This research is primarily concerned with the formation of discourses of historic preservation in Taiwan and how they inform national policies at different historical stages. My analysis will focus on two pivotal national policies related to historic preservation, namely, the Cultural Assets Preservation Law passed in 1982 and the Promoting Integrated Community Development program launched in 1994. In discussing each preservation policy, I will first look at the various conceptions of historic preservation proposed by preservationists and the assumption inherent in these conceptions of historic preservation. The analysis of these conceptions of historic preservation will then be followed by an examination of how and why these conceptions about historic preservation are incorporated into policy by the state. After a comparison of these two sets of discourses and policies, I will attempt to demonstrate that the dominant definitions and social meanings of historic preservation in Taiwan have been closely related to Taiwan's economic, political, and cultural relations with the global cultural economy at different historic moments.