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Review | The Trouble with Taiwan – book maps out why the world should care about the self-ruled island
- Charting the island’s history, Kerry Brown and Kalley Wu Tzu-hui underscore the global significance of its relationship with China
- Makes the case for why the world should pay attention to what happens in Taiwan and to its citizens
Reading Time:5 minutes
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The Trouble with Taiwan: History, the United States and a Rising China
by Kerry Brown and Kalley Wu Tzu-hui
Zed Books
3/5 stars
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The Trouble with Taiwan is a provocative title for a book, but then a lot about Taiwan is provocative, depending on who you’re talking to.
Tensions between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (as Taiwan is officially called) have not ceased since the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island in 1949, after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong’s communist forces. As such, alongside the unresolved conflict between North and South Korea, the stand-off is seen as one of the last vestiges of the cold war.
Now, in an age when China is a global superpower, Taiwan’s position is of particular importance, both symbolically as well as practically. How other nations treat Taiwan and its citizens is directly related to their willingness to either alienate or placate China. At the same time, how China deals with Taiwan is seen as the great litmus test for its fitness to remain a global power. So far the jury is out, but, as Kerry Brown and Kalley Wu Tzu-hui write, “the stakes could not be higher”.
Taiwan matters because it says something important and profound about one of the key issues – perhaps the key issue of our time – identity
With mass protests now taking place in Hong Kong, Taipei’s interactions with Beijing are being studied with renewed interest, with many feeling that lessons can be learned, despite the fundamental differences between the two places.
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