Place your bets, -how long till the first incident?

I read a great book about Korea. One of the things that apparently shocks North Koreans when they arrive in South Korea is that it’s 10x richer than the North and South Koreans aren’t working as slaves on big plantations for cruel American masters. Ok, I’m parodying NK propaganda a bit, but whenever SK is mentioned in NK it was obviously portrayed as a very nasty place. Now I realise that the PRC isn’t North Korea, but you have to wonder what the effect of 3000 people per day who’ve seen that Taiwan actually works very well will be on the PRC. Taiwan is about 6x richer than China in terms of GDP per capita. Now maybe the people visiting will be richer than the average Taiwanese, but you have to wonder if that won’t be obvious to them.

Why in the world do you think mainlanders don’t already know Taiwan is rich, and “works very well”? If you happened to be stuck in a bygone era, let me help you out. China is a open country. Everyone knows that Taiwan has a functioning democracy with a higher standard of living. There’s nothing to see in that regard that they don’t already know.

Well if that’s the case how come when I stay in hotel in Shenzhen CNN is cut off whenever they mention Taiwan or Tibet.

I think ABC is right. The urban areas Chinese tourists are coming from are fairly well off and people know a great deal about Taiwan–DVDs and bit torrent downloads of Taiwanese political talk shows are widely available. While China is certainly not an ‘open’ society (more a ‘filtered’ society), people know that Taiwan is a democracy just as they know that Hong Kong is wealthy. I think they will be curious about how open Taiwan is and about its history as the ROC, but I wouldn’t expect it to have any great effect on their political ideas.

Well the same can be said of the average Taiwanese. It is not as if they seek news sources from the PRC on a daily basis either.

In fact that is the reason for the 3 link and cultural exchanges to break down the stereotypes.

Unless the average Taiwanese has extensive overseas experience or is married to a PRC spouse, there have very little opportunity to understand what is going on in the mainland.

Unless Taiwan can demostrate that it is that much more developed than the mainland. I doubt they will be impressed to the point where they will go back and demand change. Unfortunately, given the pace of PRC urban development they may see development level as being too similar, thus only reinforcing their views that the PRC system is working.