The High-Tech "Foreign Concession"Breaking Down Barriers in Hsinchu

Kuangfu Road, the major thoroughfare connecting Hsinchu County's Chutung Township with the center of Hsinchu City, lies just off the freeway interchange. Along one side of the road are National Tsinghua University, National Chiao Tung University, the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), all massive in scale and lush with trees and flowers. On the other side is a military dependents' village with old, run-down houses, stores with dilapidated signs and a crumbling sidewalk strewn with litter.

"Over there is our 'high-tech foreign concession,'" says Hsieh Yung-fang, a resident of the village, as she points across the way. That stretch of land belongs to the science park, directly administered by the central government. Just as in the last days of the Qing dynasty, when foreign countries entered China by force and demarcated land as foreign concessions, it is a realm unto itself, with its own inhabitants, laws, lifestyle and culture. Not only does it comprise a universe wholly separate from the local populace, the local government also has no authority to intervene in its affairs.

This "foreign concession" was established quite a long time ago. During the era of Japanese rule, Hsinchu was found to be rich in petroleum and natural gas, and a natural gas research institute was founded here. In 1946 the research institute was taken over by the China Petroleum Corporation, and its name changed to the China Petroleum Hsinchu Research Institute. In 1954 it was restructured as the Ministry of Economic Affairs Joint Industrial Research Institute. In 1973 it was merged with other governmental research units to become the present-day ITRI, Taiwan's most noted high technology research organization, uniting the efforts of industry, government and academia.

The side of a mountain for one yuan

In 1950 Tsinghua University, which was originally located in mainland China, was looking to re-establish itself in Taiwan and was searching out grounds for a campus. At the time, Chin Kai-ying, both an alumnus of Tsinghua and an employee of the China Petroleum Corporation, offered his energetic assistance and persuaded China Petroleum to sell a mountain slope near the research institute to the university for the price of a single yuan. Later on, Chiao Tung University also found land in the vicinity to re-establish their school. Both universities strongly emphasize their science and engineering programs, and thus the area became the cradle of high-tech talent in Taiwan.

In 1980, in order to heighten economic productivity and create a breakthrough in Taiwan's technological development, the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park was established. The park's first director-general Hsu Hsien-hsiu once recalled that then ROC president Chiang Ching-kuo suggested using a plot of land in Taoyuan where an airport had been planned but never built. The science park was almost started in Taoyuan. But with academic facilities available at Tsinghua University, Chiao Tung University and ITRI, Hsinchu offered an immediate abundance of technological personnel, and it was here that Hsu Hsien-hsiu advocated situating Taiwan's first science-based industrial park.

One resident of Paoshan Rural Township, which sits next to the science park, recalls that the lands where the park is located were in former days luxuriant, terraced hills filled with sugarcane, tea plants, bamboo groves and stands of acacia. Most of the residents were Hakka. When the science-based industrial park was built, all the crops and trees were razed and the hillsides flattened. Reddish-brown dirt was exposed, and whipped by the strong winds of Hsinchu, the area became like a ruddy desert, the skies filled with dust. "That kind of feeling was a little exciting, and a little frightening!"

This is also the feeling that the people of Hsinchu have toward the science park as a whole. Like a city of gold in the desert, it has entered into modern-day mythology. Yet it has shut itself off from the outside world and drawn boundaries around itself; it does not blend in with its surrounding environment.

One example is the fact that in order to get to Hsinchu City, the residents of Paoshan Rural Township have to pass through the science park, but their entry used to be blocked at the gates. Therefore, they had to drive around the park and proceed down a long mountain slope in the area of Kuantungchiao, then follow Kuangfu Road. Today the park allows the people living in surrounding areas to apply for entry permits. But an even greater problem is that the park's skyrocketing growth rate has brought with it a massive amount of traffic pressure, enough to nearly incapacitate the entire stretch of Kuangfu Road, particularly during morning and evening rush hours, when the entire road is jammed to a standstill. At its worst, the one-kilometer distance from Tsinghua University to the science park can be jammed for half an hour. With the additional problem of traffic noise, the local people often feel vexed beyond words.

Dream-come-true or nightmare?

"The scope of the traffic problem caused by the science park extends beyond the roads on its periphery," says Chen Pan, a researcher on culture and history. "It affects all of the greater Hsinchu area, including places like Chupei City and Peipu Rural Township. These are places that the science park administration can't control and can't directly help." There are more than 70,000 employees in the science park, most of whom live dispersed throughout Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County. "For instance, in the nearest place, Paoshan Rural Township, outsiders have come to account for one-third of the population in the last few years. These folks rarely interact with the local community."

