自1980年代中期起,台灣移民開始出現在東南亞地區,尤其是以印尼、馬來西亞、泰國、菲律賓及越南為最多。台灣人民移入東南亞,造成東南亞地區新一波的華人移民。台灣移民東南亞雖然是經濟因素所使然,然而卻並非原生地經濟困頓的因素,而是經濟成長因素所驅使。過去,華人移民東南亞是赤手空拳前往東南亞開疆闢土;如今,台灣移民卻是攜帶資金前往東南亞開展事業。本文的主要論述就是驗證台灣移民東南亞與經濟因素的相關性。本文將以台灣與東南亞經濟關係的變遷,檢驗台灣移民東南亞的情形,並以此驗證當台灣經濟成長因素減緩,或台灣與東南亞的雙邊經濟關係下滑時,台灣移民東南亞即受到影響,當然台灣與東南亞的雙邊實質關係,就會受到衝擊。在台灣經濟成長因素減緩的同時,中國大陸的經濟成長因素卻增加,因而造成台灣移民的流動轉向。
Since the mid-1980s, Taiwan immigrants began to appear in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam, which became a new wave of Chinese immigration to Southeast Asia. Taiwan's immigration to the region is due to economic factors, but not because of Taiwan's economic difficulty but because of the island's economic strength. Taiwan's immigrants to Southeast Asia have slightly declined since the mid-1990s. This paper argues that the emergence of Taiwan's immigrants to Southeast Asia was driven by the island's economic growth, but it is also because of economic factors that Taiwanese began to move out of the region since the mid-1990s.