Friday, 6 October 2023

Taiwan's Economic Miracle

Amongst the recent tensions over the visit of Nancy Pelosi, a high ranking US politician, to the island of Taiwan (officially the Republic of China [ROC]) ...

Nancy Pelosi In Taiwan Caused China To Threaten Aggresion
Nancy Pelosi In Taiwan

It's often forgotten that although the Peoples Republic of China makes aggressive claims to Taiwan being an integral part of China (along with various islands across the South China sea), in point of fact Taiwan had been ceded to the Empire of Japan in 1895.

So although the two countries officially split in 1949, two different systems had actually operated between Taiwan and China since 1895 (the island was only reunited with China for 3 brief years). Since 1949 mainland China was Communist, while Taiwan was Capitalist, and so as they both started from near enough the same base economic level, its an interesting comparison between how the two systems created wealth for their general populations.

In 2020, GDP per capita for Taiwan was $28,306 US dollars. While In 2021, per capita GDP in China was estimated at around $12,359 U.S dollars .... remember they had started from the same economic base. So the Taiwanese are more than twice as wealthy as their communist mainland brethren, despite the fact that the mainland Chinese 'economic miracle' is often lauded as a being a wonder of the second half of the 20th century. In fact Taiwan has more in common both politically and economically with another 'Chinese' state, the Republic of Singapore, than with Communist China.

So in point of fact, its Taiwan's Economic Miracle that should really be lauded.

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