This is Venus Upadhayaya’s conversation with Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli, Dean, School of International Studies, JawaharLal Nehru University, New Delhi on how to build social capital between India and Taiwan. Kondapalli is also a professor of Chinese studies and the Chairman of the Centre for East Asian Studies at the JNU.

Building joint social capital would first involve reflecting on a few questions: What are the problems that we are facing, and how do we resolve them? How do we chart out the India-Taiwan relations? What benefits does the Indo-Pacific concept bring to India and Taiwan, or specific areas like maritime issues, technology issues, health issues–like we had the COVID-19 or climate change issues, or critical technologies like quantum computing, 5G technologies. I mean, these are futuristic. These are useful. 

SEMICONDUCTORS–So let’s reflect on the semiconductor industry–you saw Trump announcing TSMC’s $100 billion investment in Arizona. So that’s a big announcement–$100 billion, I mean!–Taiwan’s GDP is some $400 or $500 billion. And one company is alone investing $100 billion. So these are big things. You can have a section on the semiconductor industry, because India also has the Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt. Ltd (TSAT) investing in Assam and Gujarat. [In Gujarat at Dholera, TSAT is setting up a plant along with two Taiwanese companies–the Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (PSMC) and Himax Technologies.]

MORE INVESTMENT–Even now Taiwan’s overall investment in India is just $4.46 billion. This means there’s a lot of scope for more investment–India has a 400-500 million consumer base, why can’t Taiwan enter the Indian market–textiles, high end apparel, manufactured goods etc. 

Since your arrival in Taiwan, you may have tried the MRT (Mass Rapid Transport). It’s so efficient in Taiwan! LNT [Larsen and Toubro Limited] in India is expanding its rapid trains [called Metro in India] to some 23 new lines in India. So why can’t MRT Taiwan collaborate with Indian companies? 

TIE-UPS BETWEEN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS–This social capital could also include chambers of commerce and industry, because there is a lot of money here, and you are bringing together the two sections in India and in Taiwan. It is important to find ways to bring both sides together, say, the Confederation of Indian Industry, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and ROC’s National Federation of Chambers of Commerce. So big money can be involved–hundreds of billions of dollars–if there is a meeting of the minds. Taiwan is known for SMEs [Small and Medium Enterprises]. So why not bring together the SMEs from both sides together? SMEs would be millions in India. This is practical and doable! 

India has $60 million registered SMEs as of March 2024.

Indian Ministry of Micro,Small & Medium Enterprises

The SMEs have become quite prosperous in Taiwan especially in noodle making, leather making and in other sectors, which are also very useful in India and lucrative in India. For example, you may have gone to the street shops in Taiwan, you will find different kinds of shoes, slippers for different occasions, and for a rainy season you may find umbrellas, overcoats–all of these are generated by SMEs.

Small household can generate all of these for the entire Taiwan but in India, we have to cater to a 500-600 million consumer base, the prospect is higher. Taiwan’s population is just 23 million. So if you make 23 million pairs of shoes, then it is okay in Taiwan. But in India, you’ll have to make 400 million. So if you bring down the price to say 20 rupees, 30 rupees, you will sell it like hot cakes in India. That Taiwanese producer can become a billionaire. The Taiwanese went into China because of the almost same language. So they made a lot of money in the Chinese market. But now China is becoming smart. They are not allowing these people. So this is the right time for the Indian market to click for Taiwan.

BUBBLE TEA INNOVATION–For example, there is this bubble tea in Taiwan which is a simple technology. It’s a Taiwanese innovation.

We [Indians] drink Chai everywhere, and this bubble tea has possibly some health benefits. There are other food products. So, this is big–I’m just giving an example! What I’m saying is one or two makes no difference. Yes, we should have 1000s of these bubble tea outlets in India. You go to other places in South East Asia, there are 1000s of these Taiwanese bubble tea vendors.

Bubble Tea originated in the mid-1980s at Chun Shui Tang, a teahouse in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, when manager Liu Hsiu-hui added milk and her favorite dessert, fenyuan or tapioca balls, into some of the tea drinks.

Taiwan Today

AGRICULTURE–Taiwanese are also good at bamboo cultivation. So the farming community, what I see in Taiwan, when I go and travel, they just leave all their machinery, agricultural machinery on the farm, and there is nobody to do any farming. Of course, they have some religious sentiments related to rice cultivation, like the Japanese, so they cultivate only that much portion of rice and then leave everything aside, because in the industry sector, they earn more money than they do in agriculture. 

