| | Hong Zhang wrote: "The history of Taiwan after 1949 speaks for itself."
Yes, it does.
"Looking back on Taiwan's development over the past five decades, we are confronted with a history full of misery and suffering. ... restrictions were placed on the formation of new political parties to prevent multiparty politicking that could divide a nation's strength. ... forbade mass demonstrations and protests. These restrictions allowed the government to more easily maintain an ordered society and stable political environment. Indeed, to this day there are still a number of people who miss the days under the Emergency Decree."
The above is from a Taiwan government website explaining Taiwan's relationship with Australia:
http://www.taiwan.com.au/Polieco/History/ROC/report02.html
It is a whitewash, but it is honest enough, in admitting that Taiwan was a one-party dictatorship until the "Chungli" incident of 1977 -- Chiang Kai Shek having died two years earlier. Ten years later, 1987, martial law was technically lifted, though advocating independence for Taiwan was still illegal. Over time, yes, Taiwan has "liberalized." So has China. The massacre at Tiananmen Square marked the limits of what the gerontocracy was capable of. Since then -- and even then -- attitudes in "China" (however you define that) are not necessarily what appears on the surface in Beijing.
I condemn the leaders in Beijing for the massacre. I only suggest that a similar event could have happened in Taipei under the right circumstances. Taiwan is farther along the "evolutionary path" toward a politically open society. Nonetheless, like Israel and Palestine or Russia and the Ukraine, China and Taiwan are related by a complicated history.
Taiwan has been prosperous the same way that Spain under Franco was -- or Brazil, or Argentina, or El Salvadore were -- they allowed American firms to have access to their labor pools while at the same time slaughtering any inhabitant who questioned their right to rule. Remember what happened to the one daughter's savings in Eat Drink Man Woman: she was cheated in a politically-connected ploy over toxic land. That is business in Taiwan.
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