Arriving at Taipei international airport en route to a Taiwanese university conference on Russia, you are hit by the headline of a local magazine on display. In translation it reads: "The New Diplomacy Will Rescue Taiwan."

The new diplomacy, of course, is recently elected President Ma Ying-jeou's plans for closer relations with mainland China.

Leaving the airport you begin to realize one reason for wanting to be rescued — the economy. Taiwan's living standards are still well above those of mainland China. But it has little of China's dynamism. Urban slums seem to linger on for decades; in most mainland cities they would long ago have been replaced by attractive high-rises.