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The spring 2000 presidential election brought the candidate of the progressive Democratic Party, which had been in the opposition to the KMT for a long time, to power. Taiwan figures as the model of a successful democratic transition, managing little by little to stabilize a pluralist political system to the point of enabling a peaceful changeover at the helm of the state. This democratic development has been helped along by growth in high tech sectors and a strengthening of economic ties with mainland China. The singularity of the Taiwanese model is that it is based on a fabric of small and medium-sized family companies that operate in a network and are able to quickly adapt to international market demands. Reacting against a national identity that the KMT regime had linked to mainland China to the detriment of local culture, Taiwan has begun, over the past few years, to reevaluate its insular past. The public debate on Taiwan’s history is also part of a determination to redefine national identity after 40 years of culture imposed by the minority of mainland Chinese who followed Chiang Kai-Shek when he withdrew in 1949-1950.