DISSERTATION PROJECT

Tariffs and Future Anticipation: Customs Policies and Practices in Taiwan, 1850–1990

The Chinese maritime customs, established in the latter half of the 19th century, developed a management method containing modern statistical and accounting concepts with the help of foreign experts. This led to an increase in customs revenues, but China did not entirely adopt Western financial management methods. As a result, two different management methods co-existed both in China and Taiwan. After the opening of ports in the 1860s, Taiwan gradually gained independence from Fujian Province with the support of tariff revenue and was eventually declared a province in 1885. The cession of Taiwan to Japan by the Qing dynasty in 1895 resulted in the termination of the previous customs system. However, after Taiwan came under the control of the Republic of China in 1945, the customs administration experienced a revival until 1991. Once a symbol of progress during the Qing Dynasty, it became a vestige of the past during the Republic of China’s rule in Taiwan. The differing attitudes of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party towards this institution had direct impact on the different economic and trade development in present-day Taiwan and China. My research will focus on ideas of future and modernity in fiscal and economic policies influenced by the West and the clash with the traditional Chinese fiscal systems and shed light on the factors that have contributed to the gradual socioeconomic divergence between Taiwan and China.

ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

Presentations

• Presentation on research topic. Proposal Workshop, Research Training Group GRK 2833 “East Asian Futures”, Duisburg,, Germany, Jun 13–15, 2024. [Poster]
• “The Shift in Taiwan’s Tariff Reform Model (1960s–1980s) and Its Future Vision”. International Conference of the Young Scholars‘ Group of the German Association for Asian Studies (DGA) “Thinking Futures in Asia”, Leipzig University, Germany, May 9–11, 2025.
• “Taiwan’s Tariff Policy in the 1950s: Future Risk and Uncertainty after GATT Withdrawal”. Workshop “‘Dongya/weilai’ yanliu. Boshisheng xueshu jiaoliu luntan” 「東亞／未來」研究 博士生學術交流論壇 [Graduate Student Forum on East Asia and Futures Studies], National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan, Nov 10, 2025.
• “The Taiwan Customs Commissioners and Shifting Tariff Policies in Japanese Colonial Rule (1895–1909)”. AAS Annual Conference 2026 Association of Asian Studies, Vancouver, Canada, Mar 13, 2026.
• “Tariff Reform Under Martial Law: Taiwan’s Trade Policy and Visions of the Future”. The 23rd Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies “Echoes of Authority: Forty Years on from the Eve of the Lifting of Martial Law”, Portsmouth, UK, Apr 1, 2026.

Funded excursions

• Research excursion to the UK, including a meeting with Prof. Robert Bickers (Department of History, University of Bristol) and visits to the National Maritime Museum, the National Archives, and the tomb of Robert Hart, Jul 29 – Aug 5, 2024.
• Conference “Modern East Asian Reform Movements and Historical Transitions (近代東亞社會改革思潮與歷史變遷)”, organised by the Hu Shih Research Group and the Chiang Kai-shek Research Group at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, Oct 18. 2024.
• Presentation “Using the ‘Database of Neologisms in Modern Chinese’ as an Example to Explore Key Issues in the Study of East Asian Conceptual History (以「漢語新詞資料庫」為例，探索東亞概念史研究幾點問題)” by Dr. Christian Schmidt (National Taiwan University) at Archives of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, Nov 8, 2024.
• Conference “The World Economic History Congress”, organised by the International Economic History Association, Lund University, Sweden, Jul 28 – Aug 1, 2025.