Abstract
How do states determine which geographical areas will be included in their territorial and maritime claims? This article uses an in-depth case study of Taiwan’s South China Sea claim to argue that national identity, as played out through party politics, is a dominant factor shaping Taiwan’s territorial and maritime claims.
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Country or Region: Taiwan
Lee, Seungjoo
Abstract
The dynamics of institutional balancing is the predominant factor prompting East Asian countries to move to mega-FTAs. Rather than seeking mega-FTAs purely on the basis of economic benefits, these countries, particularly major powers, have attempted to form mega-FTAs to counter the target state’s vision of the regional architecture.
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Chen, Dean P
Abstract
The PRC’s increasingly assertive foreign policy behaviors have triggered heightened anxiety among its regional neighbors. Washington has abided by a long-standing strategic ambiguity policy to manage the Taiwan Strait impasse. However, as the KMT’s “1992 consensus” policy places Taiwan in close union with Beijing, Taipei’s security positions sometimes go against the interests of the US and its allies in the Asia-Pacific. Pulling Taiwan away from China’s orbit is congruent with US interest in continuing that enduring policy framework and ensuring a healthy balance across the Strait.
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Liao, Nien-chung Chang, and Dalton Kuen-da Lin
Excerpt
Resolving the trust deficit between Taipei and Washington should be an imperative for both countries.
Doubts about the continuing value of America’s obligation to Taiwan are particularly aggravated by China’s rapidly increasing economic and military strength. As China grows into a formidable global power, many US observers naturally conclude that relations with Beijing are more important than those with Taipei. As cross-Strait relations have significantly improved since 2008, some American analysts have begun to advocate that Washington should seize the opportunity to walk away from the Taiwan conundrum. Although these ‘abandonist’ arguments do not withstand close scrutiny, they do reveal a developing trust deficit between Taipei and Washington. Resolving this trust deficit should be an imperative for prudent policymakers in both countries.
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Kim, Euikon
Abstract
The international order in East Asia has been anchored on four pillars. The first pillar is the 1952 San Francisco peace treaty between the United States and Japan. The US–Japan mutual defense treaty was signed and Japan became demilitarized and its foreign policy was oriented toward the United States. Japan adopted the “peace” constitution. The second is the US–China Shanghai Communiqué of 1972. In this document, Nixon and Mao agreed that neither of their countries nor any power should seek hegemony in the Asia–Pacific region. The third pillar is the 1972 Sino–Japanese Joint Declaration. China recognized the US–Japan military alliance and Japan, in turn, recognized China as the sole legitimate government. The last is the 1965 ROK–Japan treaty to normalize bilateral relations. Japan recognized the ROK as the sole legitimate government representing the Korean people and nullified the treaties that led to Japan’s forceful annexation of Korea in 1910. In the 2010s, tensions and disputes between the United States and China and between China and Japan are undermining the four pillars of order. The United States, China, and Japan are now engaged in a dangerous power game to create a new international order in this turbulent region. China’s foreign policy toward East Asia will be predicated on three strategies. China will resort to soft balancing in dealing with the United States, unilateralism with Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and multilateralism vis-à-vis the remaining countries in East Asia. “The Asianization of China” would be a solution for future peace and prosperity in this region.
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Huxley, Tim, and Benjamin Schreer
Abstract
A strategic choice is fast approaching between accepting China’s sub-regional hegemony and pushing back through strategies that would impose costs.
During the course of 2015, China used land-reclamation techniques to expand many of the features that it occupies in the South China Sea, most of which were then militarised. This development – alongside many other important signs of assertiveness, including China’s large-scale naval modernisation; its expanding deployment of maritime paramilitary forces to coerce other Asian states, including Japan, in the East China Sea; its efforts to undermine the unity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); and its attempted creation of an alternative regional security architecture – not only indicated Beijing’s intent to reinforce its maritime claims, but also highlighted China’s drive to create a new regional order in which it plays a dominant and arbitrating role. Such an order could only undermine the interests of other regional states and the West. While the success of these efforts is by no means inevitable, the United States and its regional allies and security partners will need to respond more firmly to China, particularly in the South China Sea (SCS). By late October 2015, an initial ‘freedom of navigation’ patrol by the US Navy, which took one of its ships inside the 12-nautical-mile territorial waters claimed by China around one of the features that it occupies in the SCS, indicated that Washington recognised the necessity of stronger countermeasures. However, to succeed, this tougher approach will need to be both persistent and supported by US allies and security partners in the region and beyond.
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Cheo, Uk, and Wondeuk Cho
Abstract
In June 2010, the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), a preferential trade agreement, which is arguably the most important agreement between China and Taiwan. In this paper, we analyze ECFA and investigate its implications for South Korea since China is South Korea’s largest trade partner and Taiwan is its sixth largest. We find that ECFA will have significant political and economic implications for South Korea due to China’s role in East Asia and South Korea’s competition with Taiwan in the China market.
