Money Talks? – Impact of Chinese Tourists on Taiwanese Night Market Vendor’s Attitudes Toward China - 政大學術集成

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(1)I. 國立政治大學亞太研究英語碩士學位學程 International Master’s Program in Asia-Pacific Studies College of Social Sciences National Chengchi University. 碩士論文. 學. ‧ 國. 立. 政治大. Nat. sit. y. ‧. Master’s Thesis. n. er. io. Money Talks? – Impact of Chinese Tourists on Taiwanese Night Market China a Vendor’s Attitudes iToward v. l C hengchi Un. Student: Fabian Foeh Advisor: Eric Chen-hua Yu. 中華民國 102 年 07 月 July 2013.

(2) II. Money Talks? – Impact of Chinese Tourists on Taiwanese Night Market Vendor’s Attitudes Toward China. 研究生：. 法比安. Student:. Fabian Foeh. 指導教授：. 俞振華. Advisor:. Eric Chen-hua Yu. 立. 治政國立政治大學大. ‧ 國. 碩士論文. 學. 亞太研究英語碩士學位學程. ‧ sit. y. Nat. io. er. A Thesis. a. n. v l C Master’s Program Submitted to International n iin Asia-Pacific Studies hengchi U. National Chengchi University In partial fulfillment of the Requirement For the degree of Master in China Studies. 中華民國 102 年 7 月 July 2013.

(3) III. Acknowledgements. I would like to especially thank my thesis advisor Eric Chen-hua Yu and the committee members Ching-hsin Yu and Almond Meng for their help and very constructive criticism during the proposal and thesis defense. Without their honest critique and the contribution of their ideas this thesis would not have been as it is. Also, I would like to mention the help of. 政治大 research on the night market and did not complain that I took her out innumerable times on 立 the Ningxia Night Market to observe and to study (and to eat). my girlfriend Karen Chuang, who helped me with many problems regarding the empirical. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(4) IV. Abstract An increasing number of mainland Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan offer material benefits for many vendors on Taipei’s night markets. Using in-depth interviews, this thesis examines the effect of mainland Chinese tourists on attitudes of the night market vendors on Ningxia Night Market in Taipei on China related topics. The difference in economic transactions with Chinese tourists offers a possibility to study the influence of the related rational incentives. 政治大 integration and the alienation from the PRC. 立. and contact on policy attitudes and opinions toward: Chinese tourists, cross- Strait economic. ‧ 國. 學. Taking into account the variables of business transactions and identity the study analyzes 22 interviews of night market vendors and suggests that vendors with more business transactions with Chinese tourists tend to have more favorable views on two of the three investigated. ‧. attitudes. Vendors with more benefits from the increase in tourists also show a considerable. sit. y. Nat. amount of pragmatism in their opinions, which leads this study to assume a strong positive influence of economic incentives when compared to another possible factor like contact.. io. n. al. er. While negative effects can be caused by identity, contact and incentives, the positive. i n U. v. influence in this framework seems to be mainly affected by the incentives.. Ch. engchi. Keywords: Incentives, Identity, Contact, Night market, Public opinion, Attitudes toward China.

(5) V. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... III Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................. V 1.. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1. 2.. Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Public Opinion on Cross-Strait Issues ..................................................................................... 10. 政治大 2.3 Business Transactions with Chinese Tourists .......................................................................... 14 立 2.2 Affective Identity ................................................................................................................... 13. ‧ 國. 3.. 學. 2.5 Hypotheses............................................................................................................................ 18 Research Framework ............................................................................................................... 21. ‧. 3.1 Dependent Variable: Attitude Toward Mainland China .......................................................... 23 3.2 Independent variable: Affective Identity ................................................................................ 24. y. Nat. io. Interview Analysis.................................................................................................................... 26. n. al. er. 4.. sit. 3.3 Independent Variable: Business Transactions with Chinese Tourists ...................................... 24. i n U. v. 4.2 Amount of Business Transactions With Chinese Tourists ........................................................ 30. Ch. engchi. 4.3 Attitudes Toward China ......................................................................................................... 33 4.4 Pragmatism and Habituation ................................................................................................. 39 4.5 Self-Assessment of Influence of Mainland Tourists on Policy Attitudes .................................. 44 4.6 Summary of the Findings ....................................................................................................... 46 5.. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 50. 6.. References .............................................................................................................................. 55. 7.. Appendix ................................................................................................................................. 60 7.1 Questionnaire ........................................................................................................................ 60.

(6) 1. 1. Introduction “The current phase of cross-Strait relations is fundamentally one of ‘political confrontation with economic integration.’” (Wu 1997). The economic interactions across the Taiwan Strait “will determine the future of cross-Strait relations” (Keng, Chen, Huang 2006).. 政治大. Within the complex field of Cross-Strait relations, the aspect of the Cross-Strait integration has become increasingly important. Especially after the implementation of the Economic. 立. Framework Agreement (ECFA) between the governments in Taipei and Beijing, a new phase. ‧ 國. 學. of economic interaction has been engaged. While many studies try to answer questions regarding the Cross-Strait policy by treating the two involved states as unitary actors, this study will follow a different approach and focus on factors outside of the traditional “state”.. ‧. Economic interactions are dependent and closely tied to the public opinion in Taiwan. Since. y. Nat. Taiwan is a democratic country and its government is elected by democratic institutions, the. n. al. er. io. (Page, B. I., & Shapiro, R. Y. 1983; Sheng 2002).. sit. public opinion can directly and indirectly influence government and government policies. i n U. v. During the last couple of years, an increasing number of Chinese tourists have come. Ch. engchi. to Taiwan. Responsible for this development has been a series of agreements between the governments on both sides of the strait in close relation to the Economic Framework Agreement (ECFA), which made it possible for mainland tourists to visit Taiwan. The first step of this happened in 2008 after the election of president Ma Ying-jeou. Ever since, the number of tourists has increased substantially and now reached over 2.5 million during the year 2012 (Mainland Affairs Council 2013A). First, Mainland Chinese tourists were only allowed to come to visit in groups, but this has been further relaxed in the year 2011. Now individual travels are also possible (Chan 2012)..

(7) 2. Some of the main attractions for the tourists are the popular night markets in Taiwan, which are being visited frequently. In 2011, 73.99% of all interviewed inbound visitors to Taiwan said that they would participate in night market sight-seeing, which was only outranked as most favored activity by “shopping” (Ministry of Transportation and Communication, Tourism Bureau 2011). Some of these night markets are being visited by very large numbers of visitors and benefit directly from their spending. While no actual data on the average spending for night markets exist, a tourist coming from China spent 270 USD on average per day in 2011 and a part of this spending is being done on night markets (Ministry of Transportation and Communication, Tourism Bureau 2011).. 政治大. Using in-depth interviews, I will try to examine the effect of the Chinese tourists on the public opinion of the night market vendors on Ningxia Night Market in Taipei. I want to. 立. study the attitudes among those vendors on cross-Strait related issues and try to assess the. ‧ 國. 學. question whether these are being affected by the presence of tourists or not. The increasing number of Chinese tourists offers material benefits for many vendors on Taipei’s night. ‧. markets. The difference in economic transactions with Chinese tourists offers a possibility to study the influence of the related rational incentives and their effect on policy attitudes and. sit. y. Nat. opinions. Night markets are a good object to study, because they offer a good and easily accessible environment to directly assess the impact of tourists resulting from cross-Strait. io. n. al. er. economic integration and government policies. Especially for the rather low income workers. i n C htheir customers matters and directly affects e nincome. gchi U. v. on night markets, of which many operate their own business, the increased number of. I set up a framework to study the economic benefits for the vendors on Ningxia Night Market and check for the influence of those different levels of business interactions with mainlanders on different levels of attitudes. The attitudes I am interested in are directed toward Chinese tourists, cross- Strait economic integration and the alienation of the Taiwanese people from China. Do vendors, which benefit more from Chinese tourists, adopt a different view on the visiting tourists? Do they take a more favorable viewpoint on crossStrait economic integration? Do the material benefits and the gains from Chinese tourists on those night markets alter their feelings of alienation from the mainland? And finally, do the.

