Georgia Institute of Technology

Northeast Asia is widely regarded as "ground zero" for global energy activity, with mounting demand and anxiety about over-reliance on vulnerable sea-lines from traditional but unstable Middle Eastern and African suppliers. Accordingly, emerging Chinese, Japanese, and Korean markets have become a conspicuous fixation for Russian suppliers, given their proximity for overland transit, changing geological bases of domestic production, and drive to diversify outlets to break the “co-dependency” on established European importers and post-Soviet transit states.

Taiwan's rapid industrialization during the 1960s and 1970s, combined with the democratic revolution that began with the lifting of martial law in 1987 were of deep historic importance. Over the next decade Taiwan's "political miracle" matched its earlier "economic miracle" creating a vibrant liberal democracy complete with freedom of speech, association and assembly, rule of law, and competitive and fair multi-party elections.