Papers presented by Zhaojin Zeng since 2019

2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"“Little Taipei on the Mainland”: Self-Made Kinship Capitalism and the Rise of China’s Wealthiest County, 1978-2000"

Abstract:

A 2019 state television report praised the contribution of the Taiwanese to Kunshan's rapid economic growth and hailed the Chinese city as “Little Taipei.” Previously a poor and predominately agricultural county in eastern Jiangsu in the Mao era, Kunshan now boasts 4,800 Taiwanese companies and more than 100 thousand Taiwanese residents. It also has become one of China’s wealthiest cities. In 2021, Kunshan yielded a GDP of 474.8 billion yuan, surpassing both old industrial centers such as Lanzhou and Taiyuan and new coastal development zones such as Zhuhai and Shantou. How does Kunshan’s rise take place? Why do Taiwanese investors choose Kunshan as their destination over other cities? In what ways does Taiwanese business contribute to the emergence of a regional economic miracle in eastern Jiangsu? This paper draws on a wide range of primary sources, such as local government documents and oral history material, to examine the grassroots business and social forces that have powered Kunshan’s remarkable transition since the late 1970s. We identify two sets of factors: entrepreneurial cadres and transnational networks of capital and technology. Entrepreneurial-minded cadres devised preferential policies to attract Taiwanese firms. Those early comers expanded business, technology, and social networks that continued to pull the flows of capital and human out of the island. A developmental alliance between local cadres and Taiwanese businesspeople gradually took shape, leading to a unique developmental model termed “self-made kinship capitalism” in Kunshan. Unlike Shenzhen and other coastal cities in the south, where pre-existing kin relations and ethnic connections were utilized to draw Hong Kong's capital to the mainland, the experience of Kunshan demonstrates that such kinship ties can be consciously forged and remain effective in generating long-term economic growth.

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2021 Hopin Virtual Events Platform

"Beijing Jeep, Tsingtao Beer: Entrepreneurship, Networks, and the Re-making of the US-China Economic Relations in the 1980s"

Abstract:

From diplomatic normalization in the late 1970s to the Tiananmen incident in 1989, the long decade of the 1980s witnessed a broken honeymoon between the U.S. and China. This political split, however, coincided with the forging of unprecedented economic ties over the Pacific. This paper explores the formation of this special economic connection by moving focus away from political and diplomatic actors at the macro or state level to entrepreneurs and firms on the ground. Focusing on Beijing Jeep and Tsingtao Brewery, I utilize recently available company archives to look at how entrepreneurs ventured into new political and social environments, exploring foreign markets, seeking new technology, and coping with institutional uncertainty. A micro-historical analysis of these two cases illustrates the larger efforts of Chinese and American businesspeople to nourish the burgeoning exchange of technology, knowledge, and capital across newly opened national borders. Multilayered transnational networks, initiated by these business ventures, came to shape the broader pattern of US-China engagement in the subsequent three decades and also helped to usher in a new global economic order for the post-Cold War world.

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2020 Charlotte, North Carolina

"The Broken Honeymoon: Rethinking Sino-U.S. Economic Exchange in the Long 1980s"

Abstract:

This paper examines one of the most important eras in the history of Sino-US economic relations: the 1980s. From the diplomatic normalization in the late 1970s to the Tiananmen incident in 1989, the long decade witnessed a broken honeymoon between the existing hegemon and the rising superpower. Scholars have analyzed political split that resulted from China’s crackdown on democratic movements while paying scant attention to their economic and trade engagement that generated significant lasting impacts. In this paper, I argue that economic interactions during the honeymoon decade, especially the burgeoning US-China trade, set the larger pattern of Sino-US relations over the past three decades. Drawing on newly discovered business documents and company archives, I examine how businesspeople from China and the US interacted with each other, explored the markets, worked with local governments, and managed to establish economic and trade ties in a politically uncertain environment. Networks constructed through multiple-level economic engagement in the 1980s assisted in the rehabilitation of US-China relations started by high-profile diplomatic visits and also ushered in a whole new era for the global economic order following the collapse of the Cold War world.

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