Taiwan: Another Greece?

In a recent Newsweek article the economist Paul Samuelson wrote, “[this nation, economically,] belongs up there with the miracle nations of Japan and Israel … [Its] per capita living standards … have climbed rapidly relative to Western Europe … [and] its 1966 gross national product rose by 8.2 per cent.”

Samuelson was writing about Greece, before its recent military coup. His point, however, is equally applicable to Taiwan: Economic development does not necessarily imply or protect the process of democratization. Americans tend to apply a neo-Marxist economic approach to developing nations: i.e., economic growth produces a middle class which develops the political stability that will nurture politica...