ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on public attitudes and mass values in Taiwan. Taiwan people's popular attitudes, beliefs and values can augur similar developments on the mainland. Taiwan and China are located quite close to each other on the dimension separating traditional values from secular-rational values. They are both located closer to the secular-rational end of the spectrum, with the Chinese actually exhibiting more such value orientation than the Taiwanese. Significantly, the clustering patterns in the cultural map produced by Inglehart and Welzel put Taiwan and China in the same neighborhood as South Korea, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovakia. Taiwan's society features a mixture of traditional and modern elements and the effects of Western, Chinese and even Japanese influence. It has become a competitive democracy only recently, and although it has made tremendous economic progress in the past five decades, it has yet to join the ranks of the most advanced industrial countries.