Recently, conflicts between the science park and neighboring communities have frequently flared up because of waste soil from construction sites, air pollution, waste water drainage and other problems. For example, the science park area is expanding to this day, continually adding new facilities, and excess soil from construction sites is dumped in neighborhoods close by. Despite the high-tech industry's reputation of being a non-polluter, neighbors in fact often report smelling foul odors. Several farms still operate within the science park's vicinity, and farmers often find their irrigation ditches filled with drainage water that is unusual in both quality and quantity.

Even Tsinghua University, a source of personnel for the science park, has become its victim, because it lies downstream. Kunming Lake, which lies inside the Tsinghua campus, has three water sources, two of which originate from within the science park's perimeters. During a seminar on relations between the science park and the community hosted by the private Hsinchu Cultural Association at the beginning of this year, Tsinghua University dean of general affairs Yip Ming-chuen announced "On September 29 of last year, the waters of the lake were found to be polluted, and all the fish in the lake died. Students also reported smelling acrid odors in the middle of the night." From that time on, Tsinghua has been committed to closely observing the drainage water coming from the science park upstream.

The science park's profiting at their neighbor's expense has raised the ire of people on all sides, yet the local government can do nothing to solve the problem. "The science park is under the authority of the Executive Yuan's National Science Council," explains Hsinchu City mayor Tsai Jen-chien. "The local government can't control its development, so the science park is separated from the local community. Each goes its own way. This has caused a lot of discord between the science park and the residents of Hsinchu."

Tsai says the frustrating thing is that although the science park's annual output value exceeds NT$400 billion, the corporate tax revenues belong to the central government. Hsinchu only receives a few tens of millions of NT dollars in annual building and land taxes, an amount that is simply insufficient to solve the negative burdens imposed by the science park upon the area. One example is the traffic congestion caused by the science park. Although the local government has a plan to improve the network of roads bypassing the park, they lack the necessary funds and can only apply to the central government for assistance.

"This is a national-level problem," remarks architect Hsieh Ying-chun, who designed the Hsinchu County Cultural Center in a style celebrating Hakka culture and won first prize in a provincial government-organized architecture competition. "On the surface, the science park experience in Hsinchu seems to have been a success, but its burden-free condition contrasts sharply with that of Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County, whose entire resources have been plowed into fostering an industrial park." Hsieh wonders, "If one day the science park loses its competitiveness, and these industries move to a different place, will Hsinchu be able to survive? There are many examples in other countries. As soon as the industry moves out, this city is finished."

Learning to care about community

Breaking through the barriers of the "foreign concession" and balancing the overemphasis upon technology has long been the goal toward which both the government and the people of Hsinchu are striving.

In order to strike a balance, Tsinghua University began as early as 1980 to establish faculties of Chinese, foreign languages and the humanities, as well as establishing a graduate program in sociology and an arts center.

This not only created a number of artistic and cultural activities for the Hsinchu area, but also attracted and cultivated a new crop of talent concerned about cultural issues. They in turn have become involved in environmentalism, community service, culture and historical studies. The most famous example is the protest against the Li Chang-jung chemical plant 12 years ago. At the time a number of professors at Tsinghua and Chiao Tung discovered that the Li Chang-jung plant, situated within the community of Shuiyuan opposite the university campuses, had been emitting gaseous waste over a long period of time, and causing serious air pollution. The professors launched a protest, ultimately forcing the plant to halt its activities and close shop.

This protest, which besieged the plant for a full year and gained the attention of the entire country, not only helped the people to recognize the issue of environmental protection, but also allowed Tsinghua and Chiao Tung universities to transform their "foreign concession" images and close ranks with the local populace.

Currently, most of the advocacy groups in Hsinchu that are highly able to mobilize have all been formed through the initiative of the students and faculty of Tsinghua or Chiao Tung universities. These include the Hsinchu Pollution Prevention Association, dedicated to monitoring and controlling pollution from the science park, the Wild Bird Society of Hsinchu, which concerns itself with the challenge of protecting the coastal ecology, the Hsinchu Cultural Association, whose broad areas of concern include historical sites, environmental issues, culture and politics, and the Seedling Workshop, which is involved in community service.