(8) 3. vendors themselves think that the presence of tourists has altered their political attitudes and opinions? All these are questions, which I want to be able to answer for the small sample of night market vendors in this study. The influence of tourists on the attitudes toward cross-Strait related issues can be cause by two different factors rational incentives and the contact between the two groups with each other. Different levels of affective identity among vendors also have to be taken into account and included into the study. The structure of this thesis is as follows: in the second chapter, I will briefly discuss the main variables, related literature and include all the main theories, which are important for. 政治大 an overview of the research methods and the analysis of the interviews in section four. 立 Section five concludes. References and the appendix can be found in sections six and seven. this work. The research framework of this study follows in section three and is followed by. ‧ 國. 學. Before introducing the framework, a short outline of the general situation is given to clarify the background conditions of this study.. ‧ y. Nat. io. sit. Background Information. al. er. The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) as the main agreement of. n. iv n C history of Taiwan. After the diplomatic h etiesnbetween i U China and Taiwan had been g c h Mainland cross-Strait economic integration is probably one of the most important agreements in the. significantly improved and the KMT had come back into power in 2008. The ECFA was. signed on June 29th 2010 in Chongqing. This agreement is a preferential trade agreement between the two countries and marks a policy shift. Tariffs have since been reduced and commercial barriers removed to facilitate closer economic ties between both countries (Hong, 2010) and during the following negotiations tourism from Mainland China to Taiwan also has been liberalized. Official documents advertise the framework agreement vehemently and speak of it as “creat[ing] unprecedented opportunities for Taiwan’s economy” (Org, E. C. F. A. 2010). Unlike more common Free-Trade Agreements, ECFA had no definite content or timeline.

(9) 4. other than an “Early Harvest List”. However, it contained the intention to negotiate further agreements, of which today several already have been signed and others are currently still under conciliation. These post-ECFA negotiations will have a considerable impact on Taiwan’s economy and they are intended to ultimately open up substantially all trade (Hong, 2010). Whereas ECFA is perceived very positively in foreign countries and China, the most debates about it happen to be right within the domestic politics of Taiwan. Concerned about the security of their country and in opposition to the former enemy of the civil war, people often fear the economic interdependence between China and Taiwan. The gradually deepened economic relations ECFA would bring about might be used by China to “force, coerce and. 政治大. manoeuvre toward unification” (Armstrong, 2010:5). Proponents of this argument fear the. 立. assymetric relationship caused by the size of China and its growing economy and that this. ‧ 國. 學. progress might give China power over domestic economy and politics in Taiwan. Other scholars see this issue rather relaxed and propose that closer economic relations would also make Taiwan more valuable to the mainland and more dependend on it or even that Taiwan. ‧. itself might get political leverage from the interdependence with China (Armstrong, 2010).. sit. y. Nat. One source of this fear obviously is the role of identity, or in the terms of this study’s framework: the affective identity, in Taiwan. Another major argument is concerned with the. io. al. er. development after ECFA is signed. ECFA is widely believed to offer a new basis for other. n. iv n C U limited by its international h ecountries Taiwan’s ability to sign FTAs with other n g c his iseriously states to take Taiwan as an economic player into account more seriously. At the moment,. relations to other countries. Before the signing of ECFA, Taiwan had only engaged in FTAs with Peru, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua (Armstrong, 2010). These are not major trading partners. But every other intent to sign trade agreements with different countries has been threatened by China. All of the above named countries, which have signed FTAs with Taiwan, have also diplomatic relationships with Taiwan and not with China. Every country with diplomatic ties with China is put under pressure to not engage in these kind of activities with Taiwan. Therefore, the preferential trade agreements of Taiwan have not really been significant enough to seriously boost the trade volume of Taiwan. Many analysts hoped to see a change in this regard after ECFA has been implemented, because the normalisation.

(10) 5. of economic relations across the Taiwan Strait might allow Taiwan to engage especially the East-Asian region much more substantially (Armstrong, 2010; Chen W. ). But the possibility of Taiwan to actually follow up on ECFA with similar libaralization agreements with other economies without interference from China has been a difficult question (Rosen & Wang, 2010). The reasoning behind this debate is the claim that by signing further FTAs, Taiwan could not only boost its trade and subsequent its economy, but that by engaging in these kind of agreements it could also lessen the interdependence on the Chinese market. FTAs could function as strategic policies to prevent Taiwan from being marginalized in international trade. Especially the “ASEAN plus One”-FTA (the ten ASEAN. 政治大. states plus China), which was implemented in the same year as ECFA (2010), and the possibility of an ASEAN plus Three FTA region (in addition including Japan and Korea),. 立. would put Taiwan under pressure economically.. ‧ 國. 學. The probably most important positive arguments for signing ECFA have been made about the estimated Effect of ECFA on the economy. Predictions have been made about. ‧. different industry sectors, which should benefit from the agreement (textile, basic iron and steel, petroleum and coal product manufacturing industries, plastic material and automobiles). Nat. sit. y. and which should suffer from the competition (electronics, transport equipment, wood product manufacturing industries) (Hong, 2010). In general, the domestic demand-driven. io. al. er. sectors of the industry, small and medium enterprises, and downstream companies in specific. n. iv n C U stays protected. sector of agriculture is left out of theh early e nagreements g c h i and. industries were identified as most vulnerable (Hong, 2010). The also potentially difficult. These effects of the free trade agreement with China might very well impact the public opinion of ECFA. Looking at the rational incentives for different kinds of industrial sectors or people, we assume that a more favorable opinion about ECFA is being held by those industry sectors and people, which can look optimistically at the future development. If we categorize these opinions about ECFA, we can see different arguments for and against cross-Strait economic integration. We can broadly classify these arguments in economic (or rational) arguments and value (or symbolic) arguments. National identity, nationalism and the perception of China as a threat to Taiwan do significantly influence the.

