Perverse Taiwan

Download Perverse Taiwan full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online Perverse Taiwan ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

Perverse Taiwan

Author : Howard Chiang
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315394006
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (153 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Perverse Taiwan by : Howard Chiang

Download or read book Perverse Taiwan written by Howard Chiang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Host of the first gay pride in the Sinophone world, Taiwan is well-known for its mushrooming of liberal attitudes towards non-normative genders and sexualities after the lifting of Martial Law in 1987. Perverse Taiwan is the first collection of its kind to contextualize that development from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on its genealogical roots, sociological manifestations, and cultural representations. This book enriches and reorients our understanding of postcolonial queer East Asia. Challenging a heteronormative understanding of Taiwan’s past and present, it provides fresh critical analyses of a range of topics from queer criminality and literature in the 1950s and 1960s to the growing popularity of cross-dressing performance and tongzhi (gay and lesbian) cinema on the cusp of a new millennium. Together, the contributions provide a detailed account of the rise and transformations of queer cultures in post-World War II Taiwan. By instigating new dialogues across disciplinary divides, this book will have broad appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies and queer studies, especially those interested in history, anthropology, literature, film, media, and performance.

Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific

Author : Howard Chiang
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231549172
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific by : Howard Chiang

Download or read book Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific written by Howard Chiang and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a broad category of identity, “transgender” has given life to a vibrant field of academic research since the 1990s. Yet the Western origins of the field have tended to limit its cross-cultural scope. Howard Chiang proposes a new paradigm for doing transgender history in which geopolitics assumes central importance. Defined as the antidote to transphobia, transtopia challenges a minoritarian view of transgender experience and makes room for the variability of transness on a historical continuum. Against the backdrop of the Sinophone Pacific, Chiang argues that the concept of transgender identity must be rethought beyond a purely Western frame. At the same time, he challenges China-centrism in the study of East Asian gender and sexual configurations. Chiang brings Sinophone studies to bear on trans theory to deconstruct the ways in which sexual normativity and Chinese imperialism have been produced through one another. Grounded in an eclectic range of sources—from the archives of sexology to press reports of intersexuality, films about castration, and records of social activism—this book reorients anti-transphobic inquiry at the crossroads of area studies, medical humanities, and queer theory. Timely and provocative, Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific highlights the urgency of interdisciplinary knowledge in debates over the promise and future of human diversity.

Writing Taiwan

Author : David Der-wei Wang
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 082238857X
Total Pages : 425 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Writing Taiwan by : David Der-wei Wang

Download or read book Writing Taiwan written by David Der-wei Wang and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-24 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing Taiwan is the first volume in English to examine the entire span of modern Taiwan literature, from the first decades of the twentieth century to the present. In this collection, leading literary scholars based in Taiwan and the United States consider prominent Taiwanese authors and works in genres including poetry, travel writing, and realist, modernist, and postmodern fiction. The diversity of Taiwan literature is signaled by the range of authors treated, including Yang Chichang, who studied Japanese literature in Tokyo in the early 1930s and wrote all of his own poetry and fiction in Japanese; Li Yongping, an ethnic Chinese born in Malaysia and educated in Taiwan and the United States; and Liu Daren, who was born in mainland China and effectively exiled from Taiwan in the 1970s on account of his political activism. Because the island of Taiwan spent the first half of the century as a colony of Japan and the second half in an umbilical relationship to China, its literature challenges basic assumptions about what constitutes a “national literature.” Several contributors directly address the methodological and epistemological issues involved in writing about “Taiwan literature.” Other contributors investigate the cultural and political grounds from which specific genres and literary movements emerged. Still others explore themes of history and memory in Taiwan literature and tropes of space and geography, looking at representations of boundaries as well as the boundary-crossing global flows of commodities and capital. Like Taiwan’s history, modern Taiwan literature is rife with conflicting legacies and impulses. Writing Taiwan reveals a sense of its richness and diversity to English-language readers. Contributors. Yomi Braester, Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, Fangming Chen, Lingchei Letty Chen, Chaoyang Liao, Ping-hui Liao, Joyce C. H. Liu, Kim-chu Ng, Carlos Rojas, Xiaobing Tang, Ban Wang, David Der-wei Wang, Gang Gary Xu, Michelle Yeh, Fenghuang Ying

