hahaha...I can't believe that Taiwan has only had 2 democratic elections..

[Some Moran]

And yet they were smart enough to put "Devil" in the title of Ah-nold's movies since the '80s.

I guess A-bian's friends owned all the distributors. :-P

[Scott Lee]

1. I used to work in Taipei, Taiwan. It was a police state.

Soldiers were running around acting as policemen. You could get a ticket for having your hair too long.

And THIS is what America calls "free China"? Unreal.

[w4rma]

2. Still sounds freer than China, though (n/t)

[Scott Lee]

3. CUBA is freer than Taiwan.

[madddog]

6. gee

that would mean the opposition party would now be in power there I guess....oh, my bad...Cuba doens't HAVE an oppostion party. Sorry, I got confused there.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Been to both PRC and Taiwan

I've only been to Taiwan twice, but have spent a lot of time in So. China. I agree... my impression of Taiwan is it definitely has got that militarist bent....wicked nationalist zenophobes there. I suspect that it's their education/compulsory military service and the natural fear of being invaded by the mainland. Funny, but I've never met any mainland Chinese who have that kind of arrogance. Maybe they are in Beijing, but it's not on display in the Guangdong Province. They're too busy hustling to make a buck, I guess.

[madddog]

5. how long ago?

I was there in '87, and it was nowhere near a police state. If you were there during martial law, ok...but it's changed a lot since then.