Bush, China, Taiwan: A triangular analysis

This paper reexamines American policy toward China, Taiwan, and their ambivalent bilateral relationship, focusing on the period since Washington’s shift from strong (but not unconditional) support of Nationalist China to the role of balancer in the early 1970s, particularly on the most recent period under George W. Bush. We analyze the relationship from a strategic triangular perspective. The China-Taiwan-US relationship is triangular in the sense that each actor’s relations with the other two depend on its relations with the third. It is strategic in its focus on security. The United States has been the consistent “pivot” of this triangle, having better relations with both “wings” than they have with each other. Washington has retained this structurally advantageous position partly because of its disproportionate strategic weight, and partly because of the inherent difficulties Taipei and Beijing have had forging a cooperative bilateral relationship. This structure has been quite stable since the Cold War, as Washington has periodically shifted its balance from one wing to the other without altering the triangle’s basic configuration. Yet so long as the configuration is maintained, the basic problem on which the triangle is based — the contested independence of Taiwan — cannot be resolved. This creates a sense of national identity frustration that will continue to generate attempts at resolution, either by Taiwan’s declaration of independence or China’s forced reunification (or both). editor ofAsian Survey, has written or editedSino-Soviet Normalization and Its International Implications (1992),China’s Quest for National Identity (with Samuel Kim, 1993), and many other analyses of Chinese domestic and foreign policy. His most recent book (with Haruhiro Fukui and Peter N.S. Lee) isInformal Politics in East Asia (Cambridge, 2000).