Coincided with China's economic reform and her rapid ascendance to a great power status, the relations between Taiwan and Chinese mainland since 1979 have also seen some encouraging development. However, the rapprochement is nothing but a smooth ride. Taiwan Strait has always been full of tensions and hostility since the communist took over the mainland over sixty years ago. The periodical tensions in the cross-Strait relations have from time to time threatened to derail the peace talks between the two sides, and poised to jeopardize the region's peace and stability. This book studies the past, present and future relations across the Taiwan Strait and examines many important questions such as internal and external factors contributing to the Taiwan's shift in her mainland policy, impacts of Taiwan democratization on the cross-Strait relations, the development of Taiwanese identity and rise of Taiwanese nationalism, the possibility of expanding Taiwan's international space under the shadow of China, the prospect of reunification between Taiwan and China, and the roles of the third parties, such as U.S., NGOs and Taiwan businessmen, in the changing relationship between the two sides. Taiwan and the Rise of China will certainly help readers, especially those who lack of historical perspective of the political division of the two political adversaries, to grasp the complexity and nature of the cross-Strait relations and faster a real understanding of the significance of this relationship to peace in the region as well as the world in the 21st century.

In the this collection, International Governance, Regimes, and Globalization, the writers explore international relations and globalization by using specific examples from Beijing and Taipei. In December 1949, when China was politically divided the People's Republic of China (PRC) central government was in control of most resources, tangible and intangible. For that reason, our unit of analysis has to be the state, meaning a government or a politically organized body. With the rise of civil society at both national and international levels, applying the international/global governance theory should be closer to reality, because we have to look at both the state and non-state-sponsored dimensions, which are more complex and complicated. Indeed, international/global governance could become a new school of thought and will continue to expand as academics explore. For example, neo-liberalism primarily focuses on market and contract. When people buy and sell something, they are in a market. In other words, politics is the superstructure of economics or as Karl Marx said what prevails in economy will ultimately prevail in politics. In a sense, subscribers to this school of thought are Marxian. However, the study of international/global governance embraces the non-state sponsored dimension. Hence, it is broader than that of the neo-liberalism school of thought.