U.S.- Taiwan Relations

This book is an introductory study of the complex security relationship that exists between the United States and Taiwan. It explains how U.S. security policy toward Taiwan has been steered primarily by Cold War calculations and how the U.S. has sought to respond creatively to the constraints on military support for Taiwan imposed by the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China. Hickey suggests that, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the time has arrived for adjustments in the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. These modifications should not, however, include a change in American security policy, which should continue to serve U.S. interests in the post-Cold War environment.

Robert Accinelli examines in comprehensive detail the making of the American military and political commitment to Taiwan during the first half of the 1950s. Starting with President Truman's declaration in January 1950 that the United States would not militarily assist Taiwan's Nationalist Chinese government, he shows why the United States subsequently reversed this position and ultimately chose to embrace Taiwan as a highly valued ally. In addition to describing the growth of a close but uneasy association between the United States and the Nationalist regime, he focuses on the importance of the Taiwan issue in America's relations with the People's Republic of China and Great Britain.

Balancing practice and theory, this book presents a dialog between the Democratic Progressive Party s policy makers and the leading critics from the international scholarly community.

In this book, the position of Taiwan is examined in light of its dependence on the vagaries of American and Chinese (both PRC and ROC) geopolitical machinations. Fu traces the ROC's changing geopolitical position on Taiwan--particularly in light of improved relations between the PRC and the U.S. in the early 1970s. It also explores Taiwan's response to the challenges posed by the normalization of Sino-American relations and provides an overall assessment of Taiwan's continuing role in the fluid geopolitics of East Asia and the Pacific. Employing a geopolitical frame of reference, Fu's central conceptual concerns focus on the interface between geography and politics.

Tyler explores the question of whether China will be a threat or a partner in the future. The text will be essential reading for anyone interested in the shifting dynamics of post-Cold War geopolitics.