1. The Importance of Taiwan to China; Steve Tsang.- 2. How ‘China’ Frames ‘Taiwan’; Anne-Marie Brady.- 3. Relevance of Taiwan’s Developmental Experience for the Chinese Mainland: Perspectives of Mainland Intellectuals; Gang Lin.- 4. Inspirations from Taiwan: Perspective of Chinese Academic Visitors in Taiwan; Chih-jou Jay Chen.- 5. Taiwan’s Contribution to China’s Economic Rise and its Implications for Cross-Strait Integration; Shelley Rigger and Gunter Schubert.- 6. Taiwan and China in a Global Value Chain: The Case of the Electronics Industry; Chun-yi Lee.- 7. Taiwanese Popular Literature’s Impact on China; Michelle Yeh.- 8. How China is Changed by Deng Lijun and her Songs; Pei-yin Lin.- 9. The Pluralization of the Religious Field in Taiwan and its Impact on China; André Laliberté.- 10. Civility, Taiwanese Civility, and the Taiwanese Civility Reconstructed by Mainland Chinese; Yunxiang Yan.- 11. Impact Based on Soft Power; Steve Tsang.
Steve Tsang is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the SOAS China Institute, University of London, UK. He previously served as Director of the China Policy Institute at Nottingham University, UK, and as Professorial Fellow, Dean, and Director of the Asian Studies Centre at St Antony’s College, Oxford University, UK.
This book is about the basis and scope of impact that Taiwan – a democracy with a population of around 23 million – has on China, the most powerful remaining Leninist state which claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has a population of over 1.3 billion. It examines how Taiwan has helped China in its economic transformation, but argues that the former exercises greatest influence through its soft power. The expert and timely contributions in this book demonstrate how Taiwan exerts real influence in China through admiration of its popular culture, be it in music or literature, as well as its reach into politics and economics. As mainland Chinese visit Taiwan, they are most impressed with civility in everyday living based on a modernized version of the traditional Chinese culture. However, discussions in the book also reveal the limits of Taiwan’s impact, as the Chinese government tightly controls the narrative about Taiwan and does not tolerate any Taiwanese posing a threat to its monopoly of power.