Prospect Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis in the Asia Pacific by He Kai Feng Huiyun

Author:He, Kai,Feng, Huiyun
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

The Taiwan Strait Crises and Rational Choice Explanations

After the Cold War, the Taiwan issue became one major hotspot in U.S.-China relations. In 1992, the Bush administration broke the U.S. pledge in the 1982 U.S.-China Communiqué of reducing arms sales to Taiwan and sold 150 F-16 fighters to Taiwan. In 1994, the Clinton administration allowed Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States, which also violated the U.S.-China diplomatic consensus on U.S. unofficial relations with Taiwan. During his visit, Lee delivered a provocative pro-independence speech at Cornell University.

In Beijing’s eyes, the policy changes of the United States and Lee’s provocative behavior seriously challenged China’s vital interests regarding the Taiwan issue. Taiwan’s independence from Mainland China was seen as a political taboo for Chinese leaders for a long time. Although Deng Xiaoping changed China’s policy toward Taiwan from liberation to reunification of the island, China never denounced the use of force against Taiwan’s independence. Therefore, China carried out a series of military exercises and missile tests across the Taiwan Strait from August 1995 to March 1996. Taiwan also responded with several military exercises targeted at fighting back China’s possible attacks. The United States remained silent for a while and eventually deployed two carrier battle groups near the Taiwan Strait in March 1996, ending the first Taiwan military crisis after the Cold War.5

The second post-Cold War military crisis across the Taiwan Strait began on July 9, 1999, when Lee Teng-hui launched his “special state-to-state” theory to describe China-Taiwan relations. Lee stated that the Republic of China on Taiwan had been a sovereign independent state and Deng’s “one country, two systems” formula applied in Hong Kong and Macao was not relevant to Taiwan. China interpreted Lee’s “state-to-state” theory as tantamount to a declaration of statehood and independence (Wu 1999; Wu 2001, 40–48). China then launched a series of criticisms against Lee and later conducted military exercises near the Taiwan Strait targeting Lee’s special state-to-state statement.6 The United States sent diplomats to both China and Taiwan to alleviate the tension. The second military crisis across the Taiwan Strait ended when Chen Shui-bian, the leader of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was elected as the new president of Taiwan. He pledged not to declare independence as long as China would not use force to threaten Taiwan.

After coming to power, Chen frequently criticized China’s deployment of hundreds of ground-to-ground missiles targeting Taiwan. He argued that he may not be able to adhere to his non-independence promise because Taiwan is constantly threatened by Mainland China. In practice, Chen took incremental approaches or “salami tactics” to build a Taiwanese identity separating Taiwan from Mainland China, and pursued sovereign independence for Taiwan (Hickey 2007; Shirk 2007). For example, in 2002, Chen introduced the concept of “one country on each side” to describe the political status of Taiwan. This concept was similar to Lee’s special state-to-state theory, which had caused cross-strait tensions in the late 1990s. In November 2003, the DPP-dominated parliament passed a Referendum Law, which allowed Taiwan to conduct a referendum on declaring independence should China attack.

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