Gold describes Taiwan prior to Japanese colonialism as having developed an agricultural economy based on small peasant owners or tenant cultivators, very similar to that in Fukien or Kwangtung where most of the population originated. No distinct, or even nascent, capitalist or worker classes were being formed. A majority of officials and social elites, as well as their dominant ideology, remained hostile to private business activities. Were capitalism to come about, it would have to be introduced from the outside and involve a fundamental revision of economic, social, political, and ideological structures.
Creating the preconditions for capitalist development was certainly not the aim of Japanese colonialism, though certain policies undertaken by the Japanese authorities during their fifty-year occupation of the island proved enormously helpful in that regard. While the Japanese implanted a structure for dependent capitalism, it differed from more typical dependent structures in significant ways.
For one, the factories and infrastructure built by the Japanese were dispersed throughout the island, thus avoiding the common phenomenon of a tiny modern channel in a sea of traditional society. For another, the colonial authorities invested heavily in education and technological upgrading, which brought at least a minimal level of literacy, skills, and appreciation of modern business practices to the majority of the island's population. Lastly, although the Japanese owned great stretches of territory, the Taiwanese peasants were not driven off their land and onto plantations as was typical of other colonies. They retained their private holdings and learned to appreciate and apply scientific inputs to improve productivity. Land ownership patterns were marked by continuity. All of these factors would have important implications for Taiwan's future development.
Taiwan was returned to China after World War II. Following a difficult period in which mainlander-Taiwanese tensions ran high, the situation slowly began to improve. A crucial turning point was the moving of the seat of the central government to Taipei. With its bureaucratic and managerial elites and military machine, and with the U.S. insulating it from external enemies, the government had control over Taiwan to a degree that it had never enjoyed over the mainland. As a result, it was able to carry out a highly successful land reform, and draw up sophisticated plans for economic development.
In the process of political consolidation and economic growth, state-society relations assumed a shape that facilitated the explosive development of productive forces and rapid social change. The government increasingly based its legitimacy on its ability to promote economic growth. This gave it common interests with the newly-formed, mainly Taiwanese, capitalist class which, fearing instability above all, tacitly agreed not to translate its economic power into political activity. Taiwanese-mainlander tensions gradually relaxed.
However, the decade of the 1970s brought other tensions, both internally and externally generated. A dispute with Japan over control of the Senkaku Islands and erosion of international sup port for the Republic of China's claim to represent all of China, culminating in American recognition of the Communist regime, dealt heavy blows to the country's morale. At the same time, the ROC's economy, heavily dependent on oil imports, had to adjust to OPEC- induced sharp rises in the price of that commodity. All of this occurred simultaneously with other problems arising, essentially, from the economy falling victim to its own success. The island's infrastructure had been stretched beyond its capacity; prosperity had led to higher wages, which meant that Taiwan was losing markets to other less developed countries with even lower labor costs. And the ROC's traditional trading partners had begun to raise protectionist quotas.
Economic dislocations and political loss of morale bred new forms of social activism. Yet they also pushed the state to the forefront as the only actor capable of dealing with such critical problems. The country's sixth four-year plan was scrapped in mid-course, and was replaced with a six-year plan emphasizing the development of capital and technology-intensive industries and the modernization of the infrastructure. As shown by impressive rises in economic growth rates, the new policies-characterized aptly if non-euphoniously by Gold as "export-oriented vertical import substitution industrialization"—were highly successful.
The mainlander-dominated political elite also initiated several cautious moves toward increasing Taiwanese participation in government. Resistance to political liberalization tended to come from elderly mainlanders who feared that a governmental structure geared to the Taiwanese majority would further vitiate the ROC's claims on the mainland. Gold considers the 1977 Chungli incident during a local election campaign a "watershed event for continued maintenance of the structure that had characterized Taiwan's postwar development." The old bifurcation of mainlander control of politics and Taiwanese control of the economy was becoming less and less palatable to younger, well-educated Taiwanese.
The author points out that this has been the sector of society most oriented toward emigration in the past. If its members choose to stay, they can be expected to play an important part in the ROC's development strategy in the future. As this book went to press in 1985, the ROC seemed to stand at a political crossroads.
Since then, and consonant with Gold's analysis of the government's impressive ability to cope with earlier challenges, there has been rapid progress toward political liberalization. The Emergency Decree enacted many years ago to cope with an apparently-imminent communist invasion has been scrapped in favor of a law allowing greater personal freedoms. A newly formed political party campaigned openly and actively during the December 1986 election, and restrictions on the number of newspapers and magazines are being lifted. The government has also begun an innovative program designed to bring emigre scientists and engineers back to Taiwan by offering a variety of inducements to enlist their skills in the ROC's further development. The political crossroads seems to have been successfully negotiated.
The final section of Gold's work addresses the issue of whether the ROC's experience can serve as a model for other developing countries. Basically, he believes, it cannot: too many unique elements were involved. Among the non- duplicable phenomena are the following:
— colonization by a developmentalist racially and culturally similar neighbor (Japan);
— a post-colonial externally originating state with a developed bureaucracy, elaborated developmentalist ideology, and no ties to the island's society;
— an implacable enemy nearby, with a radically different vision of development (Communist China);
— an additional foreign power reinforcing and reforming the state (the United States);
— geopolitical incorporation into the world system preceding economic incorporation;
— breathing space to consolidate power, revive production, and restructure society without obstructionist foreign actors (fortuitous timing);
— close ties to two core powers (the United States and Japan); and
— distinct cultural attributes.
On the other hand, certain elements of Taiwan's experiences can be emulated. Those elements which might well be copied elsewhere include: official commitment to development; the creation of agencies relatively sheltered from political struggles to guide development; investment in infrastructure and human capital; collection and analysis of data on the economy; wide geographic dispersal of new industrial opportunities; the fostering of agriculture; and land redistribution.
Nevertheless, one suspects that those elements which are theoretically duplicable arc in practice heavily dependent for their success on the idiosyncratic factors Gold enumerates; "the Taiwan model" will in fact remain a category of one. It is, of course, in the nature of miracles that they cannot be replicated. Gold is to be congratulated for providing us with a fascinating account of what is, and most probably will remain, unique. — (Dr. June Teufel Dreyer is Director of East Asian Programs and Professor of Politics at the University of Miami, Florida).