(11) 6. public opinion about ECFA, facilitate protectionist agendas and a rather negative view of Mainland China. But if we look at the material incentives included here, we can see that for economists, disregarding all of the security issues or value-based arguments against ECFA propose a purely economic viewpoint and would stress the maximizing of general welfare1. It is probably no coincidence that ECFA, embedded in a general improvement of crossstrait relations, was signed in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. While there might be pros and cons to every agreement on trade, the general view of scholars predicts that a FTA can boost business for both partners and benefit the economy (Hong, 2010; Armstrong, 2010; Chen W.; Rosen & Wang, 2010). This may be even more true, if we look at the “combination of economic complementarities […] and geographic proximity as well as. 政治大. psychological distance” (Hong, 2010:4). Taiwan and China’s economy are highly. 立. complementary. While Taiwan has advantages in high technology and skilled labor and is. ‧ 國. 學. more industrialized, China can conversely offer high abundance of unskilled labor and low cost production (Armstrong, 2010).. ‧. Turning to actual data-based predictions, we find several studies estimating the effect of ECFA on the domestic economy of Taiwan. The Chung-hua Institution for Economic. sit. y. Nat. Research (CIER) has predicted that Taiwan’s economy will grow from 1,65% to 1,72% after signing the ECFA and domestic GDP will increase from US$ 6.9 billion to US$ 7.1 billion.. io. n. al. er. Employment is foreseen to rise by 257,000 to 263,000 people and each of those factors will. i n U. v. positively affect Taiwan’s economic performance (Cited in: Org, E. C. F. A. 2010).. Ch. engchi. Therefore, we can see that rational incentives should lead to a rather positive view on cross-Strait economic relations and probably the image of Mainland China in general. In contrast, affective arguments and security concerns would influence the public opinion in a negative way and lead to a more negative view on cross-Strait economic integration and the. 1. While economists disagree on many different issues, the topic of trade is being debated mainly technical. Although this issue is highly disputed among the public, we can find a mainly universal consensus about the quality of international trade: Free trade is a good thing (Mayda & Rodrik, 2005). While we can find many views favoring protectionist viewpoints in politics, the scholars agree upon the fact that international trade maximizes the overall wealth and, therefore, should be adopted by all countries..

(12) 7. image of Mainland China. Thus, I expect the view on cross-Strait economic integration to be mainly influenced by rational incentives and affective identity. By looking specifically at the role of the tourists, I hope to see, whether the night market vendors in Taipei, which benefit from the increased amount of Chinese tourists in Taiwan, respond to these material incentives and the contact with tourists and hold different views than their counterparts, which do not enjoy the same benefits. We now turn to the literature regarding this topic and to clarify the main terminology and variables used in this study.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(13) 8. 2. Literature Review 「理性自利」與「感性認同」為晚近政治學中兩個不同的理論取向，人們不論是在私生活領域中的行為，或是於政治社會公領域中的公共行動，往往都同時受到情感價值和利益物質所推動，而且這兩個行為動機經常混雜難辨. „Rational incentives“ and „emotional identity“ recently have become two different theoretical directions within political science. No matter if in the realm of private actions or in the public realm of political-social actions, people always are being influenced simultaneously by emotional values and material interest and these two motivations are often times very much entangled and hard to analyze separately. (Wu 2005). 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Like described by Wu Naide in the citation above, Taiwanese politics, or better: the interest of vote maximization and winning elections for the political parties in Taiwan, has been. ‧. described by many scholars as an issue, which is affected by mainly two forces: “rational. sit. y. Nat. incentives” and “affective identity” (or emotional identity). These are being recognized by many scholars as the powers, which determine the public opinion in Taiwan and face each. io. n. al. er. other antagonistically (see the following articles: Wu 2005; Chen, Keng, Tu, Huang 2009;. i n U. v. Keng, Liu, Chen 2009; Liu, Keng, Chen 2009; Chen, Keng, Wang 2009; Keng, Chen, Huang 2006).. Ch. engchi. The prevailing view suggests that rational incentives, such as economic interest, influence the view of the public on cross-Strait Economic exchange and China positively, while an “affective identity” (holding a Taiwanese identity) accounts for a more negative view of cross-Strait economic exchange or China in this process (Keng, Chen, Huang 2006). The terms “material interest” and “affection” for this issue in the context of Taiwan have been coined by Wu Naide in his article “Romance and Bread: A Preliminary Study of the Identity Change in Taiwan” (“麵包與愛情：初探台灣民眾民族認同的變動“; Wu 2005), but there is a wide range of different translations for these terms in the literature on.

(14) 9. the topic. While the “romance” (affection) and the “bread” (material interest) in the title of Wu Naide’s article itself also are being used as descriptions of the two forces, we find terms like “sense” and “sensitivity” (Keng, Chen, Huang 2006), “idea” and “practice” (Liu, Keng, Chen 2009) or “pragmatism” and “principles” (Keng, Liu, Chen 2009). All of those terms do point at the same antagonism between the “rational interest” and the “affective identity”. A large body of scholarly work is devoted to the question, which of the two factor’s influence is larger. What these papers have in common, is the notion that they all find that both, “rational incentives” as well as “affective identity”, do influence the public opinion on cross-Strait related issues (Keng, Chen, Huang 2006; Keng, Liu, Chen 2009; Chen, Keng,. 政治大. Tu, Huang 2009; Liu, Keng, Chen 2009; Chen, Keng, Wang 2009; Keng, Chen 2003). What those articles differ in most of the times, is the degree of influence that is attributed to the. 立. two factors and sometimes also the quality of that force. Some articles suggest that the. ‧ 國. 學. affection or group identity, which is supposed to lead to a rather negative view of cross-Strait economic integration, is the dominant one and is responsible for the public opinion on that. ‧. topic and the rational incentives only play a minor role in the process (Wu 2005; Chen, Keng, Tu, Huang 2009; Keng, Chen & Huang 2006).. y. Nat. sit. Some of those scholars even think that group identity and “symbolic factors” actually. al. er. io. underlie and form the foundation of the rational self-interest. In this view, the affective. n. powers do actually decide which rational and material incentives we regard as favorable and. Ch. i n U. v. which ones we do not. (For a good discussion of this topic refer to: Chen, Keng, Tu, Huang 2009).. engchi. On the other side are the theorists, who focus on the rational incentives and think these motives are the most important in forming the public opinion about cross-Strait economic exchange (Keng, Chen 2003). Concerning the quality of that force, there are also theories supporting the directly opposed argument of the proponents of the above stated “affective”argument. Those theorists hold that the affective powers are, in fact, caused by group interest. Building on the work of Russell Hardin, these scholars hold that beneath the level of personal benefits and personal incentives there is also a societal or group incentive, which shapes the long-term identity and, therefore, can also account for the dimension of the affection in.

(15) 10. public opinion (Hardin 1995; Funk, C. L. (2000); Chen, Keng, Tu, Huang 2009; Keng, Chen, Huang 2006). In this study we can find both of these major factors as important concepts. The increase of Mainland Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan allows us to study the effect of this development and the importance of both factors on this issue. The purpose of this study is to measure the influence of Chinese tourists on the attitudes of vendors and get a better understanding of their thinking and the change of their opinions. Therefore, I will first introduce and set up a framework for the study of tourists influence on vendor’s attitudes and develop a working definition for the dependent variables: attitudes on cross-Strait attitudes.. 政治大. Then I will turn to the independent variables (identity and business with tourists), before concluding this chapter and introducing the research framework.. 2.1 Public Opinion on Cross-Strait Issues. 學. ‧ 國. 立. ‧ y. Nat. Although much literature exists on the unification/ independence issue and it is one of the. sit. core questions in Taiwanese politics today, for this study the primary focus will not be on. al. er. io. this topic. This issue has been present for many years and is highly politicized. Scholars like. iv n C issue exist (Sheng 2002). The present study has a different h e n g c h i U approach and wants to specifically analyze the attitudes of night market vendors and the changes in these opinions. Thus, it n. Sheng showed that a close relation between the respondent’s identity and their views on this. focuses on attitudes, which are influenced by short-term impact. Those longer lasting policy issues like unification/ independence might not be influenced directly by the tourists and, therefore, their influence might not be visible here. Studies find significant influence of short-term variables like rational incentives on the image level, but most of them fail to recognize significant changes on the level of (political) identity (Keng, Tseng 2010). In the context of the present study, I will, thus, focus on other areas of attitudes. The main emphasis is put on questions regarding other contentious issues with a more immediate and short-term oriented background, which can be seen as belonging to the image level instead of the.

