Shelley Rigger

But the other thing he did was he said, we need to let people travel to the mainland because we've got all these former soldiers and administrators and all these people who came here between 45 and 49.

And they have not seen their parents' graves.

They have not seen their wives and children that they left because they thought they were coming back.

We need to let them go back before it's too late.

So they opened travel to mainland China.

So, you know, a lot of old men get on airplanes, they fly to Hong Kong, then they fly to mainland China.

Well, they've got their sons and sons-in-law with them carrying the luggage.

That's how I imagine it.

And they're not there to see people's graves.

What they see is a spectacular economic opportunity.

This is China 10 years into reform and opening.

So Deng Xiaoping has told every local official, you got to make GDP happen in your locality, right?

Find ways to grow.

Find ways to bring industry into your village.

And here are these Taiwanese guys.

They own manufacturing businesses back in Taiwan, and they're being approached at the airport.

by local officials from Chinese villages who say, I can give you land, I can give you a building, I can give you a workforce that will be well-behaved and very low paid.

I will not make you pay taxes for the first many years that you're here.

I will set everything up for you if you will open a factory here.

So between 1987 and about 1992,