>I beg to differ. China, like India and Russia, is _already_ a multinational
state. None of these countries is much like a European nation-state,
> IMHO.
>
>Taiwan is tiny and ethnically and culturally homogeneous (I think). China
is huge and multinational. Apples and oranges.
>
> Dennis Redmond <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
> > How China is going to manage that
> > transition to forms of political institutions appropriate to 21 century
> > is hard to imagine.
> >
> > They have Taiwan's example, right next door. The long-term question
facing
> > East Asia is how to construct an EU-style multinational state.
Chris is right. Taiwan's population is equal to ~ 0.02% of the mainland and has only ~ 15% "mainlanders" and 2% Polynesian "aborigines".
South East Asia is already devising an EU-like structure, based on ASEAN. Integration of ASEAN with mainland China, India or Japan is unlikely (IMO) because any _one_ of these would dominate the South East Asian states economically, and in terms of population.
Grant.