Composing Modernist Connections in China and Europe

Author : Chunjie Zhang
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429941609
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Composing Modernist Connections in China and Europe by : Chunjie Zhang

Download or read book Composing Modernist Connections in China and Europe written by Chunjie Zhang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Global modernisms are marked by tremendous transformations in lifestyle, historical consciousness, cultural values, ethics, wars, and crises. This book emphasizes modernist connections within literature, culture, history, and media beyond the nation state and the bifurcation between East and West. Instead of deconstructing and separating, Composing Modernist Connections in China and Europe composes and forges new combinations, linkages, and translations that place Chinese and European modernisms on an equal footing. This book features contributions on James Joyce, Stefan George, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Anna Seghers, Qian Zhongshu, Weimar labor modernism, Chinese wartime literature, Chinese movies in divided Germany, and Sinophone modernity among other subjects.

Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan

Author : A-chin Hsiau
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231553668
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan by : A-chin Hsiau

Download or read book Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan written by A-chin Hsiau and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the aftermath of 1949, Taiwan’s elites saw themselves as embodying China in exile both politically and culturally. The island—officially known as the Republic of China—was a temporary home to await the reconquest of the mainland. Taiwan, not the People’s Republic, represented China internationally until the early 1970s. Yet in recent decades Taiwan has increasingly come to see itself as a modern nation-state. A-chin Hsiau traces the origins of Taiwanese national identity to the 1970s, when a surge of domestic dissent and youth activism transformed society, politics, and culture in ways that continue to be felt. After major diplomatic setbacks at the beginning of the 1970s posed a serious challenge to Kuomintang authoritarian rule, a younger generation without firsthand experience of life on the mainland began openly challenging the status quo. Hsiau examines how student activists, writers, and dissident researchers of Taiwanese anticolonial movements, despite accepting Chinese nationalist narratives, began to foreground Taiwan’s political and social past and present. Their activism, creative work, and historical explorations played pivotal roles in bringing to light and reshaping indigenous and national identities. In so doing, Hsiau contends, they laid the basis for Taiwanese nationalism and the eventual democratization of Taiwan. Offering bracing new perspectives on nationalism, democratization, and identity in Taiwan, this book has significant implications spanning sociology, history, political science, and East Asian studies.

Visions of Marriage

Author : Hsiao-Chiao Chiu
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1800738889
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Visions of Marriage by : Hsiao-Chiao Chiu

Download or read book Visions of Marriage written by Hsiao-Chiao Chiu and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2023-07-14 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grounded in multi-generational stories from Kinmen in Taiwan, Visions of Marriage explores the historical entanglements between the pursuit of new personal and national futures. Focusing on the relational and future-making aspects of marriage, the ethnography highlights the intersection of transformations across familial generations and shifting political economies in Taiwan, and more globally. While theories of modernity often treat marriage as an index of social change, without adequate attention to its transformative capacities generated through personal and familial agency, this volume provides comparative insights on family change and demographic shifts in Asia.

Perverse Taiwan

Author : Howard Chiang
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1315394014
Total Pages : 251 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (153 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Perverse Taiwan by : Howard Chiang

Download or read book Perverse Taiwan written by Howard Chiang and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book enriches and reorients our understanding of postcolonial queer East Asia. Challenging a heteronormative understanding of Taiwan’s past and present, it provides fresh critical analyses of a range of topics from queer criminality and literature in the 1950s and 1960s to the growing popularity of cross-dressing performance and tongzhi (gay and lesbian) cinema on the cusp of a new millennium. Together, the contributions provide a detailed account of the rise and transformations of queer cultures in post-World War II Taiwan.

