Matt Bevan

If your people are rich, they won't protest.

Unofficial voices of discontent are muted by affluence.

In the early 1960s, the average Taiwanese person was twice as wealthy as their mainland counterparts.

But by the mid-80s, they were ten times wealthier.

But making your society wealthier isn't a foolproof way to protect your dictatorship.

In the 70s and 80s, authoritarians in rapidly growing societies from Portugal to South Korea faced growing protest movements.

It generally starts with something small.

Farmers get angry about a trade deal they think benefits America more than them.

City folks get angry about the high cost of housing.

Then, when the government cracks down, people start demanding democratic freedoms.

In both versions of China, the communist one on the mainland and the nationalist one on Taiwan, people took to the streets demanding free and fair elections.

But the communist and nationalist governments reacted very differently.

In Beijing's Tiananmen Square, student protesters were met with gunfire.

The troops, without warning, opened up with a burst of rifle fire lasting a minute or more.

Less than a year after the massacre at Tiananmen Square, student protesters were standing outside the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.

It was March 1990.

Scattered protests had been seen across Taiwan for years.

Martial law had been lifted, and the Chiang dynasty had ended.

The new president, elected by that same strange parliament, was Lee Tung-hui,

Now, he was facing demands from students for direct democratic elections of the President and National Assembly.