China Hong Kong Taiwan Inc The Dynamics of a New Empire

On July 1, 1997, Great Britain officially returned Hong Kong to China after one hundred and fifty-five years of British rule. This event marked the addition of a world-class bastion of advanced capitalism to China's "socialist market economy." The reintegration of democratic Taiwan into this emerging superpower will now top the Chinese national agenda. The combination of Hong Kong's financial expertise and Taiwan's management and export prowess with China's geographic vastness and inexhaustible pool of cheap labor has, over the last ten years, enabled China to change from an impoverished, revolutionary country to a major international trading power. Can reunification really be successful - and peaceful? Willem van Kemenade analyzes the power structures of the three Chinas, offering the first clear and comprehensive view of the world's fastest-rising empire.