Abstract
Since 2008, because of the global financial crisis and the transformation of Chinese regulatory regime on industrial and environmental policies, some of Taiwanese investors (Taishang) have started to move their factories from Chinese coastal to inland areas. Former studies on Taiwanese investors always focus on business management thinking, but unable to explain how Taishang decided to invested in inland province. Therefore, in the paper, I use a garment enterprise located in the Yangtze Delta region as a case to examine how they rely on social relations to overcome the problems of policy uncertainty and the lack of institutional transparency in China, the role of local officials in particular. In this study, I highlight the role of social relations in illustrating the diversity of Taishang migration decision. Moreover, the concept of “diversified re-embeddedness” in social relations can help us understand why it is impossible for Taishang to have another enclave economy in Chinese inland areas, just as they did in the Pearl River and Yangtze River Delta.