Taiwan: Seeking a New Image

Through all the postwar upheavals and changes in Asia, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has endured. Now 81 years old, and an exile for the past 20 years on the island of Taiwan, he is a living anachronism. Chiang is still widely recognized—at least in formal diplomatic terms— as the representative of all China. Yet even that is beginning to change, as some Western nations stir toward explicit acknowledgment of Mao Tse-tung's rule of the mainland. Italy put out feelers toward possible Peking diplomatic ties earlier this year. Canada announced last week that it planned...