But now those firms are feeling the strain from cross-Strait tensions that have stoked safety fears among companies.
But their numbers have dwindled in recent years, with the number of Taiwanese working in China dropping from 409,000 in 2009 to 177,000 in 2022, according to estimates provided to AFP by the Straits Exchange Foundation, an unofficial intermediary between Taipei and Beijing.
But James Lee, a 78-year-old Taiwanese industrialist who was forced to close his cable and electrical outlet factory in southern Guangdong province in 2022, blames “politics”.
“We Taiwanese businessmen are afraid.”
Perhaps the most famous of them is Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn whose vast factories in China churn out iPhones that have helped make it the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer.
An hour’s drive from economic powerhouse Shanghai, Kunshan has been a key hub for Taiwanese-owned industry in China since the 1990s.
“Taiwanese companies were fortunate to coincide with the 30 most glorious years of Chinese manufacturing,“ she said.
At the height of the boom, Kunshan was home to more than 100,000 Taiwanese, according to unofficial figures from local associations.
And the Taishang have felt the squeeze as relations between Taipei and Beijing plunge to their lowest depths in years.
New rules, which also encourage citizens to report alleged pro-independence activities, have had a chilling effect on Taiwanese businesses in mainland China.
“The initial favourable conditions have disappeared, and now there are many additional risks,“ Luo Wen-jia, vice chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, told AFP.
“When we first went there, we thought that China’s economy would continue to improve because its market is so large and its population is so big,“ Leon Chen, a Taiwanese businessman who worked at a battery component factory in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, said.
Caught in crossfire
“Some went to Vietnam, and some went to Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, and some returned to Taiwan,“ Luo said.
Over the same period, those to mainland China fell 62 percent, according to the same source.
And as Beijing launches military drills practising a blockade of Taiwan and Taipei cracks down on Chinese spies, Taishang risk being caught in the crossfire.
“There is no way to compare it with the heyday but we can still make ends meet,“ said Chen.
“If the environment for doing business in China becomes worse and worse, we would have no choice but to leave.”
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