(16) 11. identity level. For this purpose, the study concentrates on three issues: Attitudes toward Chinese tourists, economic interactions with China and political opinions on China.. Attitudes Toward Chinese Tourists While there is substantial literature on Taiwanese politics and cross-Strait related issues, the views of the Taiwanese public on China and the Chinese people has not been studied as thoroughly. This is astonishing because this aspect of public opinion could also give interesting insights into other areas of research on this topic. Among the few recent. 政治大. accounts of public opinion of Taiwanese people toward other countries is the work of Gries and Su (2013). In their paper, they show that Taiwanese people tend to have negative. 立. feelings toward China, which ranks second last only before North Korea in a ranking of. ‧ 國. 學. attitudes comparing 19 countries conducted in 2011. While, not surprising, Taiwanese people on average felt the warmest toward their own country, China ranks low in absolute and relative terms.. ‧. For the present study, the attitudes about the Chinese tourists will be among the most. Nat. sit. y. important measures of attitudes. Although no substantial body of research exists to compare. io. er. results with other studies, the everyday presence of the mainlander tourists on the night market should invoke strong attitudes among most vendors. While some vendors might have. n. al. i n U. v. no interest in economic or political affairs, this issue directly affects their working situation. Ch. engchi. on the night market and, therefore, strong reactions are expected among the vendors. The results of Gries and Su’s study also suggest that the attitudes on Chinese people should tend to a more negative view.. Cross-Strait Economic Integration The pace of trade liberalization with mainland China has been a contested issue in the Taiwanese public. Since president Lee Teng-hui announced the “no haste, be patient” policy.

(17) 12. in 1996, there has been discontent among many of the Taiwanese businessmen and repeatedly demands for trade liberalization have been issued (Sobel, Haynes & Zheng 2010). But polls show that protectionist views have been dominant all throughout the 1990’s and the early 2000’s. Only then leading up to the year 2007, the support declined to 44% and the percentage supporters of cross-Strait economic integration increased from 18% in 2003 to 42% in 2008 (Sobel, Haynes & Zheng 2010). Since then, the majority of Taiwanese people prefer a modest trade liberalization of cross-Strait economic integration. According to statistics of the Mainland Affairs Council, we can see that the pace of cross-Strait economic integration seems to be just about right for about 45% of the people (Mainland Affairs Council 2012) and has a rising tendency since the ECFA has been signed in 2010.. 政治大. To explore the attitudes of night market vendors on this issue will hopefully give. 立. some more insights into the influence of their economic incentives. The specific focus on the. ‧ 國. 學. economic side might be also favorable for this study, because it addresses rather the shortterm benefits of the people. The nature of this issue as an economic one also leads us to. ‧. expect rational incentives as being especially important for this question.. sit. y. Nat. io. er. Alienation of Taiwanese People From China. Another set of attitudes, I want to address, is the alienation of Taiwanese people from. n. al. i n U. v. China. This question is also related to the complex area of cross-Strait relations and, just like. Ch. engchi. for the issues of attitudes toward tourists and cross-Strait economic integration, should highlight the short-term prospects rather than the long term expectations. While attitudes toward tourists touches primarily upon the personal feelings of the vendors and the issue of cross-Strait economic integration is primarily an economic issue, the alienation from China can be seen as a first and foremost political topic. Just like the questions on cross-Strait economic integration, this issue has been studied intensively by several institutions and, again, we can use the data of the Mainland Affairs Council to observe the development over the last couple of years. Sobel, Haynes and Zheng observe “significant movements in the percentage of the Taiwanese public” (Sobel,.

(18) 13. Haynes & Zheng 2010: 14) on this topic during the years from 1998 to 2004. At the end of this period, we find that 62% of people saw the relations between China and Taiwan as hostile during spring 2004 (Sobel, Haynes & Zheng 2010: 14). Looking at current data, we find that the percentage has dropped since then and currently resides at 43.9% (Mainland Affairs Council 2013B).. 2.2 Affective Identity. 治政 related issues in Taiwan. Together major factors influencing the opinion toward cross-Strait 大立 identity can be seen as influencing the public opinion on with rational incentives, affective As mentioned in the introduction, the affective identity is often regarded as one of the two. ‧ 國. 學. China related issues. Both forces represent distinct traditions of theoretic thought within the political science tradition. While rational choice theory predicts that the rational interests of. ‧. individuals will shape their public opinion and that the desire to maximize the self-interest accounts for the political activities of people, the symbolic politics thesis gives support to the. Nat. sit. y. affective identity as an important factor.. al. er. io. David Sears and others have developed this idea as an antagonistic force to rational. v. n. behavior in public opinion. Symbolic politics as defined by Sears argues that symbolic and. Ch. i n U. affective attitudes shape political behavior. These attitudes are not as much influenced by. engchi. short-term consideration like rational behavior is believed to be, but rather formed through socialization and during early childhood. Therefore, it is also harder to change and can be seen as a factor, which has a long-term influence (Sears, Lau, Tyler & Allen 1980; Sears & Funk 1990; Edelman, M. 1985). In the tradition of symbolic politics, “people acquire stable affective preferences through conditioning in their pre-adult years, with little calculation of the future costs and benefits of these attitudes” (Sears, Lau, Tyler & Allen 1980: 671). Among those preferences the most important ones are those, which are rather general predispositions like party identification, ideology, nationalism or racial prejudice. Political attitudes are being formed.

(19) 14. according to long-term predispositions and values about society and politics and the similarity of symbols in policy issues and the long-term values determines the political action. Short-term considerations do not play an important role in this view and “political and personal lives exist largely isolated from one another” (Sears, Lau, Tyler & Allen 1980: 671). In the context of the present study, it is important to address the role of the affective identity. As argued by Wu Naide and others, it might play a major role as an independent variable. While the economic incentives generated by the mainland Chinese tourists, might influence certain vendors attitudes positively, the affective identity dimension is believed to have a rather negative influence on public opinion toward the cross-Strait economic. 政治大. integration for people holding a Taiwanese identity. The group, personal, and political identities of respondents might also have a large influence of their choice of attitudes.. 立. The purpose of this study, however, is to address the short-term considerations of. ‧ 國. 學. vendors and to analyze specifically the role of the Chinese tourists. Because it is the influence on short-term attitudes and opinions is important to us, the affective identity is. ‧. designed to be a rather constant factor, which should not be affected by the everyday business transactions and remain largely unchanged. Because of the nature of affective. y. Nat. sit. identity and its development being largely conducted during socialization and pre-adult years,. al. er. io. we can assume that the identity of the vendors did not change significantly during the two to. n. three year period, in which the main increase in Chinese tourists happened. This is not the. Ch. i n U. v. case for the second and main independent variable of this study: the business transactions with Chinese tourists.. engchi. 2.3 Business Transactions with Chinese Tourists. The main independent variable in this study will be the amount of business transactions of the different vendors with Chinese tourists. The measurement of this variable will provide the means to group the vendors into different “economic benefit groups” and to see if the amount of business transactions influences the views of the vendors in any way. According to many.

