If you have a special interest in Taiwan, this collection of studies by various authors is probably worth its heavy weight of information, all pointing to the question of "One China or not?" The answer is difficult. Taiwan was not populated by Chinese until the end of the 17th century. Japan seized it in 1895 and retained control up to 1945, but in the 1940s, Mao actually told Edgar Snow that after the Chinese Communists defeated the Japanese, he would let Taiwan become independent. According to the Cairo Declaration of the World War II Allies, Taiwan had been "stolen" from China; the implication was that Taiwan belonged to the Nationalist government, which was assumed to represent all China. The Japanese occupation modernized the island and created much industry and infrastructure. All the same, by the time of the Korean War, the "one China" concept was firmly established. Taiwan and the mainland considered themselves parts of one nation. The question was, and still is, "Which government?' .
But internationally, Taiwan was isolated, recognized by only a few poor countries. The old Nationalist, Chiang Kai-Shek, ruled the island autocratically, banning alternative political parties. There was little economic development. Even after Kissinger's opening of the Mainland, Taiwan's international standing did not improve and Taiwan lost its seat in the United Nations, which was taken by the Mainland. But in response to pressure within the US, aid was increased, and high direct investment created rapid economic growth. Taiwan still hoped for a union with the mainland even as the nation democratized and differences in culture and political organization became more pronounced. After Chiang's death in 1975, the privileged position of the Nationalist ex-mainlanders who had fled with him in 1949 diminished and native-born Taiwanese came to the fore. Additional political parties to the Nationalists developed, most notably the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which wants Taiwan to be wholly independent of mainland China. Others theorize about a loose two-state federation, but the attitude of the Mainland remains rigid.
This book has a complex chapter on "Economic Linkage" which reveals how deeply the one-state issue is intertwined in Taiwanese affairs. Since the 1990s, China has been consuming a larger and larger share of Taiwanese exports while importing a larger share of goods from Taiwan. However Taiwan is not a crucial export market for China. The author contends that China will probably not impose economic sanctions on Taiwan because the cost of replacing Taiwanese investment in China or suspending trade with Taiwan would be very high. In Taiwan, there is fear that Taiwanese business acts as a lobby working to increase Taiwanese dependence on China. "In a sense, the United States continues to be Taiwan's largest trade partner, as it used to be, only now Taiwan's exports are routed through the assembly lines in China." (p.105) This reflects China's advantage in low-cost labor. In terms of average per capita income, China is very poor and will remain so for some time.
Reading this book I felt a definite impatience at what appears to be Taiwanese fecklessness in dealing with the serious problems of their situation. One of the authors evaluates Taiwan's progress toward democratization with three yardsticks (developed by the political scientist Larry Diamond.) (1) One yardstick is "democratic deepening ", "the progress in becoming more liberal in such matters as respecting citizens' rights and becoming more accountable and more representative of public preferences and interests". Here, Taiwan has been improving ever since 70's when the regime began liberalizing in order to pull itself out of international isolation. (2) Another yardstick is "political institutionalization", defined as the introduction of "routinized, recurrent and predictable patterns of political behavior". But Taiwan's politics suffers frequent gridlock because of stalemate between legislative and executive branches. There are proposals to rewrite the constitution and changes are made but they don't seem to work. (3) A third and final yardstick is "regime performance", which is "the ability to provide the public policy outcomes, both political and economic, that citizens desire." If regime performance is inadequate, citizens may want to revert to authoritarian rule. Despite the failings of their government the Taiwanese do not want any such reversion.
There is much information here but it is clumsily presented. If you are a beginner you should read a more elementary book first, maybe Ted Carpenter's 'America's Coming War with China".
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