Merely describing Taiwan requires multiple feats of intellectual doublethink. The island is threatened almost daily by neighboring China, officially recognized by fewer than a dozen nations yet unofficially backed by the U.S., and perennially characterized as a "self-governing democracy" rather than in terms that might imply sovereignty and thus ruffle feathers in Beijing. Even that sentence would not escape challenge on either side of the strait that separates the two. How did we get here?
Books
Books: Delving into decades of doublethink on Taiwan
Chris Horton's 'Ghost Nation' untangles the island state's struggle to survive
A woman holds cutouts of maps of China and Taiwan during a protest in Taipei denouncing China's military exercises in the waters surrounding Taiwan ahead of the island's first direct presidential elections in March 1996. © Reuters
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