Revitalizing National Competitiveness through State-Led Initiatives: An Analysis of the Electronic Business Policy in Taiwan

徐斯勤

《亞太經濟管理評論》 7卷1&2期 (2004/03) Pp. 138-138

https://doi.org/10.30087/APEMR.200403.0013

並列摘要

We live in a world of information revolution. The long-lasting domination of the world economy by the advanced countries after the Industrial Revolution seems to be strengthened due to their overwhelming technological superiority. As the world is getting smaller and smaller through the development and spread of the Internet, the progress in generating and applying cutting-edge information and communication technologies seems to be the most consequential vehicle for becoming a major player in the international economy in the years to come. Above all, the application of information technology (IT) and Internet to a wide range of economic sectors across countries is widely recognized as the crucial factor contributing to their dramatic upsurge of productivity during the 1990s. As such, the IT and Internet, together with other vital advances in telecommunications, have driven some fundamental qualitative transformation toward so-called “knowledge-based” economy at national, regional, and global levels.
Against this backdrop, it would be irresistibly tempting to ask: how have the East Asian countries coped with the challenges posed by the restructuring and redefinition of economic interactions across all the various levels, and , above all, how have the states in these countries played their role in strengthening national competitiveness in an increasingly globalized and knowledge-based international economy? Does the revolutionary economic change brought about IT and Internet entail any adaptation of the role assumed by the developmental state in East Asia? This paper attempts to offer a partial answer to these questions by looking into Taiwan’s state policy of the application of Internet to other industrial sectors. Specifically, the major research goal is to uncover and dissect the continuity and change in the policy-making dynamics for economic transformation in Taiwan, by referring to new realities as a result of the policy. To this end, this paper will be much more exploratory than explanatory, and the comparisons made will be between discrete chronological points along the trajectory of Taiwan’s industrial policy, instead of between Taiwan and any other country.