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The rise of China has become a popular topic among pundits and practitioners of East Asian security since the last decade or so. Although there is no short of alarmist voices in the marketplace of ideas warning of America's coming conflict with China, few of them are theoretically informed. It is in this regard that John Mearsheimer's argument deserves our especial attention. His offensive realism, itself a modification of Kenneth Waltz's structural realism, argues that states that are merely concerned with their own survival nevertheless have to seek power-maximisation at the expense of other states and, if the circumstances allow, to establish hegemony. Mearsheimer predicts that the distribution of material capabilities and the compelling logic of anarchy will drive the US-Japan alliance and a rising China into an inevitable security competition, which could end up in a shooting war in the Taiwan Strait. Hence the United States should seek to contain China much the way it did to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. If Taiwan wishes to defend its de facto independence, according to his view, it has no alternative other than being a US 'aircraft carrier' against China. Under careful scrutiny, this paper demonstrates that even if a Strait shooting war did happen, it would not validate the predictive power of offensive realism, because it is theoretically impermissible for its exponents to make such a prediction in the first place. Great powers go to war is not simply because 'there is nothing to prevent it'; rather, human deliberation is involved and the question of responsibility is unavoidable. Mearsheimer not only neglects the moral implications behind the disastrous series of events, but also prevents himself (as well as his audience inside and outside the walls of academia) from coming to consider what could have been done to change the collision course and thus learns nothing from the past. In this sense, tragedy and scholarship are intimately intertwined. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper overviews sophisticated triangular relations among Taipei, Beijing and Washington after 2000. Then, it scrutinizes the development of US mediation as a form of third-party intervention in such complicated dynamics in the Taiwan Strait. The pattern of contemporary US mediation is studied in an analytical way. Then, it analyzes the role and approaches (strategies) of the US in mediating between the ROC and the PRC, as well as evaluates preliminarily the future of US mediation. Some key findings include, for example: the US is gradually moving towards the role of real mediator in the cross-strait dispute, the characteristics of the US itself and the environment are positive forces driving further effective US mediation, as well as the US will continue to play a mediating role throughout the George W. BushÂ’s presidency but has to be cautious of the effectiveness of its mediation and the differences between Taipei and Beijing in order to find a useful way to enhance the understandability and acceptability of its official position on the peaceful resolution of the cross-strait sovereignty dispute. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, claiming sovereignty over Taiwan, has dramatically changed its policies towards the island ever since Taiwan?s first democratic presidential election in 1996. While there is no doubt that China is strongly motivated to influence Taiwan?s democratic elections to try to prevent victory for pro-independence candidates in Taiwan, it is less clear why their strategies have changed dramatically from each Taiwan election to the next.For the 1996 election, China exhibited both military threats and rhetoric threats. For the 2000 election, China exhibited high rhetoric threats but no serious military threats. And for the 2004 election, China exhibited low rhetoric and low military threats. With the 2008 election nearing, will cross-straits relations rise to another crisis at the level seen in 1996, or will it be low-profile as it was in 2004?My research will not only explore the varying policies and strategies China employed during each of Taiwan?s presidential elections but also attempt to isolate explanatory factors that caused those variations.Focusing on China?s rhetorical and military policy towards Taiwan, I will collect my policy data by on sampling, and categorizing Chinese officials' statements, speeches, official commentators' articles, military exercises, military procedures, and military statements, published in China's key indicator newspaper. The research span will focus on the three Taiwanese election periods, each roughly from eight months before the election to three months after the election. After categorizing, these newspaper reports will be translated into comparable statistical charts so that the variations in China's rhetoric and military threat will be clearly visible and facilitate comparing and contrasting. No analysis of Cross-Strait relations can be understood without considering the impact of the United States and its relations with China. The three presidential election time periods will be examined under the context of the US-China-Taiwan trilateral relationship. The meaningful questions here are when, which, and why certain rhetoric and military policies are taken under the trilateral interactions. By exploring these questions, we can try to understand China's intentions and predict its policies towards future elections in Taiwan, and security in general for the East Asia region. My research will conclude that: 1) there is a strong feedback function in China's policy toward Taiwan. In other words, China's policy making system learned and adapted through Taiwan's three presidential elections by trial-and-error; 2) China's policies, in spite of the variations, are still highly consistent to state rationality (realism). Other realist considerations include China's interesting deterrence-behavior patterns, in particular bluffing; 3) and predictions of possible Chinese policies towards Taiwan for the 2008 election and explanation for China's long term rationality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan resists reunification with China because of a credibility problem, but the problem is typically explained in a misleading way. While China has an incentive to renege on any promises it makes to respect Taiwanese autonomy under a “one country, two systems” bargain, Taiwan might still choose reunification if it thought that reunification would not independently diminish its bargaining leverage with Beijing. Taiwan’s leverage, whether it chooses reunification or not, depends on its expectations about the extent to which reunification would uniquely erode its economic ties outside China and its military support from the United States in the event of a crisis. If it were to lose those things anyway, it might choose reunification despite the mainland’s general lack of credibility. Historical comparisons with two analogous cases in the 19th century – Buenos Aries negotiations over Argentine reunification with the litoral provinces and Prussia’s negotiations over German unification with Saxony and Bavaria – illustrate our argument. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]