Introduction
The World Trade Organization (WTO) came into force on January 1995 succeeding the General Agreements on Tariffs Trade (GATT 1948). Dozens of new membership applications since then have been filed from countries that missed the initial deadline, and are currently under negotiations. Only a number of countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and China are yet to file their applications, which are presumably in preparation. Among them, however, China’s accession to the new GATT seems particularly protracted since the talks on GATT membership of China over the last few years turned out to be unsuccessful.
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Country or Region: Taiwan
Zheng, Yu
Summary
Yu Zheng challenges the idea that democracy is the prerequisite for developing countries to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) and promote economic growth. He examines the relationship between political institutions and FDI through the use of cross-national analysis and case studies of three rapidly growing Asian economies with a focus on the role of microinstitutional “special economic zones” (SEZ).
China’s authoritarian system allows for bold, radical economic reform, but China has attracted FDI largely because of its increasingly credible investment environment as well as its central and local governments’ efforts to overcome constraints on investment. India’s democratic institutions provide more political assurance to foreign investors, but its market became conducive to FDI only when the government adopted more flexible investment policies. Taiwan’s democratic transition shifted its balance of policy credibility and flexibility, which was essential for the nation’s economic takeoff and sustained growth.
Zheng concludes that a more accurate understanding of the relationship between political institutions and FDI comes from careful analysis of institutional arrangements that entail a trade-off between credibility and flexibility of governance.
Magcamit, M. I
Abstract
This article examines Taiwan’s cross-strait relations with China by analyzing the linkages between their respective security interests and free trade objectives in the twenty-first century. It argues that these entanglements induce a scenario akin to the prisoner’s dilemma that compels Taiwanese leaders and policymakers to preserve the Chinese-dominated cross-strait status quo. To enhance their political appeals during general elections, the major political parties in Taiwan are being forced to cooperate with each other, albeit artificially. By adopting a parallel, watered-down approach to sensitive political issues, particularly with respect to Taiwan’s sovereignty status, the omnipresent China factor is being legitimized further. Such an approach homogenizes the parties’ political agendas with respect to Taiwanese autonomy which leads to the island’s perpetual entrapment within the One-China trajectory. Using original and secondary sources in the empirical analysis of the security–trade nexus mainly from the Taiwanese perspective, the article highlights the slow yet steady co-optation of Taiwan’s sovereign interests within China’s sinicization project.
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Lin, Syaru Shirley
Summary
China and Taiwan share one of the world’s most complex international relationships. Although similar cultures and economic interests promoted an explosion of economic ties between them since the late 1980s, these ties have not led to an improved political relationship, let alone progress toward the unification that both governments once claimed to seek. In addition, Taiwan’s recent Sunflower Movement succeeded in obstructing deeper economic ties with China. Why has Taiwan’s policy toward China been so inconsistent?
Taiwan’s China Dilemma explains the divergence between the development of economic and political relations across the Taiwan Strait through the interplay of national identity and economic interests. Using primary sources, opinion surveys, and interviews with Taiwanese opinion leaders, Syaru Shirley Lin paints a vivid picture of one of the most unsettled and dangerous relationships in the contemporary world, and illustrates the growing backlash against economic liberalization and regional economic integration around the world.
Lee, John S
Abstract
The relative period of peace in East Asia since the Second World War has largely been underwritten by not just growing prosperity, but the prospect that peace and stability will automatically generate opportunities for countries to grow rich and contented – as has occurred in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. In reality, the arrival of this so-called ‘Asian Century’ is no sure thing. There are significant headwinds or obstacles which may prove difficult for many regional developing countries to overcome. These range from the declining effectiveness of an export-dependent growth model, developments in manufacturing technologies that will dilute the region’s existing advantages, and the problems and cost of aging demographics which will be challenging for many countries to manage. This means that in an environment where the lack of economic gains fails to temper deepening strategic competition and rivalry, the first few decades of this century may well be more traumatic and troubling than the last few decades of the previous century.