(20) 15. theorists and as we have seen before, the public opinion in Taiwan is believed to be influenced mainly by the factors of affective identity and material incentives. The amount of business transaction or the economic benefit of the vendors is obviously very closely connected to those material incentives. Every business transaction is a favorable event for the vendors, because they earn money of the Chinese tourists. Therefore, one might consider the business transactions and the material incentives as one and the same. However, in the present framework, this assumption falls short of another important factor. When assessing the influence of economic incentives on the night market based on the business transactions with Chinese tourists, we would not only measure the economic. 政治大. incentives alone. Other than the pure economic business transaction, there is also a different factor, which will distinguish vendors with many Chinese customers from their counterparts.. 立. They do not only get economic benefits, but by being involved in those business transactions. ‧ 國. 學. with them, the vendors also might get exposed to the tourists more often than the vendors, who do not enjoy the same business with the mainlanders. Economic incentives and contact. ‧. are highly correlated in this situation and are embedded in the whole process of the business transaction itself. While this process naturally incorporates some kind of contact as well as. sit. y. Nat. economic benefits, the concept of those two ideas is very different. While it is impossible to measure these two concepts separately in the current framework, it is still necessary to. io. al. er. distinguish them conceptually, if we want to explore the influence of both factors alone.. n. iv n C h etheneffect separate concepts, if we want to clarify i Ubusiness transactions and shed g cofhthose. Therefore the variable of business transactions with Chinese tourists has to rely upon two. light on the quality of the nature of those transactions. Starting with a conceptual assessment of the material incentives this chapter aims at clarifying this complicated relationship. A key assumption in rational choice theory for political behavior is that individuals constantly try to maximize their self-interest. This also applies for political behavior and, therefore, predicts that people will act politically according to their own personal benefit and choose the actions, which provide the greatest personal benefit for them (Downs 1957). This argument has been very common ever since it gained popularity, but as some authors note, can also be found in as early works as those of Thomas Hobbes (Funk 2000; Mansbridge.

(21) 16. 1990; Monroe 1991). For the research on public opinion, this question has also been a central one and the question whether people’s beliefs and behavior are guided by rational incentives and self-interest has been prominent in “virtually every Western moral philosophical and psychological theory” (Lau & Heldman 2009: 513; Sears & Funk 1991). The definition of self-interest is a complicated one, but I would like to adopt the working definition of Sears & Funk as the “(1) short-to-medium term impact of an issue (or candidacy) on the (2) material well-being of the (3) individual’s own personal life (or that of his or her immediate family)” (Sears & Funk 1990: 247). This definition includes three basic psychological assumptions: “the idea of materialistic hedonism … the idea of egotism … and. 政治大. the idea of rationality” (Sears & Funk 1990: 247) and excludes other possible factors of selfinterest like long-term considerations, non-material aspects of well-being and interests that. 立. affect well-being of the individual’s groups, but not the individual itself.. ‧ 國. 學. Rational incentives will be the first part of the main independent variable of this study. Special regard will be directed toward the dimensions of past or retrospective considerations. ‧. (i.e. experiences) and present or prospective rational incentives (i.e. future expectations). The distinction between retrospective and prospective considerations on the rational incentives is. y. Nat. sit. important because both differ in their purposes: Looking back retrospectively, “allows people. er. io. to express their pleasure or dissatisfaction with what the government has done” and, thus, they are “potentially a means of holding the government accountable for economic. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. conditions” (Conover, Feldman & Knight 1987: 559). In contrast, prospective evaluations. engchi. allow people to express their view about preferences for future economic development and, therefore, those are rather a “means of shaping economic policy” (Conover, Feldman & Knight 1987: 559; Chappell & Keech 1985). According to rational choice theory, vendors with more business transactions with Chinese tourists, therefore, should be influenced positively in his attitudes. The material incentives they get from this relationship should cause them to alter their attitudes and opinions. This is also the assumption, which has been used by Wu (2005) and many others in their assessment of the public opinion in Taiwan. Although the effect of the incentives is supposed to have a positive effect only, matters are very different for the other aspect of the.

(22) 17. business transaction. Contact, on the contrary to material incentives, might influence attitudes as well and can have a positive and/ or negative influence. When we look at the work of Gordon Allport, who developed the “contact hypothesis” we can find some explanations for this. In his “contact theory”, Allport proposed that prejudice reduction would occur when members of divergent groups met and developed relationships with members of the out-group (Allport 1954). Today many researchers have provided empirical research to support this core proposition in situations where four key conditions are present: equal group status within the situation; common goals; intergroup cooperation; and the support of authorities, law, or custom (Brown & Hewstone 2005;. 政治大. Pettigrew 1998). Therefore, many researchers hold that by increased contact between two groups, the prejudices and attitudes toward the out-group will change to a more positive. 立. status.. ‧ 國. 學. But, as Pettigrew & Tropp (2006) show, the contact hypothesis can also have a negative impact. In fact, Paolini, Harwood & Rubin (2010) demonstrate that the negative. ‧. effect of intergroup contact might even overshadow the positive effect. They predict that negative contact makes individuals more aware of their respective group memberships and. y. Nat. io. sit. confirm this prediction in two studies (Paolini, Harwood & Rubin 2010; Barlow et al 2012).. al. er. This theory does not exactly apply for the present study. Starting by the four core. n. iv n C all of those propositions apply. The conditions h e n gofc anh “equal i U group status within the situation”. propositions of contact theory, we see that in the relationship between China and Taiwan, not and “support of authorities, law, or custom” are at least questionable. But for the “common. goals” and the “intergroup cooperation” the matter is different and it is safe to say that there are considerable differences between both of the groups. This evokes problems with the framework of contact theory, especially as a positive force. Even more importantly, the contact theory also implies “contact” as its most important aspect. While there certainly exist business transactions between both of the sides, this is a very limited experience in terms of time period and quality and it is not sure if the term “contact”, like it is used in the above cited works, even applies to this kind of transactions and can be seen as a process of “developing relationships” as Allport (1954) suggested. As there are many prejudices about.

(23) 18. Mainland Chinese people in Taiwan and the political situation – as well as the historical developments – have shaped the image of Chinese people significantly (for this also see: Gries and Su 2013). The special situation between those two states and the very limited version of a “contact” speak against a useful effect of this theory in the present case. However, we cannot completely disregard the possibility of the contact among vendors and tourists as being important in this framework. But since the theory as developed by Allport does not seem to apply to the present situation, I will consider a limited version of this concept, which is derived by Allport’s ideas and the possible influence to the positive and negative side on the attitudes of the vendors. To shed light on the issue and because of. 政治大. the difficulties of measuring contact and incentives separately, I will measure the business transactions of vendors as a whole and then make use of the qualitative set up of this study to. 立. look into the answers of vendors to try to differentiate between arguments, which do suggest. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. a role of incentives, and arguments supporting the role of the contact.. 2.5 Hypotheses. sit. y. Nat. er. io. By using the research framework outlined above, I want to try to assess the influence of Chinese tourists on the attitudes of night market vendors in Taipei. The set up should allow. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. me to gain insights and to understand how the presence of mainland Chinese tourists on the. engchi. Ningxia Night Market affects the opinions and attitudes of Taiwanese vendors. Therefore, I will start from an evaluation of vendor’s affective identities and then look at the amount of business transaction with the Chinese tourists and categorize the vendors into three distinct groups. A discussion of the vendor’s attitudes toward Chinese tourists, cross-Strait economic integration and alienation from the PRC then gives us the chance to compare the attitudes of vendors with their level of business transactions. At last, an assessment of the quality of the answers on the attitudes will be used to further differentiate the amount of business transactions influence into the effects of incentives and contact..