Sinoglossia

Author : Andrea Bachner
Publisher : Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 13 : 9888805711
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (888 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Sinoglossia by : Andrea Bachner

Download or read book Sinoglossia written by Andrea Bachner and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-12 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinoglossia places the terms of embodiment, mediality, and translation at the center of analytical inquiry into Chinese and Sinophone cultures. Converging in the rubric of Sinoglossia, the chapters in this volume introduce a theory deﬁned by cultural formations not overdetermined by Sinitic linguistic ties. The concept of Sinoglossia combines a heteroglossic and a heterotopian approach to the critical study of mediated discourses of China and Chineseness. From the history of physical examinations and queer subalternity to the cinematic inscription of Chineseness-as-landscape, and from Sinopop to the translational writings of Eileen Chang and Syaman Rapongan, this book argues for a ﬂexible conceptualization of cultural objects, conditions, and contexts that draws attention to an array of polyphonic, multi-discursive, and multilingual articulations. In this new horizon of understanding, place or topos necessarily constitutes the possibility of friction and source of innovation. “Sinoglossia opens new possibilities for critical studies of China, Chineseness, and Chinese cultures. Bringing together pathbreaking scholarship from diverse perspectives, and highlighting multiplicity and heterogeneity on a range of topics, this volume is a vital addition to a range of fields.” —Karen L. Thornber, Harvard University “Vitally centering and theorizing processes of embodiment, mediality, and translation, this timely and rich volume—simultaneously reflective, speculative, comparative, and historically informed—convincingly articulates Sinoglossia as a flexible, heterogeneous approach to intercultural phenomena tenuously identified as Chinese or Sinophone.” —Brian Bernards, University of Southern California

Sexuality and the Rise of China

Author : Travis S. K. Kong
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 1478024437
Total Pages : 120 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (78 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Sexuality and the Rise of China by : Travis S. K. Kong

Download or read book Sexuality and the Rise of China written by Travis S. K. Kong and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-15 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sexuality and the Rise of China Travis S. K. Kong examines the changing meanings of same-sex identities, communities, and cultures for young Chinese gay men in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China. Drawing on ninety life stories, Kong’s transnational queer sociological approach shows the complex interplay between personal biography and the dramatically changing social institutions in these three societies. Kong conceptualizes coming out as relational politics and the queer/tongzhi community and commons as an affective, imaginative means of connecting, governed by homonormative masculinity. He shows how monogamy is a form of cruel optimism and envisions state and sexuality intertwining in different versions of homonationalism in each location. Tracing the alternately diverging and converging paths of being young, "Chinese," gay, and male, Kong reveals how both Western and emerging inter- and intra- Asian queer cultures shape queer/tongzhi experiences. Most significantly, at this historical juncture characterized by the rise of China, Kong criticizes the globalization of sexuality by emphasizing inter-Asia modeling, referencing, and solidarities and debunks the essentializing myth of Chineseness, thereby decolonizing Western sexual knowledge and demonstrating the differential meanings of Chineseness/queerness across the Sinophone world.

Handbook on Urban Development in China

Author : Ray Yep
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1786431637
Total Pages : 431 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Handbook on Urban Development in China by : Ray Yep

Download or read book Handbook on Urban Development in China written by Ray Yep and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The trajectory and logic of urban development in post-Mao China have been shaped and defined by the contention between domestic and global capital, central and local state and social actors of different class status and endowment. This urban transformation process of historic proportion entails new rules for distribution and negotiation, novel perceptions of citizenship, as well as room for unprecedented spontaneity and creativity. Based on original research by leading experts, this book offers an updated and nuanced analysis of the new logic of urban governance and its implications.

Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature

Author : Li-hua Ying
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1538130068
Total Pages : 825 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (381 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature by : Li-hua Ying

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature written by Li-hua Ying and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 825 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Chinese literature has been flourishing for over a century, with varying degrees of intensity and energy at different junctures of history and points of locale. An integral part of world literature from the moment it was born, it has been in constant dialogue with its counterparts from the rest of the world. As it has been challenged and enriched by external influences, it has contributed to the wealth of literary culture of the entire world. In terms of themes and styles, modern Chinese literature is rich and varied; from the revolutionary to the pastoral, from romanticism to feminism, from modernism to post-modernism, critical realism, psychological realism, socialist realism, and magical realism. Indeed, it encompasses a full range of ideological and aesthetic concerns. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature in modern China. It offers a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Chinese literature.

Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies

Author : Howard Chiang
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000055787
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies by : Howard Chiang

Download or read book Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies written by Howard Chiang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-13 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume showcases a vibrant wave of scholarship that explores the intersection of queer theory and Sinophone studies, consolidating an interdisciplinary framework for furthering transnational research into non-conforming genders, sexualities and bodies. Engaging with contemporary debates and controversies, Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies presents a definitive collection of original contributions, which are both theoretically and empirically grounded and cross-disciplinary in nature. Individual chapters offer an in-depth study of new empirical data and case studies, covering keywords such as transpacific, viscerality, fandom, postcoloniality, ethnicity and activism. Imagining new conversations across several fields, including literature, film, communication, ethnic studies, anthropology, history, sociology and politics, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Queer Studies and Asian culture, literature and film, as well as gender and sexuality.

Maritime Taiwan

Author : Shih-Shan Henry Tsai
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317465164
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Maritime Taiwan by : Shih-Shan Henry Tsai

Download or read book Maritime Taiwan written by Shih-Shan Henry Tsai and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries the island of Taiwan, 100 miles off the Asian mainland, has been a crossroads for traders and settlers, pirates and military schemers from around the world. Unlike China, with its long tradition of keeping foreigners out, Taiwan has a long history of interaction, both hostile and friendly, with other seafaring nations near and far. "Maritime Taiwan" captures the full drama and details of this remarkable history. It's filled with fascinating stories of foreign adventurers and echoes the bitter songs of Taiwan's aboriginal population, confronted by the convergence of different maritime cultures and values on the island.Here are accounts of the legendary pirate Koxinga, the Chinese junk trade, the mighty Dutch East India Company, British opium traders and Scottish tea merchants, Jesuit priests and Presbyterian missionaries, A French fleet commander, a Japanese colonial administrator, an American aid official, and many more. Here too is an extraordinary view of Taiwan over the centuries, as its distinct identity, culture, and values were shaped by its unique history. Today, with a population of only 23 million, Taiwan is the world's nineteenth largest economy, a vibrant, relatively free society on the strategic route between China and Southeast Asia. Maritime Taiwan also discusses the significant impact of American military, economic, educational, and technological aid on Taiwan's developments and addresses the island's continued importance in maintaining the U.S. hegemony in East Asia.

Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines

Author : Howard Chiang
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231557523
Total Pages : 667 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines by : Howard Chiang

Download or read book Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines written by Howard Chiang and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-17 with total page 667 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sinophone studies—the study of Sinitic-language cultures and communities around the world—has become increasingly interdisciplinary over the past decade. Today, it spans not only literary studies and cinema studies but also history, anthropology, musicology, linguistics, art history, and dance. More and more, it is in conversation with fields such as postcolonial studies, settler-colonial studies, migration studies, ethnic studies, queer studies, and area studies. This reader presents the latest and most cutting-edge work in Sinophone studies, bringing together both senior and emerging scholars to highlight the interdisciplinary reach and significance of this vital field. It argues that Sinophone studies has developed a distinctive conceptualization of power at the convergence of different intellectual traditions, offering new approaches to questions of plurality, hierarchy, oppression, and resistance. In so doing, this book shows, Sinophone studies has provided valuable conceptual tools for the study of minoritized and racialized communities in diverse global settings. Essays also consider how the rise of China has affected Sinophone communities and the idea of Chineseness around the world, among other timely topics. Showcasing cross-fertilization and diversification that traverse and transcend conventional scholarly boundaries, Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines gives readers an unparalleled survey of the past, present, and future of this inherently interdisciplinary field.

