After forty years of rule by Mainland-born members of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, Taiwan was evolving towards a true constitutional democracy. Other parties had been allowed to contest the 1990 election, and the Mainland-born Mr. Hau was Premier to the ROC's first Taiwan-born President, Lee Teng-hui. This is only the second Firing Line in which the guest has used an interpreter (the first having also been from Taiwan, #S309 with then-Premier Chiang Ching-kuo). The result is a slower pace than often, but it's well worth it for the view from this unique vantage point. HP: "Sudden overnight change such as has taken place in the Soviet Union could not happen in Mainland China ... because 80 per cent of the population of Mainland China are farmers. For the past ten years Deng Xiaoping's so-called agricultural village reform guaranteeing income to each household has been quite successful. It has allowed ... a great improvement compared to the days of Cultural Revolution and the People's Commune. But because they are quite cut off from news of the outside world, basically 80 per cent of the population ... are in a stable situation.... This is a basic difference between the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and of Gorbachev."