Long-term trends in China-Taiwan relations: Implications for U.S. Taiwan policy

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 6, 2005, Pages 970-991

  Saunders, Phillip C ^a  

^a NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

FOREIGN POLICY; INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS; POLITICAL POWER;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; NORTH AMERICA; TAIWAN; UNITED STATES;

EID: 32144437060     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.6.970     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. For convenience, this article will use the terms People's Republic of China, PRC, and China interchangeably when referring to China and the terms Republic of China, ROC, and Taiwan when referring to Taiwan.
2. Of course, "acknowledging" the PRC position is not the same as "accepting" that position.
3. See International Crisis Group, Taiwan Strait I: What's Left of "One China"? (Washington, D.C.: International Crisis Group, June 6, 2003 .
4. Alan M. Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization (Armonk, N. Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).
5. (Taiwan) Mainland Affairs Council, "Unification or Independence?" , accessed August 2, 2005.
6. See Brett Benson and Emerson Niou, "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Conditional Preferences on Taiwan Independence and the Security Balance in the Taiwan Strait," working paper, Duke University, October 1, 2003.
7. William J. Clinton, "Remarks by the President to the Business Council," Washington, D.C., February 24, 2000, .
8. Chen Shui-bian's efforts during the 2000 presidential campaign to show that he would have a responsible policy toward the mainland was arguably a necessary condition for his electoral victory. Despite his support for referenda and calls for constitutional revision, Chen also felt the need to put forward new policy proposals for improving relations with China as part of his 2004 reelection campaign.
9. See International Crisis Group, Taiwan Strait I, pp. 9-17.
10. The pro-independence pan-green coalition includes the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union. The pan-blue opposition includes the KMT, the People First Party, and the New Party.
11. Taiwan Affairs Office and the Information Office of the State Council, "The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue," February 21, 2000, .
12. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
13. See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983);
14. and Daniel Lynch, "Taiwan's Self-Conscious Nation Building Project," Asian Survey 44:4 (July/August 2004), pp. 513-33.
15. See Wachman, Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization, pp. 91-127.
16. See June Teufel Dreyer, "Taiwan's Evolving Identity," in The Evolution of a Taiwanese National Identity (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, August 2003), pp. 7-8, .
17. See Shelley Rigger, "Disaggregating the Concept of National Identity," in ibid.;
18. and Rigger, "Social Science and National Identity: A Critique," Pacific Affairs 72:4 (Winter 1999/2000), pp. 537-52.
19. For an interesting analysis of the Taiwan issue from the perspective of identity, see Perry Anderson, "Stand-Off in Taiwan," London Review of Books 26:11 (June 3, 2004), .
20. For data on self-identification, see Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, "Important Political Attitude Trend Distribution," , accessed December 3, 2004. Yun-han Chu's analysis of polling data on national identity and unification/ independence preferences suggests that Taiwanese aged 20-35 are less inclined to adopt an exclusive Taiwanese identity than older Taiwanese and do not have an especially strong preference for independence.
21. See Chu, "Taiwan's National Identity Politics and the Prospect of Cross-Strait Relations," Asian Survey 44:4 (July/August 2004), pp. 484-512.
22. Chen Shui-bian, "Taiwan Stands Up: Advancing to an Uplifting Era," May 20, 2000, .
23. Shuisheng Zhao, "Chinese Intellectuals' Quest for National Greatness and Nationalistic Writing in the 1990s," China Quarterly 152 (December 1997), pp. 725-45.
24. Erica Strecker Downs and Phillip C. Saunders, "Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism: China and the Diaoyu Islands," International Security 23:3 (Winter 1998/1999), pp. 114-46.
25. Nan Li, "PLA Conservative Nationalism," in The People's Liberation Army and China in Transition, eds. Stephen J. Flanagan and Michael E. Marti (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2003), pp. 69-89.
26. See David M. Lampton, ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001).
27. See David Shambaugh, "A Matter of Time: Taiwan's Eroding Military Advantage," Washington Quarterly 23:2 (Spring 2000), pp. 119-33;
28. and U.S. Department of Defense, The Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2005, July 2005, .
29. Michael O'Hanlon, "Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan," International Security 25:2 (Fall 2000), pp. 51-86.
30. U.S. Department of Defense, The Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2005, p. 37.
31. See Phillip C. Saunders, Project Strait Talk: Security and Stability in the Taiwan Strait (Monterey, Calif.: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2000), .
32. Author's interviews with PRC analysts in Beijing, Xiamen, and Shanghai, July 2004.
33. Steven Mufson and Dana Milbank, "Taiwan to Get Variety of Arms," Washington Post, April 24, 2001, p. 1.
34. The United States stated in the 1982 communiqué that "it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China..." See Alan Romberg, Rein in at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy toward Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations (Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003), pp. 118-54.
35. Michael S. Chase, "U.S.-Taiwan Security Cooperation: Enhancing an Unofficial Relationship," in Dangerous Strait: The U.S.-Taiwan-China Crisis, ed. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 162-85.
36. Mike Clendenin, "Bridging the Divide," Asian Business 36:7 (July 2000), pp. 42-43;
37. Craig S. Smith, "Signs in China and Taiwan of Making Money, Not War," New York Times, May 15, 2001;
38. Karen M. Sutter, Warm Economic Ties; Cool Political Relations (Washington, D.C.: Atlantic Council of the United States, June 2003), .
39. Allen T. Cheng, "The United States of China: How Business Is Moving Taipei and Beijing Together," Asiaweek.com, July 6, 2001, http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,165847,00.html;
40. and Xiangming Chen, "Business over Politics," China Business Review 26:2 (Mar/Apr 1999), pp. 8-14.
41. "Taiwan-China Trade Hit Record High of over US$60 B. in 2004," Taiwan Economic News, March 23, 2005, Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), FBIS-CPP20050323000170.
42. The "mini-three links" are transportation, postal, and trade links between China and Taiwan's offshore islands of Kinmen, Matsu, and Penghu. See Tyler Marshall, "Taiwan Sees New Ties with Mainland," Los Angeles Times, August 27, 2001.
43. See Tse-Kang Leng, "A Political Analysis of Taiwan's Economic Dependence on Mainland China," Issues and Studies 34:8 (August 1998, pp. 132-54
44. and Chen-Yuan Tung, "Cross-Strait Economic Relations: China's Leverage and Taiwan's Vulnerability," Issues and Studies 39:3 (September 2003), pp. 137-75.
45. See ibid.;
46. and Terry Cooke, "Cross-Strait Economic Ties and the Dynamics of Globalization," in Cross-Strait Economic Ties: Agent of Change, or a Trojan Horse? ed. Ramon H. Myers et al. (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, February 2004), .
47. Phillip C. Saunders, "Supping with a Long Spoon: Dependence and Interdependence in Sino-American Relations," China Journal 43 (January 2000), pp. 55-81.
48. See John W. Garver, Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization (Seattle: University of Washington, 1997).
49. Author's interview with PRC analyst, Shanghai, 2000.
50. Author's interview with former State Department official David Reuther, Washington D.C., November 1999.
51. Bill Gertz, "Pentagon Confirms Defense Talks between Taiwan, U.S." Washington Times, July 20, 2001, p. 1.