An urgent, indispensable guide to why Taiwan matters – for China, the West and everyone’s future 'An erudite primer . . . Brown's mission to educate westerners about Taiwan and why it matters is a critical one, which makes this book well worth reading' SUNDAY TIMES • 'Anyone with a care to avoid a third world war – between China and the US – should read this book' JACK STRAW • ‘An authoritative primer to all things Taiwan’ BARBARA DEMICK 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