Taiwan's Economic Relations with Mainland China

At the beginning of the 1990s, the general impression in the West of Taiwan and mainland China is characterized by a growing admiration for the Taiwan miracle and a lingering disgust over the Tiananmen affair on the mainland. It has become increasingly evident that Taiwan's quiet economic revolution of the past four decades has transformed its economy from one of poverty into one of prosperity: its per capita income has already surpassed that of the United Kingdom of the mid-1980s; its foreign exchange reserve is on a par with, and sometimes surpasses, that of Japan, the number one country in accumulated reserve; its income distribution is relatively even; and unemployment is virtually nonexistent. Moreover, the ruling party has voluntarily given up its monopoly on power and has introduced a multiparty system. In contrast, the Deng-era image of reform and openness on the mainland was rudely shattered by the nightmarish pictures of the 4 June 1989 tragedy brought to almost every living room in the West by the ubiquitous television set. At the same time, the collapse of the old regimes in the

Archaeology · China · Geography · Mainland China · Political science · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics