TAIWAN

Exports to China Hit Record: The growth indicates that it’s business as usual between the two rivals despite a summer of sharply heightened tensions. For the first eight months of the year, exports totaled $11.8 billion, or 16.1% of Taiwan’s overall exports, compared to 15.7% in 1994, Taiwan’s Board of Foreign Trade said last week. Total trade, including Chinese exports to Taiwan worth $2.1 billion, was 34% higher than in the same period of 1994, the agency said. China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province, took an unofficial visit by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to the United States in June as symbolic U.S. recognition of independence; it retaliated by freezing talks with Taiwan and conducting missile tests near the island.