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Levy, Philip
Introduction
Perhaps there is something about playing hard to get. The more difficulty existing participants have concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, the more eager outside countries have been to join. Taiwan is the latest aspirant: President Ma Ying-jeou has made the pursuit of TPP membership a top priority. It is not especially difficult to see why Taiwan would want to join the TPP; it is somewhat harder to see how it might pull off the feat.
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Ding, Arthur S
Abstract
China’s rapid military modernisation in the past decade has raised concern over when and how China will use its military power in the future. There is no definite answer to this concern. However, the new course in Taiwan, urgent non-traditional security issues, the domestic agenda for re-allocating resources to development of a ‘harmonious society’, and the looming economic crisis could shape China’s foreign policy goals so that it continues the engagement approach adopted in the past decade.
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Deans, Phil
Abstract
Nationalism and national self-assertion have been core values of the Chinese Communist Party throughout its history and also represent a key narrative of Chinese history in the 20th century, although the social bases from which the nationalism derives and the manner in which this nationalism is expressed have changed over time. From the 1990s onwards, the party-state’s preferred discourse on nationalism has been couched in terms of patriotism, while a popular nationalism has emerged, which at times goes beyond and challenges that of the party-state. The implications of this are addressed in the present paper with regard to the PRC’s relations with Taiwan and Japan and with regard to the debate on ideology and Asian Values. It is argued that rising popular nationalism increasingly challenges state autonomy in the first two areas, but tends to be supportive of the state with regard to the third.
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Wang, Vincent Wei-Cheng
Abstract
This article contends that the Tsai administration will likely be positive for U.S.-Taiwan relations. While the partnership may well require more work than was expended over the last eight years, the yield may be significant.
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Irwin Crookes, Paul
Abstract
This article explores the political and security implications for relations between Beijing and Taipei in light of the recent election of a new Taiwanese president. Due to be inaugurated in May 2016, Tsai Ing-wen hails from a different point on the political spectrum to that of the outgoing leadership, introducing uncertainties in the political relationship with the mainland and casting light on the continuing importance of the United States as a security actor in the region. Concurrent with outlining the nature of this political change and the uncertainties this introduces, Paul Irwin Crookes evaluates evidence of a shift in the balance of military power across the Taiwan Strait, potentially changing the dynamics of decision-making for all sides in the event of future conflict.
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Chang, Mau-Kuei, and Mau-Kuei Michael Chang
Abstract
Taiwan’s growing calls for independence have provoked China and heightened the risk of military conflict in the region. This paper addresses two issues: first, it seeks to provide a short historical overview of the development of Taiwanese nationalistic self-assertion; second, it questions the commonly held notion of keeping the ‘status quo’, which is in effect always changing and dynamic. The paper uses a historical-institutional framework for its interpretation. It explores the origin and rise of Taiwanese nationalism in its relationship to Taiwan’s past, and the changing geo-political contexts in which it is situated. It then analyses the importance of electoral institutions and the struggles to broaden poltical participation and legitimation. Several disparate sources of Taiwanese identity are also discussed, namely: (i) Taiwan as a frontier territory of the Manchu Empire, which was later colonized and modernized by the Japanese; (ii) the transformation of the ROC regime, its indigenization and grounding in Taiwan in the context of its long separation from China and its international isolation. This indigenization process has been gradually accomplished through electoral struggles and by revising the electoral system and the constitution.
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Wunderlich, Uwe
Abstract
Only recently the Sino-Taiwanese issue has again been in the headlines of the international media. On Saturday, 3 August 2002, Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian insisted in a passionate speech that there is ‘one country on each side’ of the Taiwan Strait. He went even further by calling for new legislation that would allow a referendum to be held on changing the island’s current international status, saying that this would be a ‘basic human right’. Chen’s remarks resulted in a furious response from the mainland. Although the conflict between Beijing and Taipei can be interpreted as a legacy of the Chinese Civil War, the tensions intensified during the 1990s. The following article suggests that the linkages and dynamics between the globalization process and international security are increasingly important for a better understanding of the development of relations at the international level in general and in the China-Taiwan conflict in particular.
