“Made in Taiwan” oscillates between the description of a specifi c place and a broader critical refl ection regarding the relationship between space and modes of production. Taiwan stands as an exceptional case of a newly developed country where the disjunction between State and Society, along with a certain autonomy of economics from politics, favored explosive economic development and wide societal improvement. With the knowledge-based economy setting a new global paradigm of production, Taiwan offers an opportunity to refl ect on the spatial implications of such a paradigm. The precipitous process of modernisation was matched by the development of a distinctive landscape of dispersed Taiwanese industry – based on the redundancy of special tax-exempt zones and a continuous urbanisation – which materialised in the extensive occupation of the island’s western plain.
