As was suggested in Chapter 2, it might seem surprising to see these two countries associated in terms of the way in which citizens regard the state. Britain is no longer what it was when it dominated the world economically, militarily and even politically; but it remains a major power; indeed, what seemed to have been its long-time decline has ostensibly been arrested, in the last decades in the twentieth century, in part because of oil, but in part also because of the importance of its financial and business sector. Taiwan is an upstart, on the contrary. It has shown extraordinary economic strength and indeed financial power as well, at any rate in relation to the part which it has played in mainland China since the last decades of the twentieth century: but it is scarcely a major power; indeed, it is even arguable as to whether it is a power at all. This is why it was suggested in Chapter 2 that, if Britain was to be compared with any

country in East Asia, the comparison would seem more likely to be with Japan than with Taiwan: indeed, there are common characteristics of the two countries in terms of the attitudes towards the state, as we shall see in the next chapter.