(24) 19. Chart 1 - Variables. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. Through this analysis, I hope to see whether vendor’s responses show a relationship. ‧. between the business with tourists and their attitudes on the three China related issues and,. y. Nat. thus, gain insights into the quality of this relation for the three different aspects of the. io. sit. attitudes. By looking deeper at the motivation and reasoning behind their answers I hope to. al. er. clarify, whether the attitudes are solely influenced by economic incentives or if contact with. n. iv n C the influence of the tourists on their h attitudes will be analyzed e n g c h i U and a comparison of their. the tourists is also an important factor in this situation. At last, vendor’s self-assessment of. answers and the empirical results will be drawn.. I expect the vendors with more business transactions with Chinese tourists to express more positive or moderate views than those with less benefits (Hypothesis 1). This reflects the assumption that the business transactions with Chinese tourists have a positive effect on the attitudes toward China either through contact or economic incentives. As I expect the effect of incentives to be stronger than that of the contact, those same vendors of the high benefit group should also show a considerable amount of pragmatism and use economic arguments to support their views (Hypothesis 2). This can help to show that the contact as a.

(25) 20. possible factor within the business transactions does not have a positive effect in the situation on the night market or at least is less important than the effect of the economic incentives.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(26) 21. 3. Research Framework The basic idea of this study is to explain how mainland Chinese tourists in Taiwan influence the images and attitudes on cross-Strait related issues among night market vendors in Taipei. As expressed earlier, this study wants to look especially at the economic incentives and the contacts of the Taiwanese vendors and observe their effects by comparing the opinions of vendors with a different exposure to Chinese tourists. In the following section, I will introduce my framework for the in-depth interviews. There are many reasons why I decided to look at night markets for the empirical part.. 政治大 good case study, when doing research on economic incentives and attittudes in Taiwan. This 立 Although this choice might not immediatly come to mind for some, it can serve as a very. is because many of the background conditions are very favorable for the researcher. First, all. ‧ 國. 學. the study objects are located in a somewhat confined area and have very similar business conditions. Logically, all of the businesses on a night market mainly open for the same hours,. ‧. offer very similar goods, and – most of the time – try to address a similar customer base. On top of that, one can expect that vendors themselves also tend to have a largely similar. y. Nat. sit. background. Most of the people working in a restaurant or food both of the night market. al. er. io. probably do not have any college education and have similar career options, fall generally in. n. a similar age group and also seem to roughly have similar ethnic backgrounds. All these. Ch. i n U. v. factors allow for a very good comparability and allow us to focus on the main variables while minimizing the outside factors.. engchi. The second very big advantage that night markets in Taiwan offer for this research is the good environment to study the influence of Chinese tourists. While many night markets have been around for some decades, there have been very recent changes and some of the markets have seen a sharp increase of mainland Chinese tourists. Because this increase of tourists in Taiwan is very well documented and night markets are among the prime destinations for many of the tourists, this offers a very good chance to study the change in incentives and related attitudes among those vendors. In addition, business transactions with the Chinese tourists also affect different night markets and different businesses in a non-.

(27) 22. uniform way. While some night markets register a large increase in tourists, others still mainly serve to local customers. Although some businesses are very popular among tourists, others are not and mostly frequented by the locals. This variation in benefit situations among a comparatively unitary group of vendors, allows for a prime environment to study the effect of Chinese tourists on the attitudes of vendors on China related issues. For my case study, I am going to look at Ningxia Night Market in Zhongshan District of Taipei. Ningxia Night Market offers the researcher all of the above described advantages of night markets and further adds some specific ones, which make it an even better object to conduct research. Located in an area close to the city center, but not in direct contact to any. 政治大. of the major tourism sites, Ningxia Night Market has established itself during the 1940s and ever since attracted customers. The main business always has been food and this is the case. 立. until today with few exceptions of other businesses around (Zhang, Pan 2013). While the. ‧ 國. 學. night market always attracted some tourists, it never really has been one of the top destinations for them and cannot be compared to night markets like the famous Shihlin Night. ‧. Market. This continues to be the case until today, although the number of mainland Chinese tourists increased by a huge share and now makes up an estimated 30% of the customers on. sit. y. Nat. the night market (Lin Dingguo, personal interview, June 7th 2013). While other night markets, like the one in Shilin, always attracted very large number of foreign tourists, the scale of the. io. al. er. development and increase of tourists on the Ningxia Night Market is very new for the. n. iv n C changes and problems of the vendorshwith e nthisgdevelopment c h i U and to study these changes and. vendors. For the research, this is a very good situation. These changes allow us to assess the. its effect on attitudes over a period of time.. Another interesting feature of Ningxia Night Market is the fact that it has been established for a long time and presently also has a very low turnover rate (only about 10% of the businesses change per year; Lin Dingguo, personal interview, June 7th 2013). This means that most of the vendors are working on the night market for several years and gives business owners a good idea of the general business situation and future prospects. It is also important, because almost all of them were around to see the inrease in tourists by themselves and they are able to compare the situation today with the business of former years..

(28) 23. Apart from increase in tourists and the turnover rate, the location of Ningxia Night Market also offers benefits for the empirical research itself. The night market is located almost entirely on Ningxia Road and stretches out in a fairly uniform way. In contrast to many other night markets with a large number of small alleys and sometimes confusing structure, the location of the booths in Ningxia Night Market should be less important than on other comparable night markets. The composition of vendors and businesses also seems to be very consistent and offers a good environment to conduct interviews and assess our main variable of economic incentives. The empirical research for this paper has been conducted by using qualitative. 政治大. interviews of the vendors and business owners on Ningxia Night Market. Each of the interviewees has answered a set of questions and was asked to elaborate on the topic. 立. whenever possible. Interviews lasted about ten to fifteen minutes and concentrated on the. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. following issues.. 3.1 Dependent Variable: Attitude Toward Mainland China. sit. y. Nat. al. er. io. Different questions on the attitudes toward mainland Chinese tourists and cross-Strait. v. n. economic integration, and level of alienation of Taiwanese people from the PRC shall help us. Ch. i n U. to get a picture of respondents’ political views and attitudes. A special attention has been. engchi. directed toward the changes of attitudes over time in all three cases. By comparing the results of these questions with the respondents economic benefits from the Chinese, we then can analyze those two variables and by evaluation of respondents’ answers also get insights into the nature of this relationship. To further examine this relationship, questions about this relationship itself has also been asked and can shed additional light on this issue..

