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This chapter examines how, in the post-Cold War era, the United States' alignment with Taiwan and alliance with Japan again have figured prominently among issues affecting U.S.-China security relations. While they are far from being allies, the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are not enemies either, but rather major economic partners who have also cooperated to some degree in addressing an increasing range of international problems. But there are still security tensions between the two sides over issues such as relations across the Taiwan Strait, and both nations practice coercive diplomacy toward the other, sometimes tacitly, sometimes less so. The chapter considers how the legacies of these Cold War alliances—particularly the U.S.–Taiwan relationship and the U.S.–Japan security treaty—have affected U.S.–China relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This chapter examines how the end of the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis which affected China and the United States. For Dwight D. Eisenhower and Mao Zedong, the 1958 Strait confrontation—which arose when China shelled the islands of Kinmen and the nearby Matsu Islands along the mainland's east coast (in the Taiwan Strait)—reflected different definitions of security, trouble with domestic constituencies, and clashing cultural assumptions, even as both sought to avoid a military collision. The crisis evolved slowly from the inconclusive outcome of the earlier Taiwan Strait confrontation in 1954. Eisenhower viewed the crisis as a clarion call to defend the free world and to wage peace. He believed he must prevent the expansion of Communism but also avert military exchanges with China and the Soviet Union. For Mao, the decision to instigate the conflict most importantly served the goal of domestic reform. The end of the 1958 Strait crisis did not satisfy China's yearning for unification, Chiang Kai-shek's plans to return to the mainland, or Washington's desire to end the risk of war in the area.

After the Sino-US Ambassadorial Talks ceased in December 1957, further talks were suspended indefinitely. On 23 August 1958, the PRC again targeted artillery barrages on Quemoy and Matsu, igniting another confrontation. However, on 6 September, both Zhou and US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles publicly announced possible peaceful measures and this led to the convening of the Sino-US negotiations in Warsaw from 15 September onwards. In particular, this chapter reviews the positions of the ROC, US and PRC just prior to the outbreak of the crisis and critical developments. Next, it scrutinizes the reactions of China, the US and Taiwan to this crisis and the speed of its resolution. Finally, the rationalizations given by China and the US seeking to justify their actions to their domestic public and in the international arena are considered.

This chapter examines the mixed blessing of enhanced communist coordination during the mid-1950s. During this period, a relatively well-coordinated and organized communist alliance allowed for more moderation and clearer signaling during the negotiations that ended fighting in the Korean War and the conflict in Indochina. The chapter considers the United States' formation of regional alliances and how the Taiwan Strait crisis erupted in 1954. It shows how a relatively unified allied position on Southeast Asia in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) served as a restraint on the most aggressive members of the alliance, the local communists involved in civil wars: Kim Il-sung and Ho Chi Minh. Aside from Beijing's nationalistic reaction in the Taiwan Strait, Chinese foreign policy would be relatively moderate in the middle 1950s and fully in tune with Soviet designs for a breathing spell in the Cold War.

This chapter discusses the difficulties encountered in crossing cultural boundaries and in overcoming prejudices and discriminatory attitudes on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. It next examines the difficulty of writing off political realism, which views conflict as inevitable and insoluble short of violence. The latter part of the chapter presents an analysis of a number of concepts that would counter-argue for the possibility of a hybrid of federation and confederation.

This chapter examines how the rise of China affects Taiwan's security. While the Chinese government is insisting to the rest of the world that a stronger China will be peaceful and nonaggressive, Beijing maintains a standing threat to use military force against Taiwan if the island's inhabitants move from de facto independence to formal independence and cut the symbolic ties with the Chinese mainland. As China becomes stronger, it is able to increase pressure on the international community to cease supporting Taipei, it gains more economic leverage over Taiwan that might translate into political influence, it becomes more capable of carrying out a military conquest of Taiwan, and it can impose a greater cost on any nation that tries to help defend Taiwan in the event of a cross-strait war. The chapter first provides an overview of the origin of the Taiwan “problem” before discussing China's strategy toward Taiwan, along with the United States' position regarding sovereignty over the island of Taiwan. It also considers whether China's rise makes a Taiwan Strait war more likely.

