> What I see tells me the ROC is much to be preferred to
> the PRC on progressive grounds.
Completely different societies: Taiwan was semi-industrialized thanks to decades of investment by Imperial Japan, and received oodles of subsidies from the US. Mainland China was dreadfully poor, thanks to feudalism and the British Empire, and was ripped apart by Fascist Japan in the most godawful way. It desperately needed a rural revolution, and finally got one.
> to venture, no? Development in cities is nice, but why
> apologize for the rural shit-holes?
Town-village industries have been the motor of Chinese development.
> Capitalism is going great guns; foreign capital is
> flourishing. Human rights are non-existent.
News flash: the Cultural Revolution ended 25 years ago. Foreign capital is carefully disciplined in China, often by subtle cultural pressures and norms rather than formal laws. The one-party state still provides things like basic safety nets, guaranteed education, social mobility, etc.; rights are coded in the discourse of nationalism, which is a huge step forwards from the insanity of the Cultural Revolution (an era, incidentally, which almost tore the state apparatus completely apart).
-- Dennis