vin Preface Preface ix China while supporting a democratic Taiwan-is a challenging assignment Finally,I thank my traveling companions:David,Emma,and Tilly Bor- for leaders in the United States and other countries aks.You make every day an adventure. Still,I hope to convince you that Taiwan is more than just a "problem." Taiwan also matters because its history makes it a test case for values Ameri- Because Chinese is not a phonetic language,there is no one-to-one cor- cans and many others claim to cherish.For centuries,powerful countries respondence between Chinese characters and Roman letters.Spelling out treated Taiwan as war booty,an afterthought.In the past half century, Chinese words is a matter of deciding how they sound and writing down Taiwan's people rejected that status and stood up for themselves.In their that sound as best we can.There are a number of systems for spelling Chi- determination to claim a better future,they created one of the world's nese words;the most popular is the pinyin system used in the People's most successful economies and vibrant democracies.The United States has Republic of China.That's the system that gives us "Beijing"instead of the long encouraged free markets and democratic politics,both as a matter of old "Peking."Unfortunately,Taiwanese don't use any particular system national interest and as a reflection of its national values.Taiwan proves consistently.As in so many realms of life,Romanization in Taiwan is,shall it is possible to achieve those ends peacefully,and to do so in a way that we say,democratic.In this book,I have not attempted to impose any order respects and enhances its turbocharged culture.For that,it matters. on the chaos of Taiwanese spelling,but instead have used the most popular spelling of each word.For place names I use the most familiar form;for Why Taitan Matters is the culmination of all the work,all the reading,all the personal names,I use the spelling preferred by the individual in question. trips,all the interviews and encounters I've had in nearly thirty years of travel- ing to Taiwan.Throughout the text,I include many quotations from people I've talked to over the years,indluding hundreds of formal interviews and in- formal conversations.No one gets to know a place well without lots of help, but the student of Taiwan is especially blessed because hospitality,generosity, and conversation are (along with baseball and eating)national pastimes. Thanking everyone who has helped me get to know Taiwan over the past thirty years would make the book unconscionably long,but there are a handful of people who have provided extraordinary support,encourage- ment,and information over the years.Chen Chu,the mayor of Kaohsiung was the first public figure I met in Taiwan.Without her help,my efforts to learn about Taiwan politics would have come to nothing.Scores of Taiwan- ese,American and PRC officials,politicians,and activists have talked to me over the years,on and off the record.Those conversations shaped my views fundamentally.I also owe an enormous debt to my fellow political scien- tists,especially those in Taiwan,whose patience with a foreign scholar's efforts to understand their homeland is humbling. I have benefited from the scholarship of researchers in Taiwan,the PRC, the United States,Canada,Australia,and Europe,nine of whom rendered especially generous (and timely)service to this book at a critical moment: Richard Bush,Tun-jen Cheng,Dafydd Fell,Sara Friedman,Steven Phillips Michael Szonyi,Alan Wachman,Vincent Wang,and Joseph Wong.And I thank my friend,guide,mentor,and confidant Fan Meei-yuan for making time for me in every visit. Funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation made my work on this and other books possible,and I thank the foundation most sincerely.I have also received funding,administrative help,and bounteous encouragement from Davidson College.Thanks also to my research assistants:Shuo-ting Chen,August Ho,Yi-long Huang,and Aaron Saltzman