussed in depth, and the opportunities for future cross-strait cooperation in the carbon trading market are proposed innovatively. The empirical results of this paper show that the carbon emissions in 2025 under the energy transition policy will be reduced by 59.8–61.1 million tons compared with those without planning constraints, but compared with the carbon reduction target (a reduction of 124.8–133 million tons), there is still a long way to go. The contribution potential of the annual carbon emission reduction target is only 45.9%–47.9%, and the contribution potential in 2030 is 57.2%–60.1%. The current “2025 Non-Nuclear Homeland” policy is not in line with Taiwan's current reality, and it is difficult to achieve the expected carbon reduction goal. In order to realize the energy transition in Taiwan in the future, it is necessary to make overall planning of energy policies, explore the cross-strait power cooperation model, and gradually try to build a cross-strait carbon trading market.

Correlating Ocular Physiology and Visual Function with Mild Cognitive Loss in Senior Citizens in Taiwan.

Purpose: The transition of Taiwan from an aging to a super-aging society has come with a cost as more elderly now suffer from cognitive impairment. The main purpose of our study was to investigate if early detection can be developed so that timely intervention can be instituted. We analyzed the correlation of cognitive function with ocular physiology and visual functions between senior citizens aged 60 years or older in Taiwan. Methods: Thirty-six healthy subjects were recruited for the study. Addenbrooke’s cognitive examination III (ACE-III), binocular functions (including objective and subjective refraction, distance and near dissociated phoria, stereopsis, contrast sensitivity, adult developmental eye movement (ADEM), and ocular physiology (by using optical coherence tomography, OCT, and macular pigment measurement, MPS) were performed, and the data were analyzed via independent t-test, chi-square test, Pearson correlation, linear regression, and ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curve. Results: Data analysis showed that (1) patients with poor eye movement had a strong correlation with the total score and all dimensions of cognitive functions, (2) the thickness of the macula had a strong correlation with attention and memory, and (3) patients with poor eye movement and poor stereopsis in combination with thinner inferior macula appeared to have lower cognitive abilities. Discussion and Conclusions: Cognitive dysfunction is not readily identified during the early stage of cognitive decline. The use of simple and inexpensive ADEM or stereopsis test and comparing the OCT results that are popular in optometry clinics for reference can be diagnostic in identifying patients with mild cognitive impairments. With the combined use of macular pigment density or retinal thickness measurements, it was possible to effectively predict the early degradation of cognition.

Transitional Democracy in Emerging Societies, A Comparative Analysis between Taiwan and Nigeria

It has been a quarter-century since when both Taiwan and Nigeria achieve civilian rule in 1996 and 1999 respectively. Nigeria experienced a setback by men in uniform amidst a beautiful beginning of its existence, and lasted for tens of years. Perhaps, the story is not much different from the rest of the African nations. Similarly, for decades, Taiwan encountered serious political turmoil, in fact, a crisis under a dominant overarching power of one party system. My research investigates democratic transition in Taiwan and Nigeria on a comparative basis. Nevertheless, the study proposes to examine some of the major factors that caused and brought about the transition as a living experience in these two different economies. This study will however, try to compare the political transitional process in these nations and its effects to the lives of their respective citizens and to the region they belong to. Egregious political legitimacy of absolutism in both Taiwan and Nigeria in pre-1990s generates direct reflection of democratization in these two emerging economies. The study concludes that the revolutionary wave that opens a new beginning in the European history, followed by the fall of Berlin Wall, lifting the Iron Curtain only to record the end of the Cold War, ousting communist regimes across Eastern Europe were among other forces that propelled democratic transition to replace tyranny with democratically elected leaderships in many parts of the world including in Taiwan and Nigeria.

An indigestible feast? A multi-scalar approach to the energy transition in Taiwan

Whilst current, global efforts in energy transition have driven up renewable energy generation around the world, this growth in renewable energy is often accompanied by the understated, increased dependency on natural gas. This paper therefore re-engages transition study and the geographical focus of scale to delineate how energy transition is negotiated, translated and exercised at three scalar networks, namely international supply chains, national development plans, and local electrical systems. By proposing a multi-scalar approach in the scrutiny of Taiwan’s energy transition, this paper stresses on three arguments. First, the energy transition is not a unified process. It is being sifted through the negation process between different actors, being translated and implemented at different scalar networks. Second, the variegated translations of the energy transition will co-create the trajectory of the energy transition, and often lead to unexpected outcomes. Finally, by delineating the scalar relations that energy transition is construed in, energy transition can thus be comprehended as the outcomes at different levels, informing the sequential policy making process.

