This report examines Taiwan’s national security decisionmaking structure and process and the primary factors guiding its defense strategy, force structure, and military procurement decisions. It attempts to explain the motives and interests determining Taiwan’s national security policy and defense plans and its decisions to acquire major weapons and related support systems from foreign sources, including the United States. The author has determined that Taiwan’s national security policy process is poorly coordinated, both within the top levels of the senior leadership and between the civilian and military elite. As a result, Taiwan lacks a strategy that can integrate and guide its foreign and defense policies. He also concludes that Taiwan’s defense policy and procurement decisionmaking process are significantly influenced by a variety of non-military criteria that complicate efforts to ascertain the motives and objectives of Taiwan’s requests for U.S. arms and call into question Taiwan’s ability to effectively absorb such arms. He recommends that the United States continue to acquire more and better information about Taiwan’s strengths and weaknesses in these areas and especially to more accurately assess Taiwan’s requests for military sales from the United States. He also recommends that the United States (1) avoid providing arms and assistance to Taiwan in ways that provoke greater tension with China without appreciably improving Taiwan’s defense capabilities, (2) continue to strengthen contacts with the ROC military but avoid interacting with the Taiwan armed forces in a way that suggests the establishment of joint U.S.-Taiwan operational capabilities, and (3) develop and maintain close contacts with Taiwan’s key decisionmakers.
Country or Region: Taiwan
Sutter, Robert
Summary
Indigenous weakness and eroded U.S. support give Taiwan little choice other than continued accommodation of overwhelming and ever-increasing Chinese leverage.
Cross-strait relations continue to improve because this trend is perceived as being in the interests of the three main actors: the governments of China, Taiwan, and the U.S. The Taiwan presidential election of 2012 is unlikely to seriously alter recent improvements. Many in Taiwan and abroad favor what they erroneously see as a status quo in which the Taiwan administration enjoys independence of action. However, China’s economic, military, and diplomatic leverage over Taiwan increasingly constrains Taipei to follow a path leading to accommodation of and eventual reunification with China. Taiwan’s weak self-strengthening and a marked decline in U.S. support for the island’s freedom of action further bind it to the recent trajectory of accommodating China.
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Hu, Shaohua
Summary
The role of Russia in cross-Taiwan Strait relations has been downplayed, if not ignored. This article attempts a systematic study by reviewing Russia’s Taiwan policy in different eras, discussing the importance of Russia to cross-Strait relations, and presenting three options Russia might face in a cross-Strait conflict. Three conclusions are drawn. First, Taiwan has never figured prominently in Russian foreign policy, which is true for Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation. Second, Russia has an important role in Beijing’s Taiwan policy for international, geopolitical, economic, and military reasons. Finally, Russia has a wide range of options in the event of a cross-Strait conflict. In ascending order of possibility, Russia could side with the pro-Taiwan alliance against China, side with China against the pro-Taiwan alliance, or maintain benign neutrality.
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Huang, Jing, and Xiaoting Li
Despite the significance of the Taiwan issue to US-China relations as well as regional stability in the Asia-Pacific, one could hardly find a comprehensive and thorough study of China’s Taiwan policy. This book aims to make up for the deficit by providing a systematic and in-depth analysis of the evolution of China’s Taiwan policy over the past six decades, against the backdrop of a three-player game involving Beijing, Washington and Taipei. The intention is to show that despite Beijing’s uncompromising adherence to the One-China principle, China’s leaders have maintained remarkable flexibility in interpreting and implementing it. Moreover, while domestic factors (e.g., nationalistic sentiment, political stability, and economic development) do affect Beijing’s calculus, China’s Taiwan policy invariably accords with the ups and downs in its international environment, especially the complexities of the US-China relations.
Christensen, Thomas
Summary
Successful deterrence requires both threats and assurances about the conditionality of those threats. The real security dilemma is how to be tough enough without being overly provocative. Deterrence across the Taiwan Strait is possible, but not simple. Here’s how.
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Cole, Bernard
This is the first explanation and evaluation of Taiwan’s defence forces and infrastructure. It examines not only Taiwan’s armed forces, but also its Ministry of National Defence, personnel issues, and civil-military relations.
This book provides crucial base-line data and evaluation of one of the major participants in an ongoing crisis across the Taiwan Strait that has the potential of involving China and the United States in armed conflict. It examines the danger of a possibly nuclear conflict between China and the United States which would seriously disrupt all of East Asia. It also shows how Taiwan’s defence policies and actions do not match the threat – Taipei needs to develop and pursue realistic policies.