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Moses, Jeremy, and Tadashi Iwami
Abstract
The pacifist commitment contained in Article 9 of the Japanese constitution has long been a source of scholarly interest and debate. While the insertion of the clause in the post-Second World War constitution was originally justified by General MacArthur (amongst others) as an expression of the ‘high ideals’ of liberalism and democracy that Japan was now embracing, it has since been derided as an impediment to effective Japanese participation in wars fought by the United States that are claimed to be in defence of freedom and democracy. This reversal of liberal logic became evident in the early years of the Cold War as Japan was encouraged to support the US in the Korean War and has strengthened in the years since. From the first Gulf War of 1991, up to the current War on Terror, much has been made of the constraints that Japan faces in supporting the ‘defence of freedom’ on a global scale. This paper aims to show the place of liberal discourses in relation to the pacifist clause in order to highlight the great ambiguity and inconsistency that exists in liberal claims concerning the promotion of peace in international affairs. In the context of tensions over Taiwan and North Korea, as well as the potential for controversial ‘humanitarian’ roles for the Japanese military in the South Pacific, these normative questions aim to shed light on the potential dangers of Japanese remilitarisation on liberal-internationalist grounds.
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Klintworth, Gary
Abstract
Sino‐US relations are the most problematic of all the great power relationships in the Asia‐Pacific region, and in that relationship it is the question of Taiwan and its future that is the most difficult. However, through trial and error over the last 50 years, China and the United States have established a workable framework in which to manage their relationship and any crisis that might arise over the Taiwan issue. Essentially, China and the United States are sticking to certain rules that make conflict over Taiwan avoidable and unlikely, despite outbursts of posturing and rhetoric. The rules are that the United States will intervene only if China uses force against Taiwan, but China will use force only if Taiwan declares independence or continually refuses to negotiate. The new and eminently pragmatic Taiwanese President, Chen Shui-bian, however, has said he will not declare independence if China does not attack. He has also indicated a willingness to open up negotiations with Beijing. The sticking point is the definition of ‘one China’ but there have been subtle signs of some flexibility on this issue. There are any number of variables that might upset the chance of China and Taiwan settling their dispute over the meaning of ‘one China’, with disastrous consequences for both parties, for China‐US relations and for the Asia‐Pacific region in general. Most recently published articles are uniformly pessimistic. In the author’s view, however, the prospects of a redefinition of the meaning of ‘one China’, to the satisfaction of both sides, are improving and the likelihood of a confrontation over the issue, at least in the foreseeable future, is receding. If so, this will remove one of the irritants in Sino‐US relations.
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Chang, Youngho, Zheng Fang, and Yanfei Li
Abstract
Many countries have implemented various policies for renewable energy development ranging from setting power purchase agreements and the legislation of renewable energy requirements to providing incentives and imposing carbon taxes. The evaluation of the effectiveness of such policies, however, is fragmented, which raises a need for a comprehensive analysis. This paper aims to assess whether and how policies promoting renewable energy investment have achieved the intended goals. It employs five broadly defined criteria – market, uncertainty, profitability, technology, and financial resources – to build an index to assess respectively if such policies have helped create a market for renewable energy, maximize potential profits, reduce risks relating to the investment, develop and adopt new technologies, and improve the access to financial resources. Each criterion is reflected by three indicators. Values of each indicator are converted into ordinal values for analysis. The index not only scans comprehensively all relevant renewable energy investment policies in the East Asia Summit countries, but also provides systematic and quantitative measures to compare the effectiveness of policies in these countries with respect to the creation of market, the degree of uncertainty, the potential of profitability, the development and adoption of technology and the accessibility of financial resources.
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