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Czulda, Robert
Abstract
This paper examines the current defense doctrine of the Republic of China (Taiwan), including its evolution – from the offensive approach during the first phase of Taiwan’s history, later approaches of “resolute defense, effective deterrence” and “effective deterrence, resolute defense” – to an adjusted approach in the 2000s that was a more realistic and feasible doctrine aimed mainly at preventing the People’s Republic of China’s forces from landing and establishing secure footholds, based on an asymmetric approach. The main elements touched upon in this article are those related to Taiwan’s military security, including current and future challenges and threats, Taiwanese perception of the international environment, an assessment of capabilities and procurement plans of its armed forces (land forces, navy, air force, air defense), problems of political and military allies as well as decreasing military spending that negatively impacts modernization efforts. The final part of this paper presents various recommendations that would allow Taiwan to boost its defense potential.
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Waldron, Arthur
Abstract
The particular difficulties that Taiwan’s new administration faces are paradoxical, for their origin no longer has to do with ensuring the continuing existence of the state. That seems assured. Rather, the challenges arise because U.S. and China’s diplomacy in the 1970s assumed that Taiwan was going to disappear, but it failed to do so. This fact created an embarrassing—and probably insoluble—long-term problem for China. To be sure, much commentary still suggests that if not on the verge, Taiwan and China are at least on a one-way road to unification, shadowed by the concern that China will not wait forever, ready to “impose” unity when it is finally fed up.
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Tsang, Steve Yui-Sang, ed
Summary
The end of the Cold War has regrettably not brought an end to all the major confrontations of the last century. One such confrontation is the stand-off across the Taiwan Strait. Despite increasingly interwoven economic links between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan in recent years, the tension between the two has not dissipated. Tsang and a group of international experts examine the subject of peace and security across the Taiwan Strait and suggest models for peace.
Shih, Chih-Yu
Abstract
The relational turn of IR stresses the processual constitution of the state. The indigenous theory of Chinese IR adopts the relational turn but contends that the Chinese experiences are distinctive. Relying on the case of Singapore-Taiwan relationship, this paper argues that the Chinese relationality attests to a bilateral sensibility that does not confront the relational turn in general, which is multilateral. The case further contributes to the relational turn in showing non-security and affirmative components of relationality to the extent that the studies of the relational turn have remained embedded in the security concerns. The case applies the theory of “balance of relationship,” in which nations can practice self-restraint not in response to unilateral strategic calculus or multilateral rule making, but to bilateral reciprocity. The balance of relationship of the two proceeds at both the statist and the personal levels, introducing the affect of passion to the relational turn.
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Chen, Lung-chu
Summary
This book describes the central issues animating the dynamics U.S.-Taiwan-China relationship and the international and domestic legal issues shaping U.S. policy in the Asia-Pacific region. Two of these issues receive particular attention: Taiwan’s status under international law and the role of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in the formulation of U.S. policy toward Taiwan. Taiwan meets the requirements for statehood under international law, but it lacks the stature of a normalized state in the international community. This book endorses the central purpose of the TRA- maintaining peaceful cross-strait relations- while offering policy alternatives that will empower Taiwan to participate more actively in the international arena. The book follows in the tradition of the New Have School of international law. As such, it defines the common interests of the work community, which include demands for human dignity and human security and the protection of human rights in accordance with bedrock norms such as the right to self-determination by the people of Taiwan through a plebiscite under the supervision of the international community. Should the Taiwanese vote to continue down the path of democracy and normalized statehood, their wish would be in accordance with international law, historical trends, and contemporary political conditions. Most of all, the people of Taiwan will continue to live freely and democratically- a state of affairs made possible by the support of the United States.
Holslag, Jonathan
Abstract
China is gradually paving the way for a more prominent presence as a global military player. The United States combines concern with China’s growing military strike capacity, in case of a confrontation over Taiwan, with the expectation that Beijing could soon assume more responsibility against a wide range of non-traditional threats. Rather than a threat, Washington should grasp it as an opportunity. Common interests are strong enough reasons to invest in cooperation.
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Hoge, James F., and Jr
Introduction
The transfer of power from West to East is gathering pace and soon will dramatically change the context for dealing with international challenges — as well as the challenges themselves. Many in the West are already aware of Asia’s growing strength. This awareness, however, has not yet been translated into preparedness. And therein lies a danger: that Western countries will repeat their past mistakes.
Major shifts of power between states, not to mention regions, occur infrequently and are rarely peaceful. In the early twentieth century, the imperial order and the aspiring states of Germany and Japan failed to adjust to each other. The conflict that resulted devastated large parts of the globe. Today, the transformation of the international system will be even bigger and will require the assimilation of markedly different political and cultural traditions. This time, the populous states of Asia are the aspirants seeking to play a greater role. Like Japan and Germany back then, these rising powers are nationalistic, seek redress of past grievances, and want to claim their place in the sun. Asia’s growing economic power is translating into greater political and military power, thus increasing the potential damage of conflicts. Within the region, the flash points for hostilities — Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and divided Kashmir — have defied peaceful resolution. Any of them could explode into large-scale warfare that would make the current Middle East confrontations seem like police operations. In short, the stakes in Asia are huge and will challenge the West’s adaptability.
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Yin-wah Chu, ed
Summary
This volume re-examines the concept of the developmental state by providing further theoretical specifications, undertaking critical appraisal and theoretical re-interpretation, assessing its value for the emerging economies of China and India, and considering its applicability to South Korea and Taiwan.