On 3 September 1954, China launched a massive artillery bombardment on the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, triggering the first crisis. This attack prompted the US to sign the Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan on 2 December 1954. China also courted neutralist countries in Asia in the immediate aftermath of the crisis. This chapter focuses on the Geneva reverberations especially on developments in July and August 1954, which led to the eruption of the First Taiwan Strait Crisis. How China, the US and Taiwan acted following the outbreak of this crisis will be the next point of scrutiny.

This chapter examines the diplomacy of anger in the setting of the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995–96. It argues that viewing the behavior of the People's Republic of China (PRC) through the lens of the diplomacy of anger offers a more comprehensive and compelling explanation of PRC actions than existing theories of coercion. The PRC show of anger projected the image of an actor in an exceptional state: one that might respond aggressively and violently to further provocations, but that, with the passage of time, would be amenable to reconciliatory gestures. PRC behavior also constituted the status of Taiwan as sensitive, volatile, and emotionally salient, and thus not subject to negotiation. Finally, the PRC's emotional diplomacy shaped the strategic responses of its targets, most significantly the initial subdued reaction of the United States. All this was a product of injecting anger into an international political interaction. It involved a sustained team performance of emotional labor on a grand, collective scale, including not just rhetoric and symbolic gestures, but also displays of military force.

This chapter examines the foreign policy pursued by Dwight D. Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, with respect to China. Eisenhower preferred to fight the Cold War as a cold war. He delighted in propaganda campaigns designed to subvert leftist governments and free captive people. Eisenhower's enthusiasm ensured a worldwide growth in paramilitary activities, espionage, and psychological warfare. Although willing to use force, Eisenhower and Dulles preferred to undermine, not overthrow, governments. In September 1954, China bombed Jinmen island, which was located in the Taiwan Strait but just two miles from the major Chinese port city of Xiamen. According to new Chinese sources, Mao Zedong did not seek to start a war with the United States and apparently did not believe the shelling would spark a crisis. He simply intended to reinforce his claim to Taiwan, appeal to world opinion, and coerce Washington into abandoning Chiang Kai-shek. This chapter analyzes Eisenhower's response to China's bombardment of Jinmen island.

US policies toward Taiwan combined with changes in Taiwan’s politics linked to its transition to democracy mobilized PLA demands for forceful military demonstrations. PLA leaders felt that Deng had been too tolerant of US moves ever since a 1992 F-16 sale. Washington’s slight upgrading of ties via the Taiwan Relations Act and grant of a visa to Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui roused PLA demands. Deng’s declining health and Jiang Zemin’s need for military support to consolidate his position as paramount leader cleared the way for adoption of PLA proposals for an escalating series of forward-leaning military exercises. The absence of any meaningful US counteraction cleared the way for a final wave of exercises coinciding with Taiwan’s first presidential election. Washington deployed two carrier battle groups to the Taiwan vicinity. The two sides experienced their first military confrontation since the Vietnam War.

Chapter 4 compares nationalism and democratization in Taiwan and China, and, in particular, seeks to develop an understanding of the rise of Taiwanese nationalism and its impact on democratization, as well as the impact democratization has on the politics associated with the national identity question. It examines the effects of democratization and nationalism that continue to contribute to the outcome in managing the national identity conflicts across the Taiwan Strait.

From 1945 to the 1980s, the Taiwan-China relationship was marked by rivalry and intense hostility. In 1991, President Lee Teng-hui proclaimed the end of the period of Communist rebellion that had existed since the Chinese civil war. Lee described Taiwan as a state and sought greater participation in the United Nations. The PRC responded belligerently to Lee’s overtures toward independence during the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995 to 1996. Lee’s presidency was also a time of renewed dialogue across the strait under the auspices of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the PRC’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS). From 2000 to 2008, President Chen Shui-bian’s DPP administration took steps to improve ties between Taiwan and the PRC, including greater trade, travel, and communication across the strait. Relations improved dramatically under the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, who sought to build stronger economic ties with the mainland.

