This book explores U.S.-Taiwan-China relations during both the Trump and Biden administrations, revealing how policy changes under both presidents have impacted Washington’s decades-long strategic policy framework for Cross-Strait Relations. By tracing the continuities and changes of U.S. Strategic ambiguity and One-China Policy framework between the Trump and Biden administrations, the book assesses how the foreign policy prism, through which U.S. leaders view China and Taiwan, has experienced a distinct alteration and subsequently led to a policy adjustment. Utilising a wide range of documents and primary material, such as White House documents (ranging from the Clinton to the Biden administrations) in conjunction with interviews with Taiwan officials, this volume brings a detailed portrait of past, present, and potential future U.S.-Taiwan-China relations. Moreover, it provides a succinct examination of U.S. foreign policy traditions such as internationalism, nationalism, and multilateral nationalism (providing a study of U.S.-China relations and policies from Nixon to Biden) and the resulting influence of such traditions on recent U.S. Cross-Strait policy. Presenting a comprehensive study of both the Trump and Biden administrations approach to Taiwan, this will be a valuable resource for any scholar or student of U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S.-Taiwan-China Relations and Cross-Strait Relations.

Taiwan "is becoming the most dangerous flash point in the world for a possible war that involves the United States, China, and probably other major powers," warn Robert D. Blackwill, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy, and Philip Zelikow, University of Virginia White Burkett Miller professor of history. In a new Council Special Report, The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War, the authors argue that the United States should change and clarify its strategy to prevent war over Taiwan. "The U.S. strategic objective regarding Taiwan should be to preserve its political and economic autonomy, its dynamism as a free society, and U.S.-allied deterrence-without triggering a Chinese attack on Taiwan." "We do not think it is politically or militarily realistic to count on a U.S. military defeat of various kinds of Chinese assaults on Taiwan, uncoordinated with allies. Nor is it realistic to presume that, after such a frustrating clash, the United States would or should simply escalate to some sort of wide-scale war against China with comprehensive blockades or strikes against targets on the Chinese mainland." "If U.S. campaign plans postulate such unrealistic scenarios," the authors add, "they will likely be rejected by an American president and by the U.S. Congress." But, they observe, "the resulting U.S. paralysis would not be the result of presidential weakness or timidity. It might arise because the most powerful country in the world did not have credible options prepared for the most dangerous military crisis looming in front of it." Proposing "a realistic strategic objective for Taiwan, and the associated policy prescriptions, to sustain the political balance that has kept the peace for the last fifty years," the authors urge the Joe Biden administration to affirm that it is not trying to change Taiwan's status; work with its allies, especially Japan, to prepare new plans that could challenge Chinese military moves against Taiwan and help Taiwan defend itself, yet put the burden of widening a war on China; and visibly plan, beforehand, for the disruption and mobilization that could follow a wider war, but without assuming that such a war would or should escalate to the Chinese, Japanese, or American homelands. "The horrendous global consequences of a war between the United States and China, most likely over Taiwan, should preoccupy the Biden team, beginning with the president," the authors conclude.

This book examines how Asian countries have responded to urgent challenges against a backdrop of climactic political developments, as well as the effects of issue linkage in policy making. Chapters are arranged according to localities but interlinked through their thematic and critical analyses. The section on Hong Kong focuses on the theme of protests, highlighting its intersection with identity and generational shifts in addition to legal, political and economic changes before and after the adoption of Hong Kong National Security Law. The section examining Taiwan’s policies discusses electoral calculations, identity reconstruction, cross-Strait stalemate and alliance maneuvers within USA-China-Taiwan triangular international relations, providing an overview of its domestic and external policies. Through their analysis, the authors here determine that China has emphasized the prerogatives of history, culture and territorial sovereignty in its dealings with the Hong Kong protests and Taiwan, and that cross-Strait analysis must be deliberated and ultimately determined within the USA-China-Taiwan triangular framework. In the final section, authors examine the USA’s role and policy in dealing with both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Hegemonic power transition has been a primary concern in both countries with the USA’s hegemonic status facing daunting challenges from China, increasingly perceived as an ascending revisionist power waiting to overtake the USA in the future.

Congress and China Policy: Past Episodic, Recent Enduring Influence supports findings that bipartisan majorities in Congress have been instrumental in driving the fundamental shift in American policy toward China carried out during the past six years. Filling major gaps in the inadequate treatment of Congress in assessments of US policy toward China, this book compares recent Congressional influence with the episodes of Congressional activism in China policy over the past 200 years, showing Congress recently has been more important than ever. The findings also show that partisan politics, Congressional-executive competition for policy control, swings in public and media opinion, and influences by special interests—longstanding drivers of past Congressional involvement in China policy—have been of secondary or lesser importance as the Congressional members have grappled with the acute dangers posed by Chinese economic, security and governance challenges. Steady and determined efforts by this cohort of bipartisan Congressional majorities to defend America from Chinese challenges have proven more resolute than the erratic practices of President Trump and previously dismissive Joseph Biden who came late to a tougher policy. This volume forecasts that US policy will remain heavily influenced by these members as they serve out their terms in the years ahead.

The last four years have seen significant damage in US-China relations that will take years to rebuild. Early signs within the Biden Administration indicate that an expeditious return to strong Sino-US ties is premature at best. To fully address these challenges and regain credibility both at home and abroad, the Biden team will need to recalibrate a new set of values, objectives, and thinking in redefining the most important bilateral relationship in the world. This edited book volume seeks to reimagine US-China relations, provide innovative policy analysis, and utilizes a truly multidisciplinary approach coupled with both first and second-hand quantitative data, infographics, geopolitical analysis, and perspectives from leading experts. More importantly, this book project provides a nuanced perspective highlighting the central issues that will define America and China both now and well into the future. Whether you are a policy-maker, business professional, academic, established practitioner, or a casual observer, this impressive volume provides exceptional insight on issues like technology, trade, cross-Strait relations, security & alliances in East Asia, geopolitics, climate change, and much more.

This book employs a policy-based approach to examine the emerging governance structure in Taiwan, one of several countries in East Asia where democratic consolidation is firmly established. Each chapter provides a detailed investigation of reforms that have helped to strengthen Taiwan’s democracy in such areas as elections, civil service recruitment, economic policy, social policy, environmental protection, civil rights, response to the COVID-19 pandemic, civil–military relations, and foreign and mainland China policy. As a study of Taiwan’s democratic governance, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian politics, comparative politics, democracy, and Taiwan.

With the enduring institutions of Chinese statecraft and its civilization clearly in mind, Henry Kissinger in On China examines key episodes in Chinese foreign policy from its earliest days through the 20th century, with a particular emphasis on the modern era. Kissinger illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such events as the initial encounters between China and modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino—Soviet alliance, the Korean War, the opening of relations with the United States, the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Drawing on both historical records and personal experience, he traces the evolution of Sino–American relations in the past 60 years, following their course from estrangement to strategic partnership and toward an uncertain future. He analyzes the two towering figures of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, and their divergent visions of China’s modern destiny. With a final chapter on the future of Sino—American relations and China’s 21st-century world role, Kissinger’s book on China provides a sweeping historical perspective on Chinese foreign policy from one of the premier statesmen of the 20th century.