Pretty good article, with some effective cultural analysis, though I have a couple quibbles:
> The Blue tradition is understandably proud of these achievements. Part
> of its following's hostility to the DPP is based on a sense that
> Green politicians - whose economic management has not been their
> strong suit - are free riders on a prosperity they have done little
> to create, and something to damage. Taiwan has suffered its
> severest recession under Chen.
Taiwan never experienced the sort of severe downturn which hammered Korea, due to its heavily regulated (and state-owned) banking system. (I'm arranging the data into a table and will have this on the Web by sometime next week). Growth rates have slowed, but the Government has been proactive about cleaning up bad debts and injecting liquidity into the system. All in all, a mighty impressive performance, considering the self-inflicted woes of neighbors/trade partners Japan and South Korea.
> The peculiarity of the Taiwanese case lies in the fact that the nation
> claiming independence is itself completely dependent on a foreign power.
Not anymore. Taiwan is an advanced semiperiphery, rapidly gearing up to join the core, and China's emerging biz elites have extensive interconnects with their Taiwanese counterparts. My guess is, China's agitprop campaign is Hu-style electioneering.
-- DRR