China the Hegemon again?

Dear WSN,

MWS has been built on long-term processes of social change.  The
transformation of core to peripheral states and vise versa during the
last ten thousand years is an exciting process in terms of evolution.
What we are facing in the post-Mordern World-System ("MWS", not post
modern world systems) is rapid technological information deluge.
Acculturation, a ten thousand year process to post modernity in the WS,
is now a ten year (months?) WWW experience.

The US Core is a phenomenon which takes into its parameters human beings
in trdae-marked Levi jeans, surfing the net with proprietory Netscape /
Explorer platforms, publishing articles in virtue Journals promoting
Americanism knowingly or otherwise.

Could Prof. Thomas Hall's reweaving of the WST help understand the
mind-set of the cultural/economic colonists, if there were any,  in
Taiwan and other sub-sets of the MWS?

Hall, in his "Pre-1500ers: Reweaving the World-System¡¨ (PEWS News
Winter 1993, pp. 2-3) observed Chris Chase-Dunn's 1990 argument that the
study of past world-system transformations is one way to gain insights
into future transformations.  He also noted Wagar's  Short History of
the Future, which weaved a world-system  based scenario of the future.
He went on to quote Al Bergesen that if Japan becomes the next hegemon,
it will lead to an unprecedented shift away from Western to Asian
cultural symbols whose origins far pre-date 1500.

Hall acknowledged the frustrations imposed on various WS analysts in
stretching, loosening, adapting, and otherwise modifying WST "so that
many features which are more-or-less constant for the MWS can be
reconceptualized as theoretical variables: relative weights of economics
and politics in political-economy; roles of kinship, tribute, trade, and
industrialization in capital accumulation; transformations and
articulations of modes of production; degree and direction of domination
and exploitation".

He proposed, ¡§nonstate societies encountered by Europeans were most
often greatly transformed by those contacts, much of our thinking on
social evolution is based on faulty data.  Thus, an examination of the
processes of precapitalist core/periphery structures (c/ps) will help
'clean' this data.  This, in turn, should lead to new insights into at
least four major processes occurring within the MWS".

The third and forth of these are of particular interest:

"many, if not all, state-based core/periphery systems absorbed and
transformed nonstate societies, sometimes generating oppositional states
(Chase-Dunn 1988), sometimes creating enclave minorities, and always
generating problems of acculturation or resocialization for those
incorporated into the c/ps.  Occasionally, nonstate societies forced
changes in states. ¡K.Finally, many of the "tribes" we know to day--in
the Americas and elsewhere--were created in the process of
state-nonstate conflict on the expanding frontiers of the MWS (Hall
1989, for American Southwest)", and

"the entire mix of status and nonstatus groups is shaped by processes
within core/periphery structures".

It is of interest because:

1. Has Taiwan been absorbed and transformed as a previous ¡§nonstate
society¡¨ into the US Core / Hegemon?
2. Has Taiwan been generated as an "oppositional state"  in the
"state-to-state" controversy?
3. Has Taiwan become a member of the ¡§enclave minorities¡¨?
4. Has Taiwan been hurled into the pressure cooker during "acculturation
or resocialization" during incorporation into the c/ps.
5. Would this be one of the occasions where Taiwan as a ¡§nonstate
societies¡¨ prior to becoming an "oppositional state" will¡§force
changes in states¡¨ (reformation of political system in the case of
China and rejuvenation as a hegemon in the case of the US)?
6. Where are the frontiers of the core and peripherals in the MWS and
where is ¡§state/nonstate conflict¡¨ of China/Taiwan in respect to these
frontiers?
7. If the US is a declining hegemon, in the c/ps, with one of the most
troublesome "enclave minorities¡¨ waving the G word (as in Greenback and
Greenspan¡¨) in the context of the ¡§state-to-state"  controversy, what
if anything will she do as the core ?
8. Is ¡§status", in the Weber sense of the word (class and) ¡¥status¡¦
relevant?  Or could the Taiwan ¡§enclave minorities¡¨ become ¡§middle
class(es) of color¡¨ and ¡§fully acculturated / integrated¡¨?

Hall concluded by saying: ¡§This list (of major processes) could be
extended.  The examination of these processes in ancient world-systems
should yield new insights into to all these processes.  Such studies
will help delineate what is truly different about the (post) modern
world-system. This, for me at least, is not an unraveling of theory, but
an effort to reweave it into a more comprehensive tool for understanding
and shaping our world.¡¨

Plus ca change, plus cest la meme chose!!!

May be other questions could also be answered, with the WS model, adding
insight to the list:

-In the Confucian context, what ¡§roles of kinship¡¨ did the US
acculturation of Taiwan played?
-In the context of Deng Xiao Ping¡¦s ¡§making money is no crime¡¨
directive, how relevant is¡§relative weights of economics and politics
in political-economy¡¨ in the Greater China sub-set of the MWS?
-As a trading partner of China, how transparent is Taiwan's  corporate
governance as an ¡§enclave minority¡¨?
-Does Information Technology induced industrialization in Taiwan have
any effect on capital accumulation in this enclave minority and on the
core?
-To what extent was "Transformations and articulations of modes of
production¡¨ in one of the largest export commodity sectors of Taiwan,
that of 'Machineries and Electrical Equipments¡¦ (
wysiwyg://29/http://www.stat.gov.tw/bs8/bulletin/je.htm) aided and
abetted by the core?
-What ¡¨degree and direction of domination and exploitation¡¨ by the
core on the enclave minority are measurable, if any?

Are truth on this side of the Pyrenese falsehood on the other?

One thing we seem to be able to agree, or agree to disagree:  "There
must be a shift from threat to dialogue across the Taiwan strait"
(President Clintion) or "There must be a shift from threat to dialogue
across the Pacific Ocean" (Premier Zhu).  Perhaps there is room for
dreams for there must be a shift from threat to dialouge in the MWS.

K.S.Tso