ABSTRACT

Vol. 4, No.1 (Summer 1998)

David D. Wang: East Turkestan Movement in Xinjiang Historically, Xinjiang, as the eastern extension of the Muslim world in China, was closer to the center of the Muslim world rather than the Confucian civilization in China proper. The driving force behind the sporadic riots in Xinjiang is the East Turkestan independence movement. The background of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism has promoted the East Turkestan movement. Behind this movement there is the Islamic-Turkish faith's influence which is still very active in West and Central Asia. Since the early 1950s Xinjiang has been strongly integrated into China more than ever before. Under this circumstances it becomes more difficult for the East Turkestan movement elite to realize their goal of independence. The opening of Xinjiang to the outside world since the 1980s has facilitated the movement. While pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism are playing their parts in bringing social unrest in Xinjiang, the movement is contained by the developments of the economic relations between Xinjiang, and Central and West Asian countries. Only the weakness of the center of China could enable the separatists to split Xinjiang from China.

Peter Kien-hong Yu: Taiwan's Political Ecology After the November 1997 Local Election From the late 1940’s to the late 1980’s, the political system in Taiwan can be best characterized as one-party system, with the Kuomintang (KMT) as the dominant ruling party. In the November 1997 local election, the KMT was defeated by the opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), for the first time. The DPP not only gained more county and city posts at the provincial level but also grabbed more votes than the ruling party, resulting in a new political order. At the local level, a two-party system has emerged. The general population prefers a cleaner and more efficient government. Many voters in the November 1997 election voted for the candidates—not the party—of their choice. Unless the KMT can welcome back the New Party (NP), its ruling party status at the national (as opposed to central) level may be called into serious question. Before the legislative election of iii

December 1998 and the direct, presidential election of March 2000, it seems that the KMT will try to co-opt members of the NP. There could be tension between the central and local governments in Taiwan on many issues in the foreseeable future, such as whether or not the Republic of China (ROC) flag should be hoisted in schools and how much financial support the local governments can get from the central government. It is highly doubtful that the DPP can grab the presidency in the year 2000. Most voters are not ready for such a new order at the presidential or central (as opposed to national) level.

Sujian Guo: Enigma of All Enigmas: Capitalist Takeover? Assessment of the Post-

Mao Economic Transformation Post-Mao’s economic reforms have led many China analysts to observe that post-Mao China has been moving toward capitalism or “capitalist takeover” has occurred in post-Mao China. This observation has a significant implication both for the US foreign economic policy and in the study of regime change in post-Mao China. The purpose of this article is to revisit and reassess the economic transformation in post-Mao China to obtain a holistic understanding of the central reality in post-Mao China on the one side, while on the other to rebut the assertion of “capitalist takeover” in post-Mao China. Through a systematic survey of party documents, policy statements, leaders’ speeches, official newspapers and magazines, general academic studies on the post-Mao reform in English and in Chinese, this article examines the post-Mao economic transformation along the three key empirical dimensions in terms of systemic change: the existence of capitalist elements, the ownership structure, and the role of the market in the Chinese economy. The findings based on fresh empirical evidence suggest that China has not made any significant change from communism toward capitalism in any of those fields despite the considerable change made in the past 20 years.

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