# Tsai launches the New Southbound Policy

Date: 2016

## The fact

In 2016 Tsai launched the New Southbound Policy to diversify trade and people flows toward Southeast and South Asia.

## Context

MOEA implements. She did not write an ASEAN charter. A brand is still a dated industrial-policy instrument.

Defence growth is a neighbouring security row. Xi is a related-person adversary file.

The president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is head of state under the Additional Articles. She does not write a PRC statute, a US NDAA, a TSMC board minute, or a 2026 Lai cabinet order. She left office on 20 May 2024; [Lai Ching-te](/people/lai-ching-te) is president. A blackout is not a finding that every reactor was thereby safe. A Pelosi transit is not a PRC missile. Allegation of a stolen 2018 referendum is not stored as a completed steal. An indigenous apology is not a land-title gazette. A New Southbound brand is not an FTA by itself. A 2024 LY split is not a finding that the 2020 mandate was void.

## Evidence and sources

Ministry of Economic Affairs Taiwan carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently.

## Significance

The path is [industrial-policy activism](/drivers/industrial-policy-activism): a completed southbound brand can diversify trade, with China still the largest partner as a leak.

## What is established and what is not

Established: a 2016 New Southbound launch, independently reported.

Not established: that China trade vanished, or a unique later GDP coefficient from the brand.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

MOEA implemented. Firms invested. ASEAN hosts received.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Tsai launches the New Southbound Policy, not a later speech about Tsai launches the New Southbound Policy.

Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Tsai launches the New Southbound Policy on 2016-08-16 is not a licence to treat every later Ministry of Economic Affairs Taiwan communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Tsai launches the New Southbound Policy into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to She launched. MOEA implemented. Firms invested. ASEAN hosts received. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series.

## People

- Tsai Ing-wen: https://factrail.ai/people/tsai-ing-wen

## Drivers

- Industrial-Policy Activism: https://factrail.ai/drivers/industrial-policy-activism

## Sources

- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-southbound-idUSKCN10L0K4
- https://newsouthboundpolicy.trade.gov.tw/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/tw-tsai-southbound-2016