{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01912568306010929, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0018214936247723133, 'mean_word_length': 5.3314121037463975, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book review: Governing Civil Service Pay in China

fares within a complex governance system, and might provide useful lessons to other countries struggling with similar issues. The book begins with a chapter reviewing the broad range of environmental politics in Taiwan, followed by a chapter summarizing the history of Taiwan’s environment. These are useful chapters, although repeating much that is already available in other literature. The most interesting parts of the book, and the most valuable contribution, are the four succeeding chapters devoted to case studies of four major development projects that have bedevilled Taiwan for many years, namely, nuclear energy and the controversy over the fourth nuclear power plant; Taiwan’s petrochemical industry and the raging controversy over the Kuokuang Petrochemical Naphtha Cracker; the Taipei Dome buildoperate-transfer project; and the Tamsui North Shore Road Project. These four illustrate particularly well the incredible complexity of environmental governance in Taiwan, the zigzag path that development projects must go through in order to pass an environmental impact assessment and all the other hurdles standing in the way, and the uncomfortable reality that many of the stakeholders are self-serving first and devoted to the well-being of the environment second. This includes the major political parties, the Kuomintang and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Grano’s book vividly reminds us that the road to sustainable development in Taiwan is a tortuous one indeed. With the return to power of the DPP in the January 2016 election, it will be interesting to see whether the government returns to a truly pro-environment approach to sustainable development, as still promised on the DPP platform, or whether the familiar pattern of compromising of principles and self-serving behaviour on the part of officials (at all levels) will prevail. Much will depend on whether the DPP gains control of the legislature, not just the presidency. The reader can learn much from Grano’s detailed and carefully documented story. Her book is must reading for anyone interested in contemporary Taiwan and environmental policy and governance.