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Evaluates the various factors that influence the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. Details on international factors; Factors originating in mainland China; Factors arising from developments within Taiwan.

Examines issues surrounding the national unity and territorial integrity of Taiwan. Significance of national reunification of China and Taiwan; Discussion on the civil war started by the Kuomintang; Position of the Chinese government regarding the settlement of the Taiwan question.

It is widely recognized that Taiwanese democrat Wan-chu Lee, a so-called half-mainlander who spent a good part of his career in China, was in general in favor of democracy in his coping with the national issue. However, this paper argues that his understanding of the Chinese nation is primarily a cultural nation and he gave this cultural identity an authentic reading that is not to be transcended by his promotion of democracy. Despite that the prospect for democracy was aborted by the actual development in China, his identification with cultural China never faded away. This paper traces the evolution of his cultural identity and how he was able to stay with it throughout his career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In “Diversionary Dragons, or ‘Talking Tough in Taipei’” (Journal of East Asian Studies 9, 3: 369-398), Yitan Li, Patrick James, and A. Cooper Drury presented a newly created data set to show that Chen Shui-bian used independence rhetoric and confrontation with the mainland as a diversionary tactic in the face of domestic political difficulties. In the present exchange, Jonathan Sullivan challenges the authors’ understanding of how the Democratic Progressive Party used the Taiwan independence issue-and the authors’ interpretation of independence- and raises questions about the coding of press coverage as a means of identifying underlying preferences. The authors respond, concluding that the future use of such diversionary tactics is by no means foreclosed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the political and economic condition of China after the death of Deng Xiaoping. Jiang Zemin as Deng's personal choice; Lawmaking in China; Political tensions happening in China; Brief information on how Taiwan became a part of China; Taiwan and the international community.