But it is, of curse, a kind of bureaucratic polity and kleptocracy in which the
state is entirely controlled and governed by state bureaucrats without any accountability to the
civil society (see Christensen and Siamwalla, 1993; Riggs, 1966; Siriprachai, 1995b;
Thanapornpun, 1990). I shall argue that external threats facing both South Korea and Taiwan
did help in making the state (the nation) strong.