Linda Chao

China's consumer revolution: The 1990s and beyond

Since 1980 Chinas economic revolution has enabled more households to allocate labor to market‐related activities to earn more income. In 1992 an even greater surge in market economy growth took place when urban households began abandoning state‐related occupations and took their chances in the marketplace. The increase in consumer spending that followed reflects a new pattern of household spending for the first time in China since 1949: the share of spending for food relative to spending for other categories of goods and services is fast declining. This new trend, already strongly evident among high income‐earning households, is rapidly being replicated by other households as their incomes rise. During the 1990s new consumer patterns have emerged in the cities of the coastal provinces that strongly indicate that a consumer revolution is under way. This revolution has revived traditional gift‐giving between the Chinese people, thus facilitating the strengthening of their social, economic, and political ti...

How Elections Promoted Democracy in Taiwan under Martial Law

In October 1952, while addressing the Seventh Congress of the Kuomintang (KMT), the party chairman and president of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, reminded his audience that “Sun Yat-sens highest goal was to build a political system in which sovereignty resided with the people [ zuchuan zaimin ]” Chiang then said that “in order to oppose communism and recover our nation, the primary task of our party is to carry out local elections, build our nations political system, and establish the solid foundations for our people to practise democracy.”

The First Chinese Democracy: Political Development of the Republic of China on Taiwan, 1986-1994

For the first time in Chinese history, a part of Chinese society-the sovereign state of the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC)has experienced democratization. Since the lifting of martial law on July 15, 1987, the powerful ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), has allowed a free press to flourish, permitted political parties to compete in elections, and expanded elections to replace an older generation of leaders who had been elected in mainland China in 1947. To be sure, this democratic transition is not complete. The government still controls the electronic media; a constitutional reform to permit the popular election of a president, vice-president, and governor of Taiwan province will not take place until 1995 or 1996; and popular rights for initiative, recall, and referendum have not been actualized. Even so, the formation of a new opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has become a responsible, effective opposition, and the dramatic reform of the 1947 Constitution in the last two years represent political changes of a seismic order. The remarkable political transition between 1986 and 1994 occurred as the ROC economy grew by 6 to 8 percent a year, the society remained stable despite numerous street demonstrations, and the KMT leadership experienced major power struggles. Few social scientists or historians had predicted this dramatic political transformation, which some might call a political miracle.1 To explain why the political reforms occurred at all, why they occurred when they did and took the form they did-expanded national elections, new

A China Divided since the Turnover of Political Power in Taiwan

Since March 2000 the turnover of political power in Taiwan to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and President Chen Shui-bian has been associated with a bitter clash between two visions for Taiwans future: a vision of Taiwanese nationalism promoted by President Chen and the DPP versus one of engagement with mainland China that aims to create a special relationship while engaging the Western world, as promoted by the KMT and some of its allies. These conflicting visions will continue to interact and influence political life in significant ways.