PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

3.2. The setting: Yangtze River Delta (YRD), ChinaChapter 3- Research contexts and methodologiesThe YRD (Figure 3.1.) is a distinct setting to study Taiwanese expatriate skilled workers.The YRD is now the second largest information technology producer in the world andone of four largest industrial clusters in China 3 . In terms of the foreign direct investment(FDI) in the YRD, Taiwanese IT firms 4have had a salient presence in this area sincethe 1990s. For example, Taiwanese investment accounted for more than 50% of all FDIin Kunshan and Kunshan is also one of the cities that attract most Taiwanese investment,hosting one-fifth Taiwanese investment in China 5(Chen 2009). The figure is evenhigher in Suzhou and Wujiang, reaching 80% and 95% of the total FDI of the two citiesrespectively (Wang and Lee 2007). In terms of the amount of Taiwanese IT investment,nearly 92% went to the YRD (MOEA 2007); this concentration is considered to be theresult of the interaction between global production networks and local institutions (e.g.Wang and Lee 2007).Along with Taiwanese IT investment come Taiwanese skilled workers who are assignedto execute the managerial tasks and transform skills in China subsidiaries (Jaw and Liu2005). However, due to the lack of official statistics, it is difficult to obtain an exactfigure of Taiwanese expatriates working for Taiwanese IT firms, so I have used figuresto human resource managers gave me. For instance, it is very common that large-sized3 The Pearl River Delta (PRD), YRD, the Bohai Gulf and Fujian are China‘s four largest industrialclusters, which attracted an average of 76% of all FDI during the period 1992-2002 (Golley 2007).4 The IT industry, also referred to as the electronic and electronic appliances (E&E) sector, is the biggestindustrial sector in which the Taiwanese invest in Mainland China, which accounted for 41.3% of totalTaiwanese investment in China in 2007 (MOEA 2007).5 It is estimated that there are more than 50,000 Taiwanese currently residing in Kunshan (population670,000) (Yang 2002).69