10 Chapter 1 that Taipei and Beijing are destined to fight.Taiwan's people have shown themselves willing to accept a diminished status if doing so will allow them to continue to enjoy de facto independence-including a democratic politi- 2 cal system.It is not their first choice,but it is a compromise most can live with,so long as they can be,for themselves,the end,and not the means. A harder question to answer is whether the People's Republic of China will make a similar compromise by relinquishing its demand for effective Building Taiwan sovereignty over Taiwan in exchange for a peaceful,stable,and coopera- tive relationship between the two sides-including a promise that Taiwan will not challenge China's ultimate claim.If the two sides can build such a relationship and avoid conflict,their economic and political systems might someday converge,creating an opportunity for mutually acceptable politi- cal integration.But that is a process that cannot be rushed.In the mean- time,it is enough to "preserve the way things are now." Cold,misty rain is falling but the ground is boiling under the feet of twenty third-graders milling around a platform on Seven Stars Mountain.They are less than an hour's drive from their elementary school on the opposite slope of the basin cradling Taipei City,but they might imagine they are on another planet.Above them,peaks cloaked in head-high grasses disappear into the clouds;at 2,624 feet above sea level,the children are above the tree line,but the mountain towers over them.They hold their noses and squint into billows of sulfurous steam hissing out of yellowed crevasses in the heat-softened mountainside.Squatting to warm their hands at the edge of the massive fumarole-a volcanic vent that releases heat,gas,and minerals from deep within the earth-these Taiwanese schoolchildren can feel their island home exhaling. Taiwan is a link in the chain of volcanic islands known as the Pacific Ring of Fire,and here at the fumarole that geologic fact impresses itself on all five senses.Volcanic eruptions and their aftereffects built an island of fourteen thousand square miles (thirty-six thousand square km),about the size of Maryland and Delaware combined.Shaped like a leaf,Taiwan is dominated by high,rugged mountains.Its tallest peak,Mount Jade,towers more than thirteen thousand feet above sea level.The earth's restless activity contin- ues to reshape the landscape.An earthquake in September 1999 sliced the tops off some mountains and thrust others up.The summit of Mount Jade vaulted several meters in the 1999 quake. Except for the Taipei basin and neighboring alluvial plains,mountainous terrain dominates the island's north,east,and center.The rugged mountains create countless distinct ecological zones,giving Taiwan extraordinary bio- diversity,including 338 bird species and more than 400 butterfly species. 11