30-Second Overview:
The Ten Major Construction Projects were a series of heavy infrastructure initiatives promoted in Taiwan during the 1970s, spanning transportation, heavy industry, and energy.
At the time, Taiwan was caught between diplomatic setbacks and the oil crisis. Under the slogan, “If we do not do this today, we will regret it tomorrow,”
the government invested funds equivalent to roughly eight times Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves at the time. This gamble laid the foundation for Taiwan’s industrial upgrading,
but it also left decades of controversy and social costs because of high levels of state-capital monopoly and neglect of environmental costs.
“If we do not do this today, we will regret it tomorrow.”1 When Chiang Ching-kuo, then premier of the Executive Yuan, uttered this famous line in the Legislative Yuan in November 1973, Taiwan was at one of the lowest points in its history.
That year, the first oil crisis broke out, the global economy fell into recession, and Taiwan’s inflation rate soared to 47.5%.2 Worse still, Taiwan had withdrawn from the United Nations just two years earlier, and the shadow of diplomatic isolation hung over the entire island. Against this backdrop, the government announced a plan whose total budget was counted in the hundreds of billions, ultimately costing approximately NT$209.4 billion.3 At the time, Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves were only about US$1 billion.4 It was a gamble on the nation’s future.
Origins: A “Defense of Domestic Demand” Forced by Crisis
The proposal for the Ten Major Construction Projects was less the product of long-term planning made possible by fiscal abundance than an emergency response to crisis. After U.S. aid ended in 1965,5 Taiwan’s economy had taken off, but its infrastructure was gradually approaching its carrying limits. The main north-south railway was still single-track, road transport depended on narrow provincial highways, and port congestion and electricity shortages became bottlenecks for development.6
📝 Curator’s Note: The core logic of the Ten Major Construction Projects was to create domestic demand through large-scale public investment, in order to counter recessionary pressure brought by external economic turbulence.
The ten projects included:
- Transportation (6 projects): the Sun Yat-sen Freeway (the north-south freeway), railway electrification, the North-Link Railway, Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (now Taoyuan International Airport), Taichung Port, and Suao Port.
- Heavy industry (3 projects): China Steel Corporation (the major steel mill), China Shipbuilding Corporation (the major shipyard), and the petrochemical industry (petrochemical industrial zones).
- Energy (1 project): the First Nuclear Power Plant.
Controversy: A Self-Created Miracle, or the Harvesting of a Japanese Colonial Legacy?
In official narratives, the Ten Major Construction Projects have often been framed as the product of the foresight of Chiang Ching-kuo and “technocrats” such as Sun Yun-suan and K. T. Li.7 Yet the historical details show that the blueprints for some projects had already taken shape during the period of Japanese rule.
The clearest example is the railway. The development path of the Taiwan Railway, from steam to fuel-powered trains and then to electrification, in fact continued plans Japan had been unable to complete in the 1930s because of the war. In the 1960s, the Taiwan Railway Administration also used U.S. aid to update rolling stock and promote dieselization, effectively completing unfinished work from that earlier era.8 In other words, on these projects, the Kuomintang government did not “invent” everything from scratch. More often, it restarted the technical foundations laid during Japanese rule under the conditions of the Cold War. Some commentators have also argued that Sun Yun-suan’s record of restoring about 80% of electricity supply within five months after the war was built partly on the technical base left by Japanese engineers and the efforts of local Taiwanese engineers.9
The Black Box Behind Decision-Making: K. T. Li’s “Complete Ignorance”
Although he was later regarded as a hero of economic development, the finance minister at the time, K. T. Li, reportedly knew nothing in advance when Chiang Ching-kuo announced the Ten Major Construction Projects, and many financial and economic officials were also kept in the dark.10 This shows that the Ten Major Construction Projects were, at the time, the product of highly centralized decision-making. Li later described public construction on this scale as “craving greatness and success” and “exaggerated,” and felt enormous pressure when raising the necessary funds.11
To pay for the huge expenditure, Li subsequently did his best to help raise funds, including by borrowing from Saudi Arabia.12 At the time, the budget was about 2.5 times the central government’s annual expenditure.13 Had later economic growth not followed, this gamble could very easily have turned into a fiscal disaster.
Scene: From the “Highway to Heaven” to the National Freeway
Before construction began on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway, Taiwan’s first expressway was the “MacArthur Highway,” built with the support of U.S. aid.14 Yet the MacArthur Highway was narrow and had no median strip. Passing oncoming vehicles at 100 kilometers per hour led people to mockingly call it the “expressway to heaven.”15
Construction of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway officially began in 1971. It was not only for transportation; there were also military considerations. Its emergency runway design was intended to allow fighter jets to take off and land if airports were destroyed in wartime.16 Its cut-section road design was intended to serve as a delaying line of defense in the event of an enemy landing.17 This turn toward “freewayism” was also closely connected to the cultivation of the domestic automobile industry at the time, including companies such as Yulon.18
Impact: A Structural Shift from Light Industry to Heavy Industry
After the Ten Major Construction Projects were completed, Taiwan’s economic structure changed fundamentally. The steel supplied by China Steel, the giant ships built by China Shipbuilding, and the raw materials produced in petrochemical industrial zones enabled Taiwan to turn from “contract assembly” into an economy with a foundation in heavy and chemical industry.19
- Economic data: During the construction period, Taiwan’s economic growth rate rebounded to about 13.5% in 1976, setting a record high at the time.20
- Social change: The opening of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway made a “one-day living circle” across Taiwan possible and narrowed the urban-rural gap.21
- Railway transformation: After the North-Link Railway opened, it connected eastern and western Taiwan. A line originally expected to lose money unexpectedly became a golden route for the Taiwan Railway Administration.22
Challenges: The Shadows Behind the Hardware Miracle
However, the Ten Major Construction Projects also left profound side effects. Critics point out that the expansion of heavy and chemical industry came with considerable environmental costs and was achieved at the expense of lower-level workers.23 Some commentators have also argued that party-state enterprises such as the Veterans Affairs Council’s Retired Servicemen’s Engineering Agency monopolized project contracting through single-price negotiation, crowding out competitive space for private construction firms.24
Environmental pollution was among the most controversial aspects. Commentators have criticized the environmental debt created by the petrochemical and heavy industries as a burden shifted onto the public over many years.25 Economist Ma Kai has also reflected that this mode of “governing through engineering” entrenched the later governmental habit of responding to economic downturns by “spending lavishly” on infrastructure.26
Conclusion: What the Projects Left Behind Was More Than Hardware
The Ten Major Construction Projects were not only the skeleton of Taiwan’s economic miracle; they were also a mirror. They reflected the survival anxiety of Taiwanese society in the face of isolation, and they also showed the wisdom of technocrats seeking development within the narrow openings of authoritarian rule. As we enjoy the convenience of freeways and airports today, we should not forget that they came from an era when foreign exchange reserves amounted to only US$1 billion, and from an all-or-nothing adventure.
Perhaps the most precious legacy this construction drive left Taiwan was not those ports or factories, but the collective memory of “daring to make the hardest decisions at the poorest moment.”
References
- 十大建設 - 維基百科 — Background to Chiang Ching-kuo’s famous statement, “If we do not do this today, we will regret it tomorrow.”↩
- 何謂通貨膨脹？肇因為何？ — Data on Taiwan’s inflation rate in 1974.↩
- 建國百年系列專題：十大建設台灣經濟破繭 - Yahoo新聞（中央廣播電臺） — “The Ten Major Construction Projects cost a total of NT$209.4 billion.”↩
- 建國百年系列專題：十大建設台灣經濟破繭 — Data on foreign exchange reserves at the time.↩
- 美援 - 維基百科 — “In July 1965, Washington stopped aid loans to the Republic of China”; U.S. aid ended in 1965.↩
- 003 支援十大建設經費需求 - 行政院主計總處 — Description of the bottlenecks caused by insufficient public investment in the late 1960s.↩
- 經國先生與十大建設 — Contributions of leaders and technocrats from an official perspective.↩
- 從日本時代到「十大建設」，臺灣鐵路是如何蓋成的？ - 故事 StoryStudio — “Equivalent to completing the plans Japan had been unable to finish in the 1930s because of the war”; railway electrification and dieselization continued unfinished work from the Japanese colonial period.↩
- 揭開蔣經國十大建設的歷史真相 — Southern Express “Whale Viewpoint” commentary column questioning whether the Sun Yun-suan electricity restoration myth was built on the foundation of Japanese engineers and local engineers (a commentary perspective).↩
- 十大建設 - 維基百科 — “K. T. Li, then minister of finance, knew nothing about it, and many financial and economic officials were also kept in the dark beforehand” (same Wikipedia entry as [^1], [^12], [^13], and [^22], citing different sections).↩
- 十大建設 - 維基百科 — “Afterward, Li described this kind of public construction as ‘craving greatness and success’ and ‘exaggerated.’”↩
- 十大建設 - 維基百科 — “Afterward, Li did his best to help raise funds, including seeking funds from Saudi Arabia.”↩
- 韋端：支援十大建設經費需求 — The budget scale and its ratio to central government annual expenditure.↩
- 臺灣第一條快速道路：麥克阿瑟公路 — Background to the construction of the MacArthur Highway and U.S. aid.↩
- 麥帥公路：升天快速道路 — Safety controversies after the opening of the MacArthur Highway.↩
- 中山高速公路的戰備跑道設計 — National defense and military-use considerations.↩
- 中山高路塹設計的戰略意義 — Defensive function for delaying enemy advances.↩
- 汽車工業發展方案與中山高 — How policy orientation fostered the automobile industry.↩
- 十大建設台灣經濟破繭 - Yahoo新聞 — Industrial upgrading and the impact of heavy industrialization.↩
- 建國百年系列專題：十大建設台灣經濟破繭 - Yahoo新聞（中央廣播電臺） — “By 1976, relevant data had improved; the economic growth rate was 13.5%, setting a historic high.”↩
- 十大建設 - 維基百科 — “Transport capacity increased and doubled road transport capacity on the main island of Taiwan.”↩
- 北迴線：幹掉公路的台鐵黃金線 — The history of the North-Link Railway turning from loss to profit.↩
- 剝除威權恩典的濾鏡：解構十大建設 — Southern Express “Whale Viewpoint” commentary column criticizing the environmental costs of heavy industry and the sacrifice of lower-level workers (a commentary perspective).↩
- 榮工處黑金工程大本營的背後 — Southern Express “Whale Viewpoint” commentary column accusing the Veterans Affairs Council’s Retired Servicemen’s Engineering Agency of monopolizing project contracting through single-price negotiation (a commentary perspective).↩
- 揭開十大建設的神話迷霧 — Commentary article arguing that environmental pollution and social costs were borne by the public (a commentary perspective).↩
- 馬凱：愛台十二建設是個錯誤 — Economist Ma Kai’s reflection on the mentality of “governing through engineering” (the commentary’s main subject is the “Twelve i-Taiwan Projects,” extending to the infrastructure habit since the Ten Major Construction Projects).↩