"Right now, the appearance of private advocacy groups has been a tremendous turning point for Hsinchu," notes Hsinchu City deputy mayor Yang Tzu-pou. "They're very dissatisfied both with the central government and with the Hsinchu City government. This dissatisfaction has actually given us extra leverage and empowered us." Yang observes that Hsinchu City is a local government with scant resources and greatly in need of support.

When campaigning for office, Hsinchu City mayor Tsai Jen-chien received the help of these advocacy groups, embracing their demands to win the election. After taking office, he actively communicated with Tsinghua, Chiao Tung and the science park, and by signing agreements with the university presidents and the science park's director- general, achieved a common understanding. They promoted a number of initiatives, such as opening up libraries to the general public, and bringing students and faculty from the universities and science park personnel out into the communities to clean up the streets and preserve the environment.

Tsai Jen-chien even invited the CEO of one of the companies in the science park, Accton Technology Corporation's A.J. Huang, to serve as honorary deputy mayor. "Actually, there are a lot of people in the science park that don't want to see this kind of isolation from the local community, or an atmosphere of sharp antagonism," says Huang, who believes the people of Hsinchu have a lot of biases against the science park. For example, believing that park personnel have a lot of money, they intentionally force up consumer prices. "A one-table banquet that would cost NT$4000 somewhere else will run you NT$8000 inside the science park.

"They also generally think that we're just businessmen or nouveau riche that lack cultural substance, and that care a lot about making money and little about virtue." Huang admits that most park personnel tend to have a detached temperament and have no great passion for local affairs, yet these impressions have also been nurtured by a long-term lack of communication. It was to overcome these misperceptions that he accepted the title of deputy mayor. By joining the city government he hopes to end the discord between the science park and the community.

High-tech and the humanities

With a long history of division and antagonism, concrete improvements have not been forthcoming in the short term. Yet some progress has still been made. For instance, A.J. Huang has led his coworkers at Accton on a street-sweeping outing in Hsinchu City. The United Microelectronics Corporation went to the seacoast of Hsinchu to pick up litter, and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has sponsored a series of lectures on culture and history in Hsinchu. Recently, the Chuhui Academy, made up of families of science park personnel, has sought to get involved in improving communities in Hsinchu by actively promoting new courses at a local community college.

"The science park has a lot of first-rate companies and professional personnel. If we can motivate them to take part in the city government, I'm sure they can greatly increase its administrative effectiveness," says A.J. Huang.

"High-tech people are people too," remarks one Taiwan Semiconductor employee who started training at the Hsinchu City Family Education Center in 1993 and now serves there as a volunteer counselor. "After we move to Hsinchu to work, we buy homes and get married. We have children, and our kids grow and go to school. We're bound to interact with our surroundings. We're bound to care, and pay attention to the living environment around us, the educational system, the conditions of society and so forth.

"We're taking part in a highly competitive, high-pressure industry. Actually, even more than most folks, we need the nourishment of the arts and culture and contact with groups from other social circles. It's just that in the past, it was mostly individuals that got involved, and few people knew about it." According to his observations, of the more than 100 volunteers at the Family Education Center, more than one third are personnel or their dependents from Tsinghua, Chiao Tung, ITRI or the science park. "There are also some companies in the park that have adopted community service projects over the long term. Some have, for instance, helped hospitals fund the construction of terminal care centers, provided work-study opportunities and guidance for dropouts, or sponsored activities in the arts. It's just that many companies aren't corporate superstars. Very rarely do the media report this kind of news, and most people don't notice it."

The city of technological culture

"Originally, the motive for founding the park was to create something useful by combining academics, research and industry, to maintain the continuous and sustained development of high-tech manufacturing," notes Science Park Administration director-general Wang Kung. In the early period, the science park decidedly placed a far greater emphasis on the development of technology, but in recent years it has also laid considerable stress on caring for society and for cultural activities. "Because the people that work in the science park live in nearby communities, if we have a good environment and good interactions among our personnel, it will raise the competitiveness of our manufacturing."

On another front, high-tech industry continues to boom inside the science park, where currently all available space has been filled. Construction is underway, however, on their fourth expansion complex at Chunan and Tungluo in Miaoli County, as well as the new Tainan Science-Based Industrial Park. In order to overcome Hsinchu's spatial limitations, the National Science Council plans to expand the high-tech industry to include the entire city. Remaking Hsinchu as a "city of technological culture" has become their goal for the millennium.

"Right now we plan to use the science park as the core and by integrating upstream, midstream and downstream satellite industries, expand facilities to incorporate all of Hsinchu City," says Wang Kung. For example, in order to solve the problem of traffic congestion that the park's rapid growth has generated, a light-rail mass rapid transit system has been planned, to unclog the entire Hsinchu City traffic network.

