Introduction

When Chinese Nationalists retreated from the mainland to Taiwan in 194950, they governed a people barely recovered from the Japanese occupation and Pacific War. Wartime damage to factories, plants, and buildings had not been completely repaired; housing was scarce for the flood of mainland Chinese immigrants; food was barely sufficient to feed a population that within a year had increased by over 20 percent. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was about US $110, which placed Taiwan among the poor, or “underdeveloped”, countries emerging from the Second World War.