THE OTHER CHINA: Journeys Around Taiwan ...

THE OTHER CHINA: Journeys Around Taiwan by Douglas Fetherlin (Arsenal Pump Press: $12.95; 108 pp., paperback original). An award-wining Canadian journalist, Fetherlin analyzes the curious mixture of political repression, diplomatic maneuvering and shrewd capitalism that has turned a small island with few natural resources into an economic powerhouse. He argues that Taiwan will play an increasingly significant role in Asia--and the world--when the People’s Republic of China takes over Hong Kong in 1997. Observing the focused energy of Taipei, he comments, “The U.S. has become more like the intransigent-fortress Taiwan of Chiang Kai-shek’s day, while Taiwan, for its part, looks forward with vigor to the America of the 1950s. Of the Taiwanese, this might truly be said: They Like Ike.”