An anthropologist's view.

Here's a communication from Dr. Philip Silverman, an anthropologist who has taught and done research on Taiwan. It's a reply to an email in which I asked him about Taiwan's current political, social, and economic conditions.

It is not exactly true that Taiwan can be
considered completely independent of the PRC. The island was “returned
>to China” after Japan was defeated based on a decision made by the
>three big Allies, although no one consulted the Taiwanese where there
>was a nascent movement to become an independent country. To this day
>PRC insists Taiwan belongs to China and any attempt to declare its
>independence will lead to war. Most Taiwanese, including many of the
>Mainlanders who came over with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, don’t want to
>become absorbed by the PRC, but some would accept it if their (PRC)
>political system changes, others still want total independence, but
>realize how dangerous that would be for them. It is true that Chiang
>Kai-shek was a ruthless dictator, but once he was exiled to Taiwan he
>realized how his corrupt policies were partly responsible for his
>defeat by Mao, so in Taiwan he turned over the development of the
>island mostly to economists trained in the U.S., and by some
>extraordinary far-sighted reforms, transferred the island from a
>poor-ass agricultural backwater to a thriving industrial power. When
>Chiang’s son took over in 1976, and partly due to the encouragement of
>American advisors, he slowly opened up the political system, ended
>military rule, and by the 1990s there werecompeting political parties
>and open and reasonably fair elections. It is the only political
>revolutionary that I am aware of where the change from brutal
>authoritarian rule to a competitive democracy occurred without
>bloodshed.