"The science park has always been a member of the local community. It definitely has a responsibility to and a concern for this place. The purpose of technology is to work hard to provide an excellent quality of life," Wang affirms. In terms of environmental protection, in constructing their new NT$30 billion silicon wafer plant, the corporations of the science park will invest between 2% and 3% of the cost-that is, between NT$600 million and NT$900 million-in waste water pre-processing facilities.

"Actually, the growth of the park and the development of the community are complementary," claims Wang Kung. Though the science park's corporate profits tax must be remitted to the central government, most of the income of park employees is spent in Hsinchu. Considering that the park's total turnover last year was NT$458 billion, if employee salaries are calculated at around ten percent, they yield more than NT$40 billion. The majority of this will be spent on food, clothing, housing, transportation and entertainment, and will be spent right at home in Hsinchu. This directly fosters the prosperity of the local community.

Throughout Taiwan's 21 counties and municipal areas, the Hsinchu science park shines particularly brightly. Yet it also stands out for its conflicts between technology and tradition. Trying to tear down the fences of this "foreign concession," and bring the people inside and outside the science park together as a cohesive whole, is a test that will define the Hsinchu of tomorrow, and influence the future of all Taiwan.

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In the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, residential areas are green and lush, the environs beautifully serene, like a scene from a foreign country. Yet this has contributed to the local population's impression that the science park is a "foreign concession."

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Opposite the technology centers of Tsinghua University, Chiao Tung University, the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park and the Industrial Technology Research Institute is a scene of ordinary small-town street life. This disparity creates a striking contrast.

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Though the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park is in the business of technology, many of its companies use a dash of humanity to harmonize the high-tech atmosphere and promote their employees' physical and mental balance. The picture to the left shows the rooftop garden that the Accton Technology Corporation has grown.

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In recent years, many nationwide department stores and retailers have set up shop in Hsinchu (opposite page), and high-tech professionals (above left) are now everywhere to be seen. While the world of technology has been busily sculpting a dazzlingly modern landscape, strong antagonism has emerged among Old Hsinchu's staunchly traditional residents.

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Tsinghua University, a leader in Hsinchu's academic forays, has recently taken to exploring life off campus, expressing concern for society and taking part in local events.

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The people of Hsinchu look forward as the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, the champion of Taiwan's economic growth, moves beyond its gates and interacts fully with the local community.

Opposite the technology centers of Tsinghua University, Chiao Tung University, the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park and the Industrial Technology Research Institute is a scene of ordinary small-town street life. This disparity creates a striking contrast.

Though the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park is in the business of technology, many of its companies use a dash of humanity to harmonize the high-tech atmosphere and promote their employees' physical and mental balance. The picture to the left shows the rooftop garden that the Accton Technology Corporation has grown.

Though the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park is in the business of technology, many of its companies use a dash of humanity to harmonize the high-tech atmosphere and promote their employees' physical and mental balance. The picture to the left shows the rooftop garden that the Accton Technology Corporation has grown.

Though the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park is in the business of technology, many of its companies use a dash of humanity to harmonize the high-tech atmosphere and promote their employees' physical and mental balance. The picture to the left shows the rooftop garden that the Accton Technology Corporation has grown.

In recent years, many nationwide department stores and retailers have set up shop in Hsinchu （opposite page）, and high-tech professionals （above left） are now everywhere to be seen. While the world of technology has been busily sculpting a dazzlingly modern landscape, strong antagonism has emerged among Old Hsinchu's staunchly traditional residents.

In recent years, many nationwide department stores and retailers have set up shop in Hsinchu （opposite page）, and high-tech professionals （above left） are now everywhere to be seen. While the world of technology has been busily sculpting a dazzlingly modern landscape, strong antagonism has emerged among Old Hsinchu's staunchly traditional residents.

In recent years, many nationwide department stores and retailers have set up shop in Hsinchu （opposite page）, and high-tech professionals （above left） are now everywhere to be seen. While the world of technology has been busily sculpting a dazzlingly modern landscape, strong antagonism has emerged among Old Hsinchu's staunchly traditional residents.

Tsinghua University, a leader in Hsinchu's academic forays, has recently taken to exploring life off campus, expressing concern for society and taking part in local events.

The people of Hsinchu look forward as the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, the champion of Taiwan's economic growth, moves beyond its gates and interacts fully with the local community.