Why Taiwan Matters: A Short History of a Small Island That Will Dictate Our Future : A Short History of a Small Island That Will Dictate Our Future (First US edition)

"Taiwan expert Kerry Brown sums up the history of Taiwan and the danger of a Chinese takeover in this succinct and authoritative book.

When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born.

Mao's Communists won and took China's mainland; Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan island.

Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities.

Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world's economy.

It is a free and vibrant society. For the United States and the West, the island is a bastion of freedom against China's assertive presence in the region. And yet China, increasingly bellicose under Xi Jinping, insists Taiwan is part of its territory and must be returned to it.

Should China blockade the island and mount an invasion, it would set off a chain reaction