This is essential reading for all students of East Asian security and Sino-American relations and of international and security studies in general.
Chu, Yun-han and Andrew Nathan
Summary
As Taiwan heads into dual national elections—a legislative election scheduled for January 12, 2008, and a presidential election scheduled for March 22, 2008—tensions across the Taiwan Strait seem to be rising. Among other developments, Taiwan applied to join the United Nations under the name “Taiwan,” eliciting condemnation from Beijing and Washington for trying to change Taiwan’s international status. Thomas J. Christensen, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, even gave a speech to reprimand Taiwan, eliciting a major reaction in Taipei,1 while officials in Washington debated whether to make good on prior commitments to sell certain arms to Taiwan. News leaked about Taiwan’s development of missiles that could strike Shanghai. The two political parties in Taiwan debated over the form of a referendum on the status Taiwan should seek in the UN in the future, and the secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) resigned in a battle over the party’s commitment to the ultimate goal of Taiwan independence.
Despite these alarms, deeper trends point in the opposite direction. Indeed, the most important result of the elections is already all but predetermined: Taiwan’s next president will be a relative moderate on cross-strait issues. The island’s highly competitive, often tactically Byzantine internal politics have for years wagged the dog of great-power politics in the region. The election next March of either of the two major-party candidates, Frank Hsieh (Hsieh Ch’ang-t’ing) of the DPP or Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT), will offer the potential for a shift in the tone and trajectory of cross-strait relations and with it the opportunity to reduce the risk that the United States could be drawn into an armed conflict with China.
Beijing and Washington must not waste the opportunity to put the triangular Taiwan Strait relationship on a path of declining tension. To act wisely, they need to understand what has produced the change in Taiwan’s mood and what to do to assure that the still-fragile shift is not reversed.
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Chen, Mumin
Summary
This paper analyzes the development of Taiwan’s security policy by exploring the decision-making of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government under the leadership of President Chen Shui-bian from 2000 to 2004. The first part of the paper reviews the development of Taiwan-China relations and theoretical developments related to this subject, as well as the major theoretical approaches adopted by scholars and strategic analysts, to explain the influence of Taiwan-China relations on Taiwan’s security. Next the paper attempts to define the structure and process of the security policymaking mechanism during Chen’s government to identify the major ‘players” in the decision-making process and their roles. The last part of the paper examines the development of the referendum issue before the 2004 presidential election in order to show how President Chen’s decision-making style affected the decision to hold the controversial referendum in March 2004, and how such a decision-making mechanism makes a foreign policy crisis inevitable. This paper finds that President Chen and his DPP government have a top-down decision-making style in which the president is supreme in deciding foreign policy objectives. Limited numbers of high-ranking officials are consulted or involved in the formulation of key policy objectives. This decision-making style often leads to poor communication between different decision-making levels and sometimes misunderstandings among government agencies.
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Chen, Dean P
Why did the Truman administration reject a pragmatic approach to the Taiwan Strait conflict recognizing Beijing and severing ties with Taipei and instead choose the path of strategic ambiguity? Dean Chen sheds light on current US policy by exploring the thoughts and deliberations of President Truman and his top advisers, among them Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Livingston Merchant, and Dean Rusk. Chen also highlights the very unambiguous, and continuing, liberal aims of US Taiwan policy.
Tunsjo, Oystein
The relationship between the United States and China is one of the most important issues in the twenty-first century, and is, ultimately, hostage to conditions across the Taiwan Strait. This book is the first to attempt to trace the historical origin of what is known as the ‘Taiwan issue’ in US-China relations from a constructivist perspective, based on detailed archival research.
The analysis used supplements the mainstream rationalist approach by developing a new theoretical perspective on US Taiwan policy that incorporates constructivism’s emphasis on identity, norms and discourse analysis. Scholars have never previously developed or elaborated upon this approach to any significant extent. The book re-examines the protection of Taiwan by military means following the outbreak of the Korean War, and the establishment of the ‘one China’ policy in relation to the process of rapprochement during President Nixon’s first term in office. It also considers the contemporary challenges posed to the ‘one China’ policy by the increased importance of promoting human rights and democracy in US foreign policy, arguing that the current US China policy is guided by a new strategy based on ‘engagement plus hedging’.