So instead of spending money and time on agriculture, they will spend time on, say, the semiconductor industry, which is more rewarding. So many people in rural areas have actually left everything and migrated to Taichung or Taipei or other cities. 

But there are still agricultural communities in Taiwan and they practice advanced, mechanised farming. So social capital should be built between these agricultural markets, going to the village communities, or even consulting the agriculture ministry. The agricultural ministries in India and Taiwan should also be tied up. We also have farmers associations in every village, in every place, an interaction between these two in India and Taiwan can be facilitated through virtual meetings first. 

Second, their agriculture is highly mechanized. They don’t put their hands on the soil. It is all mechanized and effortless. On the other hand, in India, we toil a lot. We muddy our hands while all of them wear gloves. I mean, this is a big sector for bilateral collaboration that needs focus. 

EARLY CARE EDUCATION–We all want to highlight big things like the Space Program, semiconductors etc, but instead we need to focus on smaller, visionary things like the Anganwadis (child care centers in India’s grassroots). Nobody really pursues this because maybe these are tedious, maybe these are less lucrative. The Taiwanese also have similar organizations where, especially women dominate participation in these activities. 

So maybe there can be a project about bringing together a few Anganwadis in India and the community day care centers in Taiwan, particularly from the interior countryside where people are still in the village and don’t want to leave ancestral land due to some religious thing or some sentiment. 

DISABILITY SECTOR–Another sector that can bring these two communities together is the disability sector. The Taiwanese are very sensitive about the differently abled or special needs people. You will see everywhere in Taiwan various facilities being created for them. We can bring together some special needs organizations, some societies or committees or even National Human Rights Commissions from both sides together for an interaction.

Researchers can be mobilized to look into how collaborative work can be done to improve Indian democracy by learning from Taiwanese democracy and vice versa. Yes, what is the best part of Taiwanese democracy? What is the best part of Indian democracy? For instance in India, we have elections often at one or the other level of our federated structure. Taiwanese can go to one of these polling booths, they can go to one of these political parties headquarters and invite collaboration.

Much can be explored, for example the Taiwanese have ballot boxes and ballot papers. We don’t have ballot papers. We have the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). So why can’t India collaborate with Taiwan on EVMs? We can manufacture and send them across. India had over 900 million registered voters in the 2024 national elections and over 640 million voted. 

ARTISANS & HANDICRAFTS–Both India and Taiwan are known for their handicrafts. And India has a massive and diverse handicrafts industry. Yes, we want to bring our handicrafts under the rapidly growing manufacturing sector. A lot of them have been wiped off! I mean, the sky’s the limit for collaboration in this sector. 

I’m just saying that initially let’s have a virtual meeting so that it is easier. And if things click, then this will go on their own, because the Taiwanese have launched a new Southbound policy and within this policy they have a NGO network. So these artisans’ communities or bodies will fit under it and can finance all of them. Suppose if some Taiwanese artisans want to come to India and they want to collaborate with, say, Delhi–virtual meetings will not do so. Somebody has to come here or somebody has to go from here to Taiwan. 

Work on organizing these things–put up a small society of volunteers who can help in this process, generate ideas on that. We would also need a lot of translators for these interactions. Taiwanese are willing to finance all those, provided the actual social capital is generated. 

India exported handicrafts worth 149 billion Indian rupees in 2024 contributing majorly to India’s rural economy. Taiwan exports handicrafts worth $2 million annually.

statista/ Taiwan today

FISHING COMMUNITIES–Another area of collaboration is environmental issues and yet another scope is of interaction between fishing communities. Maybe an interaction between some fishing community in Taichung and say, some in Chennai or Orissa. The Taiwanese use a lot of mechanized trawlers, but we still use a lot of these nets and manual processes. So collaboration between these two fishermen communities can be rewarding. 

ART & CINEMA–Why can’t you have a movie, co-funded, co-produced, directed. Both Taiwan and India have people of international repute in cinema and arts.  Ang Lee, the director of Oscar awarded film, Life of Pi is a Taiwanese filmmaker. 

A joint production could reflect the Indian and Taiwanese aspirational societies. I remember Three Idiots was a popular film in Taiwan at the time because most young people have experienced the academic frustrations depicted in the film. The Taiwanese also study for a degree and they don’t want to go for higher studies. In India, you find everybody wants to go for higher learning, but the productivity levels are low, so there is a problem. So how do we solve this? A movie or a theater joint production could help deliver the right message.