Making noise in urban Taiwan

ABSTRACTDuring Taiwan's transition from authoritarian rule to liberal governance in the 1970s–80s, the government introduced a noise‐control system that uses technological instruments to manage citizens’ everyday noise problems. Rather than reducing noise problems, however, the system has amplified the disparity between a sound that is heard and one that is measured, calling into question the efficacy of noise control to attend to citizens’ needs. For residents and state actors in Taipei, the contradiction underlying noise control forms a lived condition of urban life, one that has initiated sono‐sociality, or social relations that emerge through efforts to communicate and interact with sound. [sound, noise, acoustemology, environment, governance, urban, Taipei, Taiwan]

AMERICAN DIPLOMACY AND EXPORT-ORIENTED INDUSTRIALIZATION ON TAIWAN

AbstractScholars have pointed to the period 1958-1962 as the beginning of Taiwan's transition to export-oriented industrialization. Although the Nationalist Party (KMT) had traditionally supported state socialism, the KMT began to oversee economic reforms in the late 1950s, setting Taiwan on the course of export-led growth under a capitalist model. Using archival materials from both the United States and Taiwan, I argue that the reforms resulted from U.S. influence on how the KMT understood the role of economic development in its grand strategy. U.S. arguments succeeded in creating political support at the highest levels of the KMT leadership for a reform-oriented faction in the economic bureaucracy. This finding shows how an aid donor can promote economic reforms even when the recipient is strategically important for the donor: although threats to enforce conditionality may not be credible, the donor can influence the recipient through persuasion.

National Energy Transition Framework toward SDG7 with Legal Reforms and Policy Bundles: The Case of Taiwan and Its Comparison with Japan

The main problem explored in this study is how Taiwan and other countries meet the challenges of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals regarding energy transition by using legal instruments or policy bundles. This study adopts textual analysis and legal policy analysis as its main form of research methodology, and the theory of energy justice, as well as principles of energy management, to correlate with the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, this study aims to construct an analysis structure for national energy transition and to analyze the current situation within Taiwan’s electricity sector reforms, while providing evidence of the national experience of electrical industry reforms as an international reference. This study also compares the differences between the seventh Sustainable Development Goal relationship and national energy transitions in Taiwan and Japan, based on the similar initiative of the revised Electricity Act with the policy bundle. This study specifically finds that, firstly, the theory for energy justice is connected with the principles for energy management, owing to the same concepts of “Fair Competition”, via the recognition of “Energy Development and Poverty”, which correlates with “Environment Protection”. Therefore, the concept of energy transition proposed in this study integrates national energy development policy goals and combines them with environmental sustainability, the green economy, and social equity. Secondly, the national energy transition in Taiwan is a response to the Sustainable Development Goals, and electricity sector-related laws could be used as legal tools for national energy transition. This study concludes that Taiwanese and Japanese governments can strengthen their environmental regulations to promote fair competition directly, with fair competition then being able to enhance stable electricity supply, to enable these countries to move towards the seventh Sustainable Development Goal and its indicators. Finally, the analysis structure used in this study could be used as a policy analysis tool for other countries during their own energy transition, when a nation is willing to strategically reform its electricity sector and make sustainable choices regarding transition paths and policy bundles that are suitable for the situation of the individual country. Then, a nation can make revisions to its laws and formulate a policy that is in line with local conditions, while as simultaneously implementing the Sustainable Development Goals.

Un)doing Nationalism through Familial Metaphors: The Case of Modern China/Taiwan

Ideals of femininities and masculinities (to a lesser extent) are often used to mobilise citizens in testing socio-political times. Familial roles such as mother and wife are prime targets for politicians crafting ideals of nationalism. Comparing the political rhetoric of two of the most prominent female politicians in Chinese/Taiwanese modern history, Mme. Chiang Kai Shek (Mme. CKS, 1989–2003) and Annette Lu (b. 1944), I argue that ideal familial roles have always intersected with politics during social transitions. Moreover, in the developing China/Taiwan contexts, these ideals parallel changes from feudalistic to modern society, and from authoritarian to democratic rule. By looking into the argumentative strategies and familial metaphors, I offer a comprehensive view on how gender, nation, and family values have been articulated in times of transition in Taiwan in the 20th century.

Social movements in Taiwan's democratic transition: linking activists to the changing political environment

Accounts of Taiwan's transition from authoritarianism to democracy frequently emphasize the role of political leadership in that historical shift. But as numerous scholars have demonstrated, just as important (perhaps more so) was the impact of social movements and politics outside the KMT (the then ruling Kuomintang or Nationalist Party). Yun Fan's book on social movements in Taiwan's democratic transition offers a valuable empirical and theoretical contribution to this literature, and to studies of social movements more generally. As the book's subtitle suggests, Fan's focus is on the role of activists in social movements. This might seem an obvious place to start, but Fan argues that the literature on social movements has generally paid too much attention to political opportunity structure. In other words, the tendency has been to see the wider political environment as being the dominant variable in shaping participation in social movements and the strategies and tactics that...

From limited access to open access order in Taiwan

This essay attempts to explain the process of the institutional transition of Taiwan, applying the limited and open access orders framework proposed by D.C. North, J. J Wallis and B. R. Weingast. The article analyses economic and political reforms in order to extract the factors positively affecting the process of economic development in Taiwan. The findings indicate that the key factor was the security threat of Communist China. However, other conditions were also important. It should be noted that Chiang Kai-shek’s government could learn from its past mistakes, and it was an outsider regime. Moreover, the USA aid helped to consolidate the dominant coalition. Finally, ethnic tensions between the newcomers from the Mainland and the Taiwanese resulted in the separation of the political sphere from the economic sphere, which was conducive to economic development.