Wang, T.Y. and I-Chou Liu
Summary
The majority of Taiwan residents now have Taiwan-centered national identities, viewing the island as separate and independent from the Chinese mainland. Thus, few people on the island support Beijing’s “one country, two systems” proposal. China’s new leaders need to present fresh plans if they are truly committed to peaceful unification.
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Teng-hui, Lee
If Taiwan is not a sovereign state, what is it? On an island about the size of the state of West Virginia, Taiwan’s people have built a modern industrial democracy. Over the past decade they have produced twin miracles of economic development and political reform under the leadership of the author, President Lee Teng-hui of the Republic of China (ROC). The major themes in The Road to Democracy are woven around two key terms: Taiwan’s “existence” and its “experience”. Unless the Republic of China on Taiwan remains in existence, its hard-won democracy and economic prosperity could founder, with serious repercussions in Asia and the world. Hence the importance of its security policy based on the three pillars of American commitment to Taiwan’s defense, the ROC’s own military preparedness, and an effective pragmatic diplomacy. The “Taiwan Experience”, on the other hand, describes the recent past and the economic, political, and social transformation the country achieved with President Lee as the architect. The author believes that the Taiwan Experience can serve as a model for other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s reunification will be possible, he argues, not under Peking’s one-China formula, but only when the Chinese mainland has been transformed into a society as free and democratic as Taiwan now.
Hughes, Christopher W
For China, Taiwan is next in line to be unified with the People’s Republic after Hong Kong in 1997. China’s claim on Taiwan is of great importance to the politics of Chinese Nationalism, and is central to the dynamics of power in this most volatile of regions. The democratic challenge from Taiwan is very potent and its status and identity within the international community is crucial to its survival.
Taiwan and Chinese Nationalism explores how Taiwan’s status has come to be a symbol for the legitimacy of the Chinese regime in the evolution of Chinese nationalism. It also demonstrates how this view has been challenged by demands for democratization in Taiwan. The KMT regime is shown to have allowed sovereignty to be practised by the population of the island while maintaining the claim that it is a part of China. The result is a “post-nationalist” identity for the island in an intermediate state between independence and unification with the PRC.
Bush, Richard
The future of the Taiwan Strait is more wide open that at any other time in recent decades. Tensions between China and Taiwan have eased since 2008, but the movement toward full rapprochement remains fragile. Whether the two sides of the Strait can sustain and expand a cooperative relationship after decades of mutual distrust and fear is still uncertain.
In Uncharted Strait Richard Bush, who specialized in Taiwan issues during almost twenty years in the U.S. government, explains the current state of relations between China and Taiwan. He discusses what led to the current situation and then extrapolates the likely future of cross-Strait relations. Bush also explains America’s stake, analyzing possible ramifications for U.S. interests in the critically important East Asia region as well as recommending steps to protect those interests.
Current engagement between Beijing and Taipei increases the likelihood of a peaceful long-term solution to their six-decade dispute. Whether, when, and how that might happen, however, is shrouded in uncertainty. The Taiwan Strait is now uncharted water, and both shores worry about the shoals that may lurk below the surface. China still fears the island’s permanent separation, either because it makes an overt move to de jure independence or continues to refuse unification on Beijing’s terms. Taiwan fears subordination to an authoritarian regime, an adversary from the past that may not have its best interests at heart. And the United States fears instability in East Asia.
Swaine, Michael D., Andrew N. D. Yang, and Evan S. Medeiros ed
Summary
Since at least the early 1950s, the entire Asia-Pacific region has struggled with the complicated and complex relationship between China and Taiwan–today the Taiwan question is considered a potential flashpoint for a much larger international conflict. Bringing together experts from the United States and Taiwan, Assessing the Threat provides a comprehensive look at the dangers of military escalation in the Taiwan Strait, the latest advances in capabilities of the People s Liberation Army, and China s security relationship with the United States and the Asia-Pacific. There is increasing concern that Beijing is steadily shifting the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait in its favor. Recent advances in Chinese air and naval power, along with changes in PLA doctrine, have the potential to weaken deterrence and destabilize the cross-strait military balance. At this critical juncture, there is not question that this issue requires sustained, detailed analysis and that many measures can and should be taken to reduce the threat of conflict between China, Taiwan, and the United States. Assessing the Threat offers such analysis as well as concrete suggestions and crisis management practices for government and military leaders in Washington, D.C., Beijing, and Taipei.
