Productivity, cohesion and dignity: the contestation of migration policy under the first Tsai Ing-wen administration

This chapter argues that migration is a politics of contestation that is embodied by the negotiations amongst different actors as well as by the resultant conflicting values pursued by these actors. The stress on contestation is an attempt at answering a fundamental question raised by this chapter: why would migration policy of host states often appear self-contradictory when making choices between opening their market and closing their national community? To answer this question, this chapter uses the migration policy undertaken by the government of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) under Tsai Ing-wen presidency (2016-2020) as a case study and argues that the contradiction is a result of politics of contestation. Viewing migration policy as a politics of contestation, this chapter argues that major actors whose actions constitute the contestation include, but not restricted to, the receiving state, market, migrants and civil society. Migration policy appears self-contradictory between the interests of an open market and a closed national community because of migrants’ inherent heterogeneity intersected by class, gender and ethnicity. Projected by the conflicting values of productivity, cohesion and dignity, this contradiction is brought about by the contestation amongst these four major actors.