[Editor’s Note]Global Stepping Stones

How big is the United States?

When attending graduate school in the US, on my first summer vacation there I flew from Detroit south to Orlando. A college classmate drove seven or eight hours from her campus in Tallahassee to pick me up, and then we drove back together.

That straight road heading west seemed endless, and the flat landscape and cotton-ball clouds likewise seemed unchanging. There was nothing along the sides of the roads except light posts. All the monotony prompted drowsiness. The landscape seemed like something out of Wim Wenders’ Paris Texas.

It was a stunning introduction to “American distances.”

Taiwanese pursuing graduate studies in the United States back then took great joy in visiting college friends at universities in other states.

After the end of World War II, the United States showed great hunger for new values, concepts, voices and methods. European academics felt the pull of the new world, and American universities were able to attract many European scholars, including Albert Einstein and the management theorist Peter Drucker. For Taiwan, the US was even more a magnet for those wanting to pursue graduate studies abroad.

In 1994 I visited Silicon Valley in California. The number of Taiwanese students in American universities was just then peaking at about 36,000. National Taiwan University and National Tsing Hua University both had large and active alumni associations in northern California. With singing groups, drama clubs and church groups, these associations, aside from creating a sense of solidarity among alumni, served an even more important function by helping countless single engineers find spouses. Among the best and brightest of Taiwan’s scientific minds, these workaholics, who were overwhelmingly male, had stayed on in Silicon Valley to pursue their careers after earning a graduate degree in the US, and they needed some matchmaking help.

In 2006 the subject of overseas Chinese “angel investors” once again attracted me to Silicon Valley. Back then many new companies there had financing from Taiwanese Americans and technical teams comprising mostly graduates of mainland China’s Tsing­hua University. US natives would then be asked to serve as board members or consultants. That three-pronged approach became a classic model for companies founded in Silicon Valley during that era.

That those earlier waves of Taiwanese science and engineering majors going to study in the United States had largely subsided and been replaced with great waves of mainland students doing the same reflects the changing triangular relationship between Taiwan, mainland China and the United States. In recent years, as the cross-strait relationship has grown less contentious, that triangular relationship has been transformed. After 911, moreover, international terrorists replaced mainland China as America’s greatest threat.

As far as Taiwan is concerned, whether or not we want stronger ties with the mainland, maintaining domestic solidarity is the greatest challenge. If we do want tighter cross-strait relations, then we have a great opportunity now—because the United States also wants better relations with the mainland. And as for the next phase in the US-Taiwan economic relationship, the key question is: Should we determinedly pursue open markets here at home?

The new exemption from a visa requirement for travel to the United States, which is connected to our state of economic development, as well as the exchanges of talent between Taiwan and the US and the changing strategic importance of our island, is a big deal that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The story of Taiwanese companies in Thailand is also one of the focuses of this issue. The torrential downpours that can suddenly cause flooding on Bangkok’s streets left a deep impression on senior writer Lin Hsin-ching. Just imagine the devastation of the 2011 flood, which covered nearly a third of the country and didn’t recede for several months. Taiwanese firms in Thailand have emerged from that crisis only stronger. But the ASEAN common market, in which Thailand will play a central role, demands attention from all of Taiwan, because ASEAN will play a big role in shaping the future of Taiwanese industry.