US-China Rivalry and Taiwan’s Mainland Policy Dean P. Chen US-China Rivalry and Taiwan’s Mainland Policy Security, Nationalism, and the 1992 Consensus Dean P. Chen Political Science Ramapo College of New Jersey Mahwah, New Jersey, USA ISBN 978-3-319-47598-1 ISBN 978-3-319-47599-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47599-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017933293 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover illustration: © Jeremy Woodhouse / DigitalVision, Getty Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland PREFACE Notwithstanding its close economic interdependence with Taiwan (also known as the Republic of China or ROC), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has posed serious security challenges to the former. Indeed, while proclaiming “peaceful unification” as its objective in dealing with Taiwan since January 1979,1 the PRC has never renounced the use of military force to prevent the island’s independence or coerce unification. Beijing has “drawn on its burgeoning economic resources to invest in its military capabilities, deploying advanced fighters and medium range ballistic mis- siles, more than a thousand of which are aimed at Taiwan.”2 Hence, my central query in this book is why the Kuomintang (KMT) administra- tion under the former ROC president Ma Ying-jeou, from 2008 to 2016, pursued an under-balancing strategy toward the PRC, even sometimes alienating the United States. 1 Nancy Tucker, Strait Talk (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 139–140; Shelley Rigger, “Taiwan in U.S.-China Relations,” in David Shambaugh, ed., Tangled Titans (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), p. 294. 2 Shirley Lin, Taiwan’s China Dilemma (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016), p. 1. v vi PREFACE THE QUEStION The obvious reasons seem to be the increasing reliance of Taiwan’s eco- nomic well-being on trade with and investments in mainland China,3 as well as the latter’s greater diplomatic, economic, and military clout in international relations.4 For neorealists like Kenneth Waltz and Stephen Walt, a state will balance against or bandwagon with the external threat based on the international systemic constraints it faces5 or the perceived intention, offensive military capabilities, and proximity of that foreign power.6 Therefore, in light of Taiwan’s relatively weaker international position vis-à-vis the PRC, the KMT’s accommodation toward Beijing may be the correct course of action. Vulnerable states, in order to reap security and economic gains, may choose to “under-balance” the stron- ger side, which may include mechanisms such as buck-passing, distanc- ing, binding engagement, appeasement, bandwagoning, and other half or mixed measures.7 However, there are two pitfalls to this observation. First, the growth of Taiwan’s economic attachments to China began in the early 1990s and even accelerated during the years of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Chen Shui-bian from 2000 to 2008. Shirley Lin posits, Economic interdependence with China has become unavoidable if Taiwan wishes to continue to reap the benefit of a growing global economy. China’s economic opening has restructured the regional and global economies; it has become the “factory of the world” and, importantly, one of the world’s largest consumer markets. China has become an integral part of the global supply chain and the most important economic engine for Asia and the world. Therefore, Taiwan has very few alternatives if it wishes to diversify its outbound investments and trade flows away from China in order to hedge against economic and political risks. Taiwan’s main competitors, from 3 Lowell Dittmer, “Taiwan’s Narrowing Strait,” in Peter Chow ed., The U.S. Strategic Pivot to Asia and Cross-Strait Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 15–16; Shirley Lin, pp. 4–10. 4 Thomas Christensen, The China Challenge (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015), Chapter 1. 5 Kenneth Waltz, The Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), pp. 124–128. 6 Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 28–33. 7 Randall Schweller, “Managing the Rise of Great Powers,” in Alastair Johnston and Robert Ross, eds., Engaging China (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 10–17. PREFACE vii Korea and Japan to Thailand and Indonesia, have all become dependent on investment in and trading with China. As an economy dependent on trade, which represents more than 100 percent of its GDP, Taiwan cannot be an exception.8 However, Chen took up a more restrictive and unfriendly policy toward Beijing.9 While continuing to advocate for economic cooperation with mainland China, the current DPP president Tsai Ing-wen, who was inau- gurated as the ROC’s 14th president on May 20, 2016, has pushed for a cooler cross-strait policy stance than her KMT predecessor. Thus, striv- ing for intimate commercial ties with the PRC does not consistently lead to amicable cross-strait political relationships. Second, although it has had no formal diplomatic relations with Taipei since its recognition of Beijing in 1979, in accordance with the “one-China” policy, the United States has committed to Taiwan’s security, freedom, and democracy, as enshrined by Washington’s Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and President Ronald Reagan’s “Six Assurances.”10 Consequently, though unsupportive of Taiwan’s independence, America also seeks to deter the PRC’s military aggression against the island and insists that cross-strait impasse must be resolved peacefully and with the consent of the Taiwanese people.11 One scholar aptly describes Taiwan’s importance to America’s liberal ethos: “The U.S. would not risk its own security in the protection of any small islands a third of the way around the world, but it does so for one which constitutes an extension of democratic American identity on the door- step of a large communist neighbour.”12 Moreover, as Washington has promoted its “rebalance to Asia” to check against Beijing’s rising power, America’s continued support for the ROC is a bellwether for US commit- ment to the Asia-Pacific region. Taiwan, in other words, is not “left out alone” in its strategic dealing with China, and, as a result, Ma’s under- balancing is not an inevitable solution. 8 Shirley Lin 2016, p. 8. 9 Ibid., 160. See also Scott Kastner, Political Conflict and Economic Interdependence across the Taiwan Strait and Beyond (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 35–36. 10 Alan Romberg, Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice (Washington, DC: Henry Stimson Center, 2003); Richard Bush, At Cross Purposes (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe 2004). 11 Wang Chi, Obama’s Challenge to China (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 198–199. 12 Oliver Turner, “The U.S. and China: Obama’s Cautious Engagement,” in Michelle Bentley and Jack Holland eds., The Obama Doctrine (New York: Routledge, 2017), p. 184. viii PREFACE THE THEOREtICAL ARGUMENtS This work aims to make the following arguments. A neoclassical realist theory not only looks at the overarching distribution of power among states, which serves as the permissive/restrictive perimeter on how each individual state can behave, but also takes into consideration the “inter- vening” or “filtering effect” of unit-level variables (orInnenpolitik )— state–society relations, regime types, domestic institutions, leaders’ perceptions, and strategic culture—that ultimately shape the contours and attributes of the chosen policy.13 Taiwan’s external systemic circum- stances (i.e., security dependency on Washington) certainly limit its choice of alignment policy with respect to mainland China. On the one hand, through its strategic ambiguity policy, the United States merely acknowl- edges Beijing’s “one-China” principle but refrains from recognizing it and insists that cross-strait differences must be resolved peacefully and consensually, hence allowing Washington’s unofficial ties with Taipei to remain intact. On the other hand, America also deters Taiwan from declar- ing de jure independence, lest such a move would unnecessarily provoke the mainland and plunge the region into catastrophic military confronta- tion. US officials noted that the TRA did not automatically guarantee America’s involvement in a cross-strait contention, especially one that was unilaterally triggered by Taipei. A free, democratic, and moderate Taiwan is essential to cross-strait peace and stability and, therefore, amenable to American national interests.14 Consequently, both Presidents Ma and Tsai have assured Washington, respectively, that their administrations would seek to maintain “cross-strait status quo” and not to unilaterally jeopar- dize peaceful relations with Beijing.