This chapter sets out the aims of this book, stating the main lines of inquiry. Next, a brief “state of the field” assessment on the historical problem of the Taiwan Strait crises will be made. It will examine how a reevaluation is pertinent with the availability of new sources and how such a new appraisal speaks about the deeper trends of historical questions of Sino-US relations. This is followed by a short content review and a discussion of the usage of Chinese and US sources.

This chapter examines the nonmilitary remedies sought by Dwight D. Eisenhower to address the deteriorating state of U.S.-China relations. Diplomacy did not come easily after China began its artillery shelling of Jinmen island, which was located in the Taiwan Strait. Eisenhower and Dulles watched as sentiment in the United States became more harshly critical of China. For the two men, however, the most appealing approach was one that had attracted policymakers since the creation of China and exile of Taiwan in 1949: diplomatic relations with two Chinas. Eisenhower's solution to the offshore islands dilemma reflected the logic of the Two Chinas policy as well as a military man's desire for a clean break, a pragmatic remedy. The president believed that Chiang Kai-shek could be persuaded to relinquish the islands with pledges of support for more important strong points and logical arguments about international opinion and military capabilities. For the United States, the Bandung conference of 1955 in Indonesia and the denouement of the Taiwan crisis proved a mixed blessing.

Focusing on U.S.-China-Taiwan relations during the early and mid-1950s, this chapter traces how conservative officials, led by Sen. William F. Knowland, parlayed continuing turmoil in the Pacific into practical legislative proposals. Congressional debates over the Bricker Amendment (1953), U.S. involvement in the United Nations, and crises in the Taiwan Strait addressed larger questions regarding executive overreach, collective peacekeeping, and preservation of constitutional principles vis à vis active global interventionism. It is argued that those legislative firefights were proxy battles seeking to redress past foreign policy, and they extended China’s political relevance well beyond the subject of Guomindang restoration or the Korean War. They also highlighted the battle between conservative and moderate Republicans even after the GOP’s electoral comeback in 1952.

In the 1970s, the United States abandoned its policy of containment toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in favor of diplomatic engagement. In December 1978, President Carter announced that the United States would normalize relations with the PRC. Subsequent administrations would further the policy of deepening U.S.-China ties. In 1982, President Reagan issued a joint U.S.-China communiqué that promised to limit U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. President George H. W. Bush oversaw a low point in U.S.-China relations following the Tiananmen Square massacre. Relations improved under President Clinton, who struck a deal on China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Clinton was also confronted by the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995 to 1996. Under George W. Bush, U.S.-China relations became more cooperative following the events of September 11, 2001. Barack Obama has promised a strategic rebalancing to the Asia Pacific amid rising tensions in the South China Sea.

Soviet-Chinese debates over de-Stalinization were linked to prescribed levels of investment in heavy industry versus consumer goods. Mao favored the former, Khrushchev the latter. Uprisings in Poland and Hungary in 1956 focused these differences: should popular discontent be addressed by improved living standards or by the dictatorship of the proletariat? Differences intensified in 1957 when Mao laid out his vision of global revolutionary offensive. Soviet leaders thought this risked nuclear war—fears Mao disparaged. Mao responded to Khrushchev’s boast of rapid economic advance by pledging an equally rapid Chinese economic advance, and the next year made good on that pledge by launching the Great Leap Forward. A race to communism had begun. Confrontation with the United States in the Taiwan Strait created the political atmosphere for full collectivization of agriculture that gave Beijing control over the harvest to fuel the hyperindustrialization campaign.

To those who had to choose between Nationalist or Communist affiliations, the regime shift marked a major watershed in China's twentieth century. The 1950s witnessed, on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, land reforms, nationalization of major enterprises, and economic planning, along with ideological training, domestic surveillance, and campaigns of party rectification. Both states had turned economistic, measuring the success of their governance in terms of economic growth and material transformation. Public culture in Shanghai under socialism was no less than a reversal and critique of the dynamic mixture of the feminine, mercantile, and foreign, which had come to define the city's culture in the century after the Opium War.