Book Review: Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution by Karl Gerth

Abstract

mainland. This differentiation helps to explain a partial convergence on vital questions of national sovereignty between the two major tendencies in the Taiwanese population as a whole that orient, on the one hand, toward the ‘blue camp’ (led by the Kuomintang) and, on the other hand, toward the ‘green camp’ (led by the Democratic Progressive Party). With Hong Kong in full view, only about one in 10 respondents in opinion surveys favour the ‘one country, two systems’ alternative, reflected in broad approval for President Tsai’s second term. During the years covered in the concluding sections of the study, self-identification as ‘Taiwanese-only’ has risen significantly from a small minority during the 1990s to a large majority today. Discussion of the evolution of literary trends and cultural activities focused on émigrés’ memory of China in Chapter 3, and subsequent disenchantment (Chapter 4), traces an interesting parallel to this shift in awareness. All of the above confirms the analysis and vision of the author. One outcome might be that the anachronism of the outsider–native dichotomy will soon be evident among the new generations, becoming categories (still sometimes termed ‘ethnic’) of historic interest only.