Border-Generated Value: Differential Economies in the Taiwan–China Cross-Strait Frontier

• In Event: Economic Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 2: Migration and Development

Abstract

This paper explores how borders function as economic institutions that generate structured asymmetries through which value is produced. Drawing on ethnographic research in Kinmen, Taiwan’s offshore island bordering China, it analyzes how small-scale cross-border traders mobilize regulatory, market, symbolic, production, quality, and infrastructural differences as livelihood strategies. Rather than treating informal trade as marginal or illicit, the paper conceptualizes border-generated value as arising from structured institutional divergence across sovereign regimes.
Based on twelve in-depth interviews with traders, sustained field observation at cross-border ferry terminals, and ongoing communication with key informants, the study documents directional commodity flows between Kinmen and Xiamen. Goods moving from Kinmen to Xiamen, including infant formula, alcohol, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and Taiwanese packaged foods, are shaped by the interaction of regulatory, symbolic, and quality, infrastructural differentials. Goods moving from Xiamen to Kinmen, such as dried seafood, agricultural products, cigarettes, and packaged foods, are driven primarily by market, production, and infrastructural differentials.
Building on economic sociology and border studies, the paper argues that borders do not merely constrain markets but actively structure economic opportunity by producing calculable asymmetries. Traders do not evade state regulation; they interpret and operationalize sovereign classifications, transforming regulatory thresholds into economic strategies. While the Taiwan–China frontier is often framed as a potential geopolitical flashpoint, the study demonstrates that it simultaneously operates as an economic and social borderland characterized by patterned exchange and conditional interdependence. The concept of differential economies captures how economic formations emerge through divergence rather than integration, contributing to economic sociology by grounding institutional theories of markets in ethnographic analysis of border practices.

Author

• Hsiu-hua Shen, National Tsing-Hua University