The Taiwan Question: Implications for US Policy
Date
2001
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Award
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
The crisis of the Taiwan Strait is one of the most important issues in US policy today. Taiwan could turn out to be one of the greatest successes in the history of American diplomacy, or it could tum out to be the source of a major war in the new millennium. This paper examines the circumstances surrounding the relationship among Taiwan, China, and the United States, and addresses the best specific policy towards Taiwan that the American government should pursue. In order to examine America's specific interests in Taiwan, I first discuss a broader framework for defining and prioritizing America's general national interest. I then explore how Taiwan fits into this framework. After establishing the importance of Taiwan to American foreign policy, I examine the material available to American policymakers: the history of the region, the contemporary balance of power, and our understanding of how the actors will behave in the years to come. Just as our specific policy towards Taiwan should be understood in the larger context of our general national strategy, so should the American diplomatic relationship with Taiwan be understood in the larger context of our diplomatic relationship with China. How have China and Taiwan conducted diplomatic relations in the past, both with each other and with the United States? How do relations stand now, and how do we expect them to change? How has the balance of power evolved, and what is the projection for the next few decades? How have China and Taiwan developed their national strategies towards one another, and towards the United States? What are their strategies today, and how can we expect these strategies to change? These are the questions which American policymakers must answer if they are to develop the most effective foreign policy in the region. Foreign policy needs to address the history of a particular issue so as to understand the future of that issue. Ultimately, I perform a critical analysis of the five major strategies informing American policy in the post-Cold War era, and how these strategies see Taiwan as a part (or not) of the US national security agenda. These five strategies are: isolationism, balance-of-power theory, cooperative security, selective engagement, and primacy ("soft" and "hard"). What do these strategies prescribe for US policy towards Taiwan? What would be the effect of each strategy on the outcome of the Taiwan question? I argue that Clinton's policy towards Taiwan in the 1990s was designed to stall the situation and preserve the status quo. The Clinton administration aimed to give China and Taiwan more time to move towards a peaceful reconciliation. The administration also hoped that China would undergo some significant domestic changes in time, and that these changes would soften its stance on the Taiwan issue. Clinton's Taiwan strategy was consistent with a broader national strategy of "soft" primacy. Unfortunately, the Clinton team did not make strong decisions about a general national strategy, and so their specific regional policies waffled between cooperative security, selective engagement, and soft primacy. Nevertheless, a soft primacy strategy is best, not only for Taiwan but for US global strategy as well. President George W. Bush's new administration has already significantly departed from this policy, endangering the status quo. Bush's policy of "hard" primacy threatens to inflame an already tense period of Sino-American relations and possibly cause an unwanted change in the delicate balance of relations across the Taiwan Strait. I discuss President Bush's new Asian policy and its implications in the final section of this paper.