(29) 24. 3.2 Independent variable: Affective Identity. The identity of vendors on different levels is used as a measure of their affective identity. As we have seen, the term affective identity revolves around “stable affective preferences” and is a rather long-term development, which is being conditioned during pre-adult years. Therefore, the measurement of identity used in many works on cross-Strait relations seems to be useful (Chen, Keng, Tu, Huang 2009; Keng, Liu, Chen 2009). In these articles, the identity of subjects is divided into three different levels: group identity, personal identity, and political identity. All of those can be seen in the context of symbolic politics and help us to. 治政 background will account for the personal level, questions大 about the identification as Taiwanese, Chinese or both 立 will give us information on the group identity and, finally, understand the affective identity of the night market vendors. Questions on the ethnic. ‧. ‧ 國. identity.. 學. questions on the party identification will be used for information on the political level of. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. 3.3 Independent Variable: Business Transactions with Chinese Tourists. v. n. The second independent variable in this study will be the business transactions of the vendors. Ch. i n U. at Taiwanese night markets with mainlanders. The measurement of this variable will be. engchi. based on a self-assessment of the vendors of the night markets. Questions regarding the business activities with Chinese tourists have been asked to clarify the amount of business transactions and to evaluate the level of economic benefits each particular vendor enjoys. To further clarify the matter, vendors also have been asked to estimate the share of Chinese customers in their business and been evaluated according to this. A last question asked if in a hypothetical scenario (suddenly no customers from mainland China would come to Taiwan) the business of vendors would suffer. These assessments help us to group vendors accordingly and establish different “benefit groups” divided by their respective amount of business with the tourists..

(30) 25. Another way to assess the economic transactions is to look at the different kinds of businesses. One can expect certain kind of vendors to gain more from the Chinese tourists than others. Especially vendors, which are selling fruit or Taiwanese delicacies, profit from the mainland visitors. Businesses with larger food portions, which take more time to consume, or businesses, which offer textiles or other non-food items, are also expected to benefit less from the tourists, while food stalls with fast delivery and smaller portions or souvenir shops will benefit more. As has been outlined in the theoretical section, the issue of business transactions with Chinese people can itself be conceptually divided into two factors. A similar influence as. 政治大. from economic incentives on the attitudes among vendors could come from the contact with the customers during the business transactions. While the influence of economic incentives is. 立. supposed to be largely positive, the influence of contact is believed to be negative, if it is. ‧ 國. 學. present at all. To clarify this issue and assess the actual role of incentives and contact, the answers of respondents will be analyzed for the motivation of their arguments and the. ‧. reasons they give us for their choices. By looking into these answers we, then, can distinguish between a more rational, economic reasoning or other arguments, which suggest a. y. sit. io. n. al. er. attitudes.. Nat. role of habituation an which one could expect to observe, if the contact would influence the. Ch. engchi. i n U. v.

(31) 26. 4. Interview Analysis Interviews were collected from April 25th to June 6th 2013 during low business hours (23 pm – 2 am) on Ningxia Night Market. In total 23 interviews were collected with one being invalid. Of the 22 valid interviews, 14 vendors were male and 8 female. Most of them were aged from 40-50 (9 interviewees), while six interviewees each were 30-40 and 50-60 years old. One vendor had not finished 30 years of age and was older than 20. An estimated average of the group age adds up to 44 years. Vendors have been chosen based on two variables corresponding to the theoretical. 政治大 mostly uniform group in regards to ethnicity, but to allow for the greatest possible variation 立. framework: ethnic background and amount of business with Chinese. The aim was to find a. in terms of economic transactions with the Chinese tourists. Therefore, the kind of businesses. ‧ 國. 學. among the interviewed vendors varies greatly and includes all kind of Taiwanese delicacies, fruit stands, small restaurants, foreign foods, tourist shops and so on. A focus has been put on. ‧. food, because most of the 180-200 businesses on the night market operate on this business. Of the 22 interviews, 20 have been conducted among restaurants or booths, which sell food. y. Nat. sit. or drinks, and two among vendors involved in other businesses. Of all 22 interviewees, 19. al. er. io. were of Taiwanese origin (benshengren), while only three people have labeled their own families as having Mainland Chinese background (waishengren).. n. iv n C Every single vendor observedhae large increasei inU n g c h Chinese tourists on the night market. during the last two to three years. According to the CEO of the Ningxia International. Delicacy Co, Ltd. (台北寧夏國際美食股份有限公司) the amount of Mainland Chinese tourists has increased about 300% compared to 2010 and these tourists now make up 30% of costumers on the Night Market (Lin Dingguo, personal interview, June 7th 2013). On weekdays without rain, 8000-10000 people come to the Night Market, which implies about 2400-3000 Mainlanders on the night market every day. On weekends those numbers double (Zhang, Pan 2013). This was easily confirmed by the vendors themselves. While the amount of Chinese customers was very different for different businesses, everyone agreed on the fact that there is a very sharp increase in mainland tourists..

(32) 27. Table 1 – Background Information of Vendors and Economic Benefit Categorization. ID No L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6. Gender M F M M M M. Age 50-60 40-50 40-50 20-30 40-50 40-50. Kind of Business Retail Food Food Food Food Food. M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8. M F M M M F M M. 50-60 30-40 30-40 30-40 30-40 40-50 40-50 40-50. Food Food Food Food Taiwanese Delicacy Fruit stand Food Taiwanese Delicacy. H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8. F F M F F M F M. 30-40 40-50 50-60 30-40 50-60 50-60 50-60 40-50. Chinese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Chinese. High High High High High High High High. y. v ni. Store Restaurant and Stall Stall Stall Stall Stall Stall Restaurant. engchi U. Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium. sit er. n. Ch. Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Chinese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese. ‧. io. Retail Taiwanese Delicacy Fruit stand Fruit stand Taiwanese Delicacy Taiwanese Delicacy Taiwanese Delicacy Taiwanese Delicacy. Stall Restaurant Stall Stall Stall Stall Stall Restaurant. 學. Nat. al. Ethnic Background No information Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese. 政治大. ‧ 國. 立. Location Stall Restaurant Restaurant Restaurant Restaurant Restaurant. Economic Benefit Group Low Low Low Low Low Low.

(33) 28. 4.1 Affective Identity. To measure the affective identity of vendors on the night market, interviewees were asked questions on their personal, group, and political identities as well as on their opinion on cross-Strait economic integration. The personal identity or ethnic background of vendors is largely the same. Of the 22 vendors, only three have a family background that leads them to categorize themselves as of mainlander origin (waishengren), while 18 vendors label themselves as having a Taiwanese. 政治大. family background (benshengren). We also see a strong tendency among those vendors in their group identity. Most of them see themselves as being “Taiwanese” instead of “Chinese”. 立. or “Both”. Out of all interviewees, 15 say they would call themselves “Taiwanese”, while. ‧ 國. 學. there is only one vendor, which sees himself as being “Chinese”. Three respondent think they belong to both of those categories and two did not want to answer the question.. ‧. The political identity of vendors was harder to assess. Many of the interviewees did not want to share their views on this topic or claimed to have no tendency in either direction.2. y. Nat. sit. Only five people answered they would support one of the party coalitions. Four of them. er. io. claimed to vote for the blue coalition, while one respondent maintained a tendency for the green coalition. Because we only have very few answers on this topic, it will not be taken. n. al. Ch. i n U. v. into account for the classification of the vendors and I will focus on the personal and the group identity instead.. engchi. These answers show that the interviewed vendors mainly share the same personal and group identities. For the political identity, results are not very expressive. Those results, in general, do not differ too much from the data from the Mainland Affairs Council and the Election Study Center of NCCU. While the share of people with “Taiwanese” origin is comparatively high as intended by the choice of the vendors according to ethnicity and economic benefit situation (See also chapter 4), the tendency of vendors to label themselves 2. Respondents were asked whether they support the blue or the green coalition. Blue coalition includes (KMT, NP and PFP), green coalition includes (DPP, TSU)..

