ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the 1990s, it was manifestly impossible to essay convincingly on what would happen between China and Taiwan for the remaining years of the twentieth century. There were too many variables on all sides, and there was no good way to order them, weigh their comparative importance, and choose a most likely future. And reality in any case was always the product as much of surprises, the order in which things occur, and unforeseen events as it was of the projection into the future of current trends. One could list a spectrum of possibilities in order to sensitize interested parties as to what might come, and one could speculate, hopefully intelligently, on what conditions would have to exist in order that one or another alternative might stand some probability of becoming reality or of being avoided. And one could inspect the current situation and note in what directions-straight-line and curvilinear-things seemed to be moving. But it would be foolish to represent any particular future as being "most likely", "probable", or "unlikely". All that could be done was to spell out some of the prospects for whatever they were worth and let others note them and use (or reject) the accompanying analysis for whatever purpose they might wish.
