Chapter 1 The World's Tallest Building 5 In the 1930s,Japanese expansionism deepened the crisis facing the strug- emerged into the open.Many longtime residents believed that decades of gling ROC state,forcing Chinese of all political stripes to concentrate their subjugation to the KMT's "mission"had prevented Taiwan from develop- energies on resisting Japan's occupation of eastern China.But when World ing its own sense of nationhood and pursuing its own destiny,while those War Il ended,conflict between the KMT and CCP reignited and the Chinese who subscribed to the KMT's view feared that allowing Taiwan to claim a Civil War began.Four years later,in 1949,the Communists proclaimed a status separate from China would foreclose forever the possibility of a non- new Chinese state,the People's Republic of China (PRC),and the defeated Communist China.When the People's Republic of China weighed in with ROC government fled to Taiwan.Its president,Chiang Kai-shek,moved its preferences,it became clear that redefining Taiwan's identity could also into the building at the west end of Hsinyi Road. bring it into a potentially catastrophic confrontation with Beijing. For the ROC government and the 1.5 million refugees who joined the The PRC maintains that Taiwan has been Chinese territory for centu- exodus to Taiwan,the island was not a homeland but a place of exile.For ries,so it is Chinese territory today.Beijing does not recognize the ROC's the next forty years they devoted themselves to the task of keeping the legitimacy;in its view,the Communists'victory in 1949 extinguished the Republic of China alive in the hope that it might someday return to the Republic,leaving the PRC as the only state representing the Chinese nation. mainland in triumph,drive the Communists from power,and restore itself The fact that the Chinese government does not currently rule Taiwan is a as the reigning Chinese state.To this end,they built Taiwan into a launch historical anomaly that must be rectified. ing pad from which to mount their campaign to "recover the mainland." For decades,the PRC's position was the inverse of the ROC's:it swore to The 6 million people already living in Taiwan when the refugees arrived "liberate"Taiwan,to annex it to the PRC by force.In 1979,a new genera- had a very different view.For them,Taiwan was the only homeland they tion of PRC leaders,determined to open China to the world,traded in that had ever known.Though their ancestors had lived in Taiwan for centuries, policy for a less bellicose objective:"peaceful unification."Since the early most families could trace their origins to the mainland,and many had been 2000s,Beijing has emphasized patience,arguing that unification need not eager to see the end of Japanese colonialism.Still,the ROC's policies re- come soon.Still,its bottom line is firm:Taiwan must not renounce unifica- duced Taiwan to a pawn in a fight between the Kuomintang and the Com- tion.If it does,say PRC leaders,China's sacred territory will be severed,and munist Party-two entities whose goals and aspirations had little relation that is an outcome they refuse to accept.As Premier Wen Jiabao put it in a to those of ordinary Taiwanese 2003 interview with the Washington Post,"The Chinese people will pay any The Kuomintang's driving ambition was to recover mainland China,but price to safeguard the unity of the motherland."Myriad policy statements the economic policies it adopted in pursuit of that goal were transforma- and comments from Chinese leaders leave no room for doubt:the price tive.Under the protection of the United States,which regarded Taiwan they are willing to pay includes war. as a crucial bulwark against Communist expansion,the KMT adopted a Taiwanese see the situation very differently.They are at best deeply am- state-led economic development plan that soon put Taiwan on the road to bivalent about unification.The reasons for Taiwanese people's reluctance to prosperity.As chapter 3 details,the little island was a global leader in light unify with the PRC have changed since the 1940s,but the fact of that reluc- manufacturing by the 1970s.It continued to clamber up the value chain in tance has not.In the early decades,Taiwan's government taught its people the 1980s and 1990s to take its place as a leading high-tech center,a story to resist the PRC out of loyalty to the ROC;it was the PRC,not China,that Itell in chapter 6. was to be rejected.Over time,though,the appeal of"China"has faded. Economic growth did not bring political reform,at least not right away. As the island's democracy grew and deepened,the political gulf between As the likelihood of an ROC return to the mainland diminished,more Taiwan and the mainland widened.Today,many Taiwanese resist the and more Taiwanese began to question-at first in secret,and then more PRC because they value the political and economic freedom they enjoy as openly-the ROC's determination to prioritize its mainland recovery proj- citizens of an ROC whose jurisdiction is limited to Taiwan.They still op- ect ahead of the island's social and political modernization.Some-nearly pose folding Taiwan into the PRC,but they now see little benefit in giving all of them living outside Taiwan,beyond the reach of Chiang Kai-shek's up what they have to become part of any Chinese state headquartered on secret police-even went so far as to advocate making a clean break,that the mainland-even a non-Communist one."Little Taiwan"is enough for is,declaring Taiwan independent,not just of the PRC or the ROC,but of them,not least because 1.3 billion mainland people and their leaders in- China itself. evitably would dominate a unified Chinese state. In the 1980s and 1990s,Taiwan's political system evolved from single- If few Taiwanese are ready to risk losing their way of life for an abstract party authoritarianism under the KMT to multiparty democracy,and the notion like the territorial integrity of China,there is little more enthusiasm debate over how Taiwan should view its relationship with the mainland for putting that way of life at risk for a different abstract notion,Taiwan