Flexibility, Foresight, and Fortuna in Taiwan's Development: Navigating between Scylla and Charybdis (review)

Reviews 55 a triumph of ministerial power over monarchical authority. If, on the other hand, the Qianlong emperor was in charge ofpolicy making, then the growth ofthe Grand Council could be interpreted as an extension ofimperial sovereignty. Much of the evidence presented in this book could be used to support either hypothesis , and, as the question she has posed is integral to the study of Qing history , the issue is sure to stimulate further research. Whether or not one agrees with all of Professor Bartlett's conclusions, Monarchs and Ministers is undoubtedly an impressive and challenging contribution to the field ofeighteenfli-century studies. The book is a valuable addition to the scholarly literature on Qing history, important not only for the insights it offers, but also for the wealth ofempirical data it presents. It is an essential source for specialists and provides a sound foundation for subsequent research on the government and politics oflate imperial China. Nancy Park Vassar College IiG Steve Chan and CaI Clark. Flexibility, Foresight, and Fortuna in Taiwan's Development: Navigating between Scylla and Charybdis. London and New York: Routledge, 1992. 221 pp. Hardcover $49.95. In postwar Third World development, Taiwan is a triumphant example of a freeenterprise economy and one of the most spectacular success stories in modern economic history. During the past four decades, Taiwan has been transformed from a society with a backward agrarian economy to a modern industrial one. Forty years ago, per capita income in Taiwan was only one-thirtieth of that in the U.S.; by 1990, it had reached one-third. Taiwan's success story has gained it the recognition ofthe world's top economists and and has generated many books and articles on the "Taiwan Miracle." The book by Steve Chan and CaI Clark is a welcome new addition to the study of this emerging economy. Unlike other works describing the evolution ofTaiwan's economy, the main purpose of this book is to use Taiwan's development experience to test the validity and applicability of four prevalent development theories: (1) the developmentofHawai 'iPress^st mo^ei> which views development as a "virtuous cycle" in which different dimensions of capitalist economies, culture modernization, and political change produce a self-reinforcing development syndrome; (2) the dependency tìieory, 56 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 which views the global capitalist system as precluding meaningful economic, social , and political change in the Third World, thereby perpetuating a "vicious cycle " of underdevelopment; (3) the "trade-off" approach, which sees development almost inevitably involving trade-offs among its several supposed goals such as growth, stability, security, and equity; and (4) the statist approach, which emphasizes the role ofstate in directing a country's development projects. A substantial part of the book compares the Taiwan development experience with the predictions of these four prevailing theories. The book consists ofeight chapters and one statistical appendix. It begins its analysis by examining the proposition that Taiwan constitutes a fairly unusual instance of seemingly broad-based development success. The authors believe that Taiwan's policy performance represents a nonconforming case in comparison with cross-national patterns. Its empirical deviations offer a fruitful platform from which to search for clues that can be used to solve substantively and theoretically important puzzles. The authors contend that Taiwan's experience provides not so much a critical test as a puzzle. The puzzle stems from the departure of this island's experience from standard analytic expectations and widely accepted "stylized facts" concerning the pursuit ofvarious policy goals. Chapter 2 reviews in detail the four prevailing theories concerning Third World development. The authors provide a quite penetrating analysis ofthe developmentalist postulate that "good things could go together in a virtuous cycle ." A high level of economic development permitted political stability, liberal democracy, and social equality. The key to successful growth and transformation lay in the "endogenous" economic and social processes within the society. Contrary to the developmentalists, the dependency theorists argue that Western industrialization resulted from locking the developing world into a subordinate position in the global division oflabor. This subordinate position was maintained through a combination of direct political control (i.e., colonialism), the monopoly of economic...