The swing of economic performance between Taiwan and Korea after the Asian Financial Crisis has become an issue drawing increasing concern in Taiwan. In addition, like Taiwan, the economic ties between Korea and China have, ever since the early 1990s, been on a rising trend. In light of these, this project sets out to unveil the differences in economic growth momentum between these two countries and explore the underlying factors from the perspective of S&T and innovation policy and make intensive comparisons between Taiwan and Korea in terms of their economic ties with China. The results show a few of similarities and differences between the two countries, with the differences implying significant economic impacts on Taiwan that deserve special attention. Based on all these, the project draws policy implications for Taiwan.
Our research results tends to suggest that Korea has outperformed Taiwan in terms of economic momentum and performance, from the perspective of S&T and innovation, which can be attributed to a few factors, including: 1. the extent of forward-looking; 2. differences in quality, especially in terms of innovation; 3. the systematic way to design and implement innovation policy. While Taiwan used to outperform Korea in terms of bilateral trade with China, the situation has changed substantially for the last few years, this year in particular, in favor of Korea. We have managed to highlight a few noteworthy trends, including: 1. In terms the growth rate of exports to China, Korea outrun Taiwan. 2. Korea has imported more from China than Taiwan does. 3.A few items of goods in which Taiwan and Korea face severe competition between each other can be identified. 4.Demand in the Chinese domestic market has increasingly become an influential factors underlying Taiwan’s and Korea’s exports to China. 5. The first nine months in 2005 for the first time witness the fact Korea is outperforming Taiwan in terms of exports to China. Through extensive analyse