Queering Chinese Kinship

Author : Lin Song
Publisher : Hong Kong University Press
ISBN 13 : 9888528734
Total Pages : 173 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (885 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Queering Chinese Kinship by : Lin Song

Download or read book Queering Chinese Kinship written by Lin Song and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to be queer in a Confucian society in which kinship roles, ties, and ideologies are of such great importance? This book makes sense of queer cultures in China—a country with one of the largest queer populations in the world—and offers an alternative to Euro-American blueprints of queer individual identity. This book contends that kinship relations must be understood as central to any expression of queer selfhood and culture in contemporary cultural production in China. Using a critical approach—“queering Chinese kinship”—Lin Song scrutinizes the relationship between queerness and family relations, and questions Eurocentric queer culture’s frequent assumption of the separation of queerness from blood family. Offering five case studies of queer representations across a range of media genres, this book also challenges the tendency in current scholarship on Chinese and East Asian queerness to understand queer cultures as predominantly counter-mainstream, marginal, and underground. Shedding light on the representations of queerness and kinship in independent and subcultural as well as commercial and popular cultural products, the book presents a more comprehensive picture of queerness and kinship in flux and highlights queer politics as an integral part of contemporary Chinese public culture. “The book makes a strong contribution to Asian queer studies through an in-depth theorization of queer kinship in the Chinese context, a comprehensive coverage of different types of queer media and popular culture, and an innovative discussion of homonormativity in the context of contemporary China. In a fast-developing and very competitive academic field, this book stands out as an important contribution.” —Hongwei Bao, University of Nottingham “Queering Chinese Kinship represents the cutting edge of Chinese queer studies. Its sophisticated media analyses and provocative theoretical contentions reveal two central paradoxes: the interdependence of queerness and kinship despite China’s notoriously homophobic patriarchal familism, and the flourishing of queer public culture in spite of its infamously restrictive media environment. Brilliantly demonstrating how queer possibility emerges through a confluence of familial, media, state, and market forces, this book is a joy to read and a major contribution to the field.” —Fran Martin, University of Melbourne

Handbook on the Family and Marriage in China

Author : Xiaowei Zang
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1785368192
Total Pages : 463 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (853 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Handbook on the Family and Marriage in China by : Xiaowei Zang

Download or read book Handbook on the Family and Marriage in China written by Xiaowei Zang and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-29 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook advances research on the family and marriage in China by providing readers with a multidisciplinary and multifaceted coverage of major issues in one single volume. It addresses the major conceptual, theoretical and methodological issues of marriage and family in China and offers critical reflections on both the history and likely progression of the field.

Face Off

Author : John W. Garver
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295800356
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (958 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Face Off by : John W. Garver

Download or read book Face Off written by John W. Garver and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taiwan's first presidential election, in 1996, sparked a Sino-U.S. military showdown that resulted in the biggest show of U.S. naval force in East Asia since the Vietnam War. This book is the first to explore the origins and triangular dynamics of that historic confrontation. Analyzing the key decisions and misperceptions that led to the Taiwan Strait crisis, Garver warns that it may usher in a more confrontational era of Sino-U.S. relations. China is already emerging as an economic powerhouse and fears of its becoming an expansionist military power have grown in recent years as China has rapidly built up its armed forces since 1989. It has also adopted a more assertive stance in several territorial disputes with its neighbors, arousing new security concerns for Asia as a whole. When China tried to intimidate Taiwan's voters by firing missiles and conducting large-scale military exercises off its coasts in the period preceding the 1996 election, the U.S. dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to Taiwan. The prestige of all sides was fully engaged as powerful do domestic interests demanded an assertive posture. Eventually, China adopted a more cautious stance and the crisis passed. But it marked the first instance of Chinese nuclear coercion of the U.S. and gave the "China threat" new credence in the U.S. and elsewhere in Asia. The author has studied the Taiwan question for more than 30 years and has witnessed first-hand the growth and culmination of Taiwan's democratization. This sober, mature reflection of decades of thought is certain to inform the debate on the "China threat" and the future of Sino-U.S. relations.