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The paper focuses on Chinese foreign policies towards Taiwan, Japan and the Korean peninsula and the consequences of these policies for Asia-Pacific security. Northeast Asia is a strong-hold of the US alliance system and China's near abroad, thus affecting China's influence on global security. If China cannot accommodate the region into its overall foreign policy strategy, its suggestions for a post-Cold War security order are likely to appear unconvincing to the international community. The paper emphasizes the weaknesses inherent in China's contemporary foreign policy strategy, thereby pointing to the possibility that China might fall into the rank of secondary powers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The episode of Chen Shui-bian transit diplomacy bypassing the United States and his earlier decision to put the National Unification Council and Guideline into abeyance in 2006 had put Beijing-Taipei-Washington relationship into serious tests. It remains to be seen if Taipei's most recent steps of renaming some state-owned enterprises may escalate into tensions as before. While Chen's New Year address and state visit to Nicaragua via US homeland in 2007 caused little problem for the State Department, the PRC's discontent remained evident. It was against this backdrop that the paper was proposed.This paper examined the role the US played in the institutionalization of the status quo across the Strait from a sociological new institutionalist perspective. My research questions are: In what way did the United States help institutionalize the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait? And in the process, how did the US act through "cross-Strait peaceful co-development" institution to shape the interest or identity of Beijing and Taipei?It was maintained that there existed an ongoing institutionalization process through which the US constructed the status quo that was supported with varying degree by Beijing and Taipei. The three joint communiqués and the TRA could be seen as setting the first stage of institutionalization through formal codification which emphasized the peaceful process in any attempt for final resolution by both sides. Since the late 1990s, the construction and reproduction of the CSPCD institution by the Americans, which generally follows a pattern of "neither use of force nor de jure independence," has been undertaken primarily through policy statements or actions. They normally uphold such core values as "prosperity," "stability" or "peace," and help sustain the regulative, normative or cognitive elements of the CSPCD institution. The main purpose is to shape the policy discourses, preferences, interests or identity of Beijing and Taipei. It was also argued that although the detailed record of what the institution has achieved was certainly mixed, there appears to be an overall tendency for Beijing and Taipei not to incessantly challenge the status quo. As such, it might be concluded that the institutionalization of status quo was considerably effective, though not completely successful. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]