Application of German energy transition in Taiwan: A critical review of unique electricity liberalisation as a core strategy to achieve renewable energy growth

Since the launch of the Energiewende (Energy Transition) in Germany in 2010, the concept influences on energy and climate policies around the globe. In May 2016, the Taiwan government began promoting renewable energy (RE) and phasing out nuclear power. However, it has not used the Renewable Energy Development Act, which is similar to the German Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz, as the main instrument. Instead, the new government has prioritised the revision of the Electricity Act and the introduction of liberalisation to allow RE producers to compete in the market and sell directly to end consumers.The main purposes of this article are to provide a critical review of this unique way of promoting RE under an energy transition and to determine the significance of Germany's energy transition strategy as a framework to promote RE development.The finding is that ambitious RE promotion schemes should remain at the core of energy transitions, while the liberalisation of electricity could play a supplementary role in an interconnected continental energy system to mitigate intermittency, which is one of the weaknesses of RE. Permitting expensive RE to be sold directly at the low market price of electricity would fail to give impetus to further RE development.

Student Activism and Authoritarian Legality Transition in Taiwan

The transition of Taiwan’s authoritarian legality transformed not only the authoritarian rulers’ strategic commitment to law, but also the authoritarian regime itself. The experience of this transition resonates with those in other parts of the world in that civic activism are necessary for the transformation of authoritarian legality. This essay suggests that student activism is one crucial dimension for understanding the dynamics of the authoritarian legality transition in Taiwan. Student activism in Taiwan is higher law-centric, institutionalized, and dialectic, with collaborative efforts across generations within and outside the legal system and the state apparatus. It blurs the boundary between the state and society as well as the one between social and student movements. However, common to many young democracies, this transition mechanism appears to be a slippery slope to populism, and thereby paradoxically weaken the function of positive law and the legislative body, especially amid heavily polarized politics. The post-transition struggles in this young democracy are similar to the democratic crisis nowadays in the US and Europe, where populism, divided society, and growing tide of discontent towards liberalism and democracy have significantly diminished the functions of liberal and democratic legal institutions.

Rethinking the triangle: Washington-Beijing-Taipei. Edited by Brantly Womack and Yufan Hao

Rethinking the triangle: Washington–Beijing–Taipei. Edited by Brantly Womack and Yufan Hao. Singapore: World Scientific and University of Macau. 2016. 236pp. Index. £65.60. isbn 978 9 81471 312 2. Available as e-book. The starting-point for this book is a challenge to the idea that Taiwan is, or should be, a ‘problem’ in US–China relations. Rethinking the triangle between Washington, Beijing and Taipei could, it is argued, see the relationship become an ‘inclusive, opportunity-driven one’ (p. vi), overcoming the entrenched suspicion which has existed since the early years of the Cold War. As Brantly Womack demonstrates in his chapter offering ‘an American perspective’ on the triangle, this is actually going with the grain of recent developments in cross-Strait relations, which have been characterized by growing economic interdependence (including in production networks for goods for the US market) and improved political relations. That better cross-Strait relations are the first step for a more inclusive triangle would appear to be supported by the PRC (People's Republic of China) perspective provided by Ren Xiao. Taiwan's transition in 2008 from independence-leaning president Chen Shui-bian (Democratic Progressive Party, DPP) to Ma Ying-jeou (Nationalist Party, KMT) was a key step to improved ties across the Taiwan Strait, but Ren also highlights a longer process of gradual softening and increased pragmatism in Beijing's policy, from changes in language in the 1970s (as US diplomatic recognition shifted from Taipei to Beijing) to the adoption of the ‘1992 consensus’ which allowed both sides space for different interpretations of ‘one China’ (pp. 53–5). He sees policy developments under Hu Jintao (2002–2012) as continuing this trend, with cautious optimism about prospects if the DPP were to regain power in 2016—as it has since done.

Admiring the peaceful political transition in Taiwan

Purpose Given the recent peaceful turnover of power through a highly participatory democratic election, now is a good time to consider Taiwan and its political development. Design/methodology/approach The author reviews how, over two decades Taiwan has undergone a remarkably peaceful transition from what was essentially an authoritarian, one-party dictatorship by the KMT to a vibrant multiparty democracy, a sharp contrast to what has occurred during the same period in China. Findings When the traditional ruling party of a country–like the Kuomintang in Taiwan– finds itself completely out of power and wandering in the wilderness, yet still manages to conduct itself with grace and dignity, and in so doing, allows the country to prosper – that affirms the stability and progressive potential of the country’s politics. Practical implications Not only has Taiwan’s economy seen a sustained period of fast growth over multiple decades, but the economy has grown without seeing a substantial uptick in economic inequality, a feat many developed nations have failed to achieve. Originality/value Taiwan’s two decades of political stability makes is an attractive commercial partner.

台湾地区乡村规划政策的演进研究——基于经济社会变迁视角

台湾地区乡村规划政策的演进研究——基于经济社会变迁视角