My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer who has

published three books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.

                       Taiwan is one of the best known Asian multi-party democratic states today. 

The 20th largest economy in the world, it has become a role modal for so many other countries

in the region. It was not always that way. When I lived there for four years, it was in fact a right wing

one party police state ruled by the conservative Nationalist Party of China. No one could say anything

bad about the government, no one could say anything that the government said was "too

controversial," and all of the news media as well as books in the bookstores had all been

screened for any content the government objected to. The mention of anything that had to do with

"Taiwan independence" was absolutely forbidden, and books dealing with anything at all of the

"bad things" on the history of the Republic of China or its former leader Chiang Kai-shek were

not allowed into the country. I remember seeing rallies where pro-Taiwan independence 

activists were surrounded by police who told them to take down their pro-independence flags

happened frequently, and the national police always employed special barricades with armed

police to prevent people from demonstrating even if it was a peaceful assembly. Statues of

Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen were everywhere, and portraits Chiang-Kai-shek and Sun

Yat-sen were in every government office that I ever saw (and even some private homes). I was

warned that as a foreign national in Taiwan I had no basic civil rights, that I should say

nothing that might be deemed critical to the Republic of China government (even if it was

working conditions or all of the bureaucratic red tape I had to deal with). For two of the four

years I was subjected to this non-sense. I had to pretend to be blind, deaf and dumb to avoid

getting into trouble and may be either getting kicked out of the country (which would be the nice

thing they did), or ending up in their prison system (the lousy part of the deal). As Taiwan

democratized, these restrictions were lifted and I no longer had to deal with them. But it all left 

a bad taste in my mouth and this is one of the reasons I never joined a right wing party or 

organization in the United States---because I remember what it was like to live in a right wing,

one party police state.