(34) 29. as “Taiwanese” instead of Chinese seems to be in general similar to the data of the recent surveys, although the choice of “both” identities is observed less (Election Study Center NCCU 2013). The data of the political identity does not really tell us much about the political identity of the respondents and is therefore not taken into account for the analysis.. Table 2 – Affective Identity of Night Market Vendors. Ch. Retail Food Food Food Food Food. engchi. y. i n U. Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan. Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese and Chinese Chinese Taiwanese No answer. sit. Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Mainland Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan. er. ‧ 國. n. al. Personal Identity Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese and Chinese Taiwanese Taiwanese No answer Taiwanese Taiwanese and Chinese. ‧. Food Food Food Food Taiwanese delicacy Fruit stand Food Taiwanese delicacy. io. L1 L2 L3 L4 L5 L6. 立. Ethnic Background Mainland Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan Mainland. 政治大. Nat. M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8. Kind of Business Retail Taiwanese delicacy Fruit stand Fruit stand Taiwanese delicacy Taiwanese delicacy Taiwanese delicacy Taiwanese delicacy. 學. Vendor H1 H2 H3 H4 H5 H6 H7 H8. v. No answer Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese Taiwanese.

(35) 30. 4.2 Amount of Business Transactions With Chinese Tourists We find large variation among the perceived business transactions of different vendors. Eight vendors readily admit to have a very good business with Chinese tourists. Two interviewees even estimated the share of Mainlanders among their customers to be above 50% (H4, H5). All of these eight vendors with large benefits were selling Taiwanese delicacies like Stinky Tofu, Fruit, Oyster Omelets, Aiyu Jelly Drinks or Souvenirs for tourists and some of them specifically targeted Chinese customers. Vendors in this group issued statements like “since 2 years they [Chinese tourists] are increasingly influential” (H1), “yes, about 50% of [our] customers are Chinese” (H4) or “yes, many [Chinese] people come here. They probably do influence our business” (H6).. 立. 政治大. The other 14 vendors more or less all said they don’t get large benefits from the. ‧ 國. 學. mainland Chinese tourists. Answers included: “We don’t really benefit from them” (M2), “No, our [business] is already here for more than 40 years. We cannot earn any money off. ‧. them. Our customers are mainly local people” (M6), “Not much. The customers make up for less than 10%” (L4) or “They only look and walk past. Very few buy something.” (L6).. y. Nat. sit. But we can further divide this group, when we look at their perception of the. al. er. io. importance of the tourists for the business. When asked, how a hypothetical scenario. n. iv n C find six of the vendors still reluctanth to admit any influence e n g c h i U on the business: “No, we don’t get any benefit from them. More or less tourists wouldn’t make a significant difference.” (L2). (suddenly all tourists from the mainland would stay away) would influence the business, we. or “They come only very seldom to our store at all. This would absolutely not influence business. It’s best if they do not come at all” (L5). On the other hand, there’s a group of eight vendors, who think this would have an influence on the business situation: “We would have less customers. It probably would influence our business a bit.” (M5) According to the answers to those two questions, we then can divide the vendors into three different groups (see also Table 1):.

(36) 31. -. Large benefit group, which actively targets Chinese customers and earns a lot, if not even the major share of their revenues from the tourists (8). -. Middle benefit group, which does not easily admit to earn a lot of money, but which also in part relies on tourists as a source of income (8). -. Low benefit group, which does not perceive the large number Chinese tourists as a part of their customer base and denies the influence of them in business matters (6). We can use these three groups to compare their attitudes and beliefs in light of those categorizations and therefore get a better understanding of the influence of the business with. 政治大. mainlander tourists on the independent variables. The composition of those groups itself is interesting and confirms our earlier assumptions. As noted above, the large benefit group. 立. consists only of Taiwanese delicacies or tourist oriented businesses. The two other groups. ‧ 國. 學. tend to attract a relatively larger share of local customers and there are some observations, which do suggest explanations for this. At first, the low benefit group consists only of. ‧. businesses, which do not sell any of the “famous” Taiwanese delicacies. Although some of the businesses are very well known on the night market and run their business for many. y. Nat. decades (for example vendors: L4, L5, and L6) their food appears to not be among the “must-. io. sit. eats” for most of the Chinese tourists. The same is true for the businesses L2, L3, and L1,. al. er. which appear to attract almost no tourists and aim almost entirely for locals. Businesses. n. iv n C h eallnofgthem in the large benefit group, although not i U attract that many Chinese c hnecessarily. selling “stinky tofu”, Taiwanese fruits or other “branded” delicacies, however, can be found. customers.. This might be the case, because there also seems to be another factor which is important for the economic benefit here. Apparently, the location also plays a role. When we look at the medium benefit group, we find a large share of Taiwanese delicacies as well as some very regular businesses without any special reputation. In part, this can be explained by the choice of location. While all of the businesses in the low benefit group (with the exception of a retail store) are restaurants with seating, in which a considerable amount of time needs to be spend before consumption, almost all of the businesses in the large benefit group are stalls or.

(37) 32. booths, which offer faster service and the possibility to eat “on the go”. The only two exceptions here are two Taiwanese delicacy restaurants, both of which are in a special position. The first business (H2) also has a small stall on another location of the night market and, therefore, gets the advantages of both business types and the second business (H8) is very different from most other night market businesses and requires a reservation weeks in advance, because they are so popular and do not rely on any passersby customers. Accounting for this, we find a possible explanation why all of the Taiwanese delicacies restaurants with seating are grouped together in the medium benefit group, while many ordinary food stalls also belong to the same group and the large and low benefit group both appear to be very similar in composition.. Future Economic Prospects. 立. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. When asked about the future prospects, most of the vendors do not see any large difference compared to the present situation. The large benefit group does profit very much. ‧. and all of the vendors of this group without any exception expect to gain a good share of any. y. Nat. further increase of Chinese tourists on the night market. In contrast, the low benefit group. sit. largely expects to gain no significant benefits at all from this development. Notably, there are. al. er. io. two exceptions here and one vendor states that “this could influence it [the business situation]. iv n C believes “the more [Chinese] the better” The medium h e(L4). i U benefit group is largely divided h n c g and, while some also hope for a larger share of Chinese tourists in the future (M4), there are n. a little and become more” (L6) and another one also hopes to get more customers and. also other vendors, which actually predict a negative influence on the business situation. For them, the main customer base still constitutes of Taiwanese people and they fear that the amount of tourists scares away many of the Taiwanese customers. They are anticipating a development similar to the popular Shilin Night market in Taipei, which is crowded with tourists from the mainland and from other countries and, therefore, avoided by many local Taiwanese: “[there are] too many Chinese on the night market. I feel they are even more than Taiwanese. Also, I’ve heard that some Taiwanese don't come because of Chinese people. All together I now have less business” (M3), “[If the government allows more Chinese to come.