Taiwan's economic development experience represents a unique case study especially in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Taiwan has performed outstandingly in terms of macroeconomic and industrial development, particularly during recent democratic and social change. This book aims to provide a broad picture of these institutional reforms and policy evolutions. The expert contributors detail and examine the interactive relationship between Taiwan's economic liberalization, political democratization and social pluralization. Taking 1980 as a watershed, the book highlights the impact these economic and cultural changes have exerted on SMEs, foreign trade and investment, technological progress, industrial development and policy, and the reform of financial and fiscal systems. They investigate the contentious issue of whether political democratization is beneficial for economic development and go on to discuss the creation of an efficient Taiwanese economy and the resolution of conflicts created by social pluralization. The book analyses the comparative advantage of Taiwan over comparable countries, paying particular attention to the Asian financial crisis. The authors offer a fresh approach by observing Taiwanese development post 1980 and integrating economic, political and social analysis. As such, development economists and scholars of Asian economics will find this unique book both useful and enlightening.

A bilingual (English & Chinese) collection by Dalian-based poet-editor, Mai Cheng. This is the first collection of his work to be made available in translation. [Mai Cheng] would seem to have no regard for the conventional limits of the poetic, but he rarely falls into a disorder that cannot be remedied. He has calmly but firmly placed the anvil of his poetic art in the space between saying too much and disclosing secrets, between the investigations of life and the cure of aesthetics, in order to forge his individual poetic voice. The risks he takes with language are managed with consummate ease. (Tang Xiaodu)