| Abstrakt: |
In the last four decades Taiwan has made startling economic progress under the authoritarian rule of the Nationalist government, increasing its per capita Gross Domestic Product from about U.S. $50 in 1945 to about $8,000 in 1991. Politically, however, Taiwan has moved with great caution, reluctance, and conservativeness, maintaining martial law and ruthless militarist control until 1987. There was little real democratization although in those long years dissidents such as the tangwai (“outside the party” that is, outside the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang [KMT]) opposition fought valiantly, suffered enormously, and achieved some breakthroughs and softening of the Nationalist authoritarian rule. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
