This research develops an economic profile of the Republic of China, typically referred to as either Taiwan or Nationalist China or Taiwan in the west. Taiwan is one of the world's most rapidly developing economies.1 The country has pursued eco nomic growth in the 1970s and 1980s primarily through the development of its export trade.2 Taiwan has a market economy. The Taiwanese government, however, acts to protect local producers from foreign competi tion, and generally exercises a more interventionist role in the country's economy than that which occurs in the United States. In this context, the relationship between the Taiwan ese government and the economy's private sector follows much more closely the Japanese model than it does the American model.
Among the non industrialized economies within the Pacific Basin, Taiwan is one of the few countries with a very high potential to become a middle industrial power. Among all of
1The World Bank, World Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 203; "Southeast Asia's Boom Belt," Wirtschaftswoche Dusseldorf (27 January 1984): 30 32.
2J. Paxton, (Ed.), The Statesman's Year Book: 1989 1990, 126th ed. (New York: St, Martin's Press, 1989), 370 371; "The 'Four Dragons' Lose Their Fire," Business Week, 28 March 1983,64 68.
the Pacific Basin countries, total Taiwanese trade (both exports and imports) with the United States
12 
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= 1076
= 4 (250 words per page)
