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This research paper seeks to examine the importance of the 2008 Olympic Games in regards to China's foreign policy options and subsequent future behavior, with particular emphasis placed on the Taiwan issue. The primary question addressed by this paper is whether or not China will use the 2008 Olympic Games as a means of demonstrating a responsible power identity. This paper asserts three hypotheses. First, China could forgo any gains to be made by hosting the Olympic Games and take defensive-oriented action against Taiwan as a means of protecting important national interests. Second, China could use the games as a propaganda tool and take offensive-action against Taiwan as a means of pursuing an expansionist agenda. Lastly, China could choose to take no action and use the Games to demonstrate a responsible power identity. These hypotheses are tested through three historical case studies: the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the 1980 Moscow Games; the 1936 Berlin Games and the aggressive German expansion that began shortly thereafter; and the 1964 Tokyo Games and the 1988 Seoul Games in that both Japan and South Korea used the Games to build identities. This paper finds that although the third hypothesis is most preferable, certain factors might push China towards selecting an option closer to hypothesis one. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, interactions among Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China have undergone extensive change, moving from intensified confrontation to closer economic exchange. After Taipei legalized travel to the mainland in November 1987, new economic opportunities were opened up to both sides of the Strait. This change aroused plenty of discussions, with the main discussion centered around the possibility of an economically integrated Greater China . The great volume of trade across the strait and the huge amount of investments on the mainland by Taiwanese entrepreneurs have created a dense economic relationship that is potentially beneficial to further integration. In view of this, many scholars and political elites in the region have expressed their optimistism on the formation of Greater China through many of their discourses. The usages of terms such as “Greater China,” “Chinese Economic Area,” “Common Chinese Market,” or “South China Economic Sphere” all reflect these scholars’ eager expectation. However, the concerns for each side’s security, sovereignty, and domestic politics hinder such development, and the expected spillover from economic corporation into a higher level of integration has not yet appeared. In this paper, I would try to answer why the economic integration is unlikely in Greater China. And I would like to argue that the current economic interaction and given cultural similarity cannot lead to economic integration in the absence of political understanding. On the surface, comparative advantages come from complementary economic development on both sides of the Strait , geographic proximity (reducing transportation costs) and cultural affinity (reducing transaction costs in investment and technology transfer). However, fundamental sovereignty and identity differences remain. In the first part of this paper, I would like to apply Keohane and Nye’s framework, interdependence, to argue that the growing trade and investment volume flowing across the Strait does not imply interdependence. Since interdependence is a necessary antecedent to economic integration, integration is unlikely without any interdependence. Even if the ongoing trend can lead us to cross the threshold of interdependence, the political concerns are still able to undermine further institutionalization. In the second part of this paper, I would like to focus on the concept of cultural affinity which is supposed to be a plus for integration. However, given current political considerations, what we have are perceived hostility and alienated identification, and these factors reverse the plus to a minus for integration. In the third part, I would like to emphasize contested sovereignty, identity, and security tensions which can be seen as the prerequisites for the progress of economic integration. According to Joanne Gowa, security matters, however, enlightened by David Laitin’s study on leadership, I argue that the government/leader’s political concerns towards sovereignty and identity can play the most important role in hindering the progress of negotiation, furthermore, the future process of integration. I would like to conclude that since the political issue, especially sovereignty and identity issues, is not settled yet, it is too optimistic to expect the spillover effect that brings the current thriving economic interaction into a more institutionalized economic integration in the Greater China region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests three democratic peace theory hypotheses for East Asian political cooperation and a fourth commercial exchange hypothesis. H1 suggests that like regimes will have excellent bilateral relations, H2 suggests that unlike regimes will have poor bilateral relations, and H3 draws on Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder to say that democracies will have poor bilateral relations with nondemocracies. Finally, H4 suggests that there is a positive correlation between two regimes' economic ties and their bilateral relations. A robust test of the respective hypotheses (using a pool of nineteen bi-national East Asian dyads that includes China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) provides the most durable support for H4. Economic linkages are defined via a mathematical formula that incorporates the volume of cross-national trade and the base 10 logarithm of each regime’s GDP. Political contestation is defined via a score that incorporates Polity IV data and a measure of Internet openness from the OpenNet Initiative. This test finds H4 is the most convincing explanation for the variation in bilateral relations among the dyads; in addition, the relationship is considerably more robust when the China-Taiwan dyad is excluded. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On March 22, 2008, Taiwan elected a new President hence not only its domestic politics but also its relations with China have entered into a new phase. Taiwan's new President Ma Ying-jeou suggested and proposed a series of political standing points and views which are quite different with those of former President Chen Shui-bian. Compared with Chen, Ma expresses more open views on many issues, particularly on his cross-strait policy. For instance, he re-started the cross-strait negotiations which had been stopped for several years under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chen Shui-bian's rule. Taiwan therefore signed many historical agreements with China. Ma Ying-jeou suggests having more controllable and stable cross-strait relations under the insistence of Taiwan's sovereignty. However, although the cross-strait relations seem to progress towards a more positive direction, there are still some points that need to be clarified and investigated. The most outstanding point is China's attitudes to Taiwan; that is to say, China apparently separates political issues from economic ones. Therefore, this paper attempts to investigate cross-strait relations by means of examining their contacts and exchanges on trade, governmental, social and security issues. That is, the author wants to examine whether Ma's policies have changed the cross-strait relations and the prospects of cross-strait relations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers two strategic explanations for policy -ambiguity' in Taiwanese premier Chen Shui-bien's rhetoric using measurements from a large scale chinese language content analysis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linking domestic & international politics, this paper offers a model of "Four-Level Nested Games" approach to Taiwan problems. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper wants to study how the PRC perceive the Taiwan Problem and explain how it made and implemented Taiwan policy incrementally from three perspectives(individual actors,domestic structures, and contextual constraints). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how variation in state capacity for controlling.x000d.political information facilitates regime popularity or regime change..x000d.Contemporary China and Taiwan are treated as cases for testing a new theory.x000d.about political information and regime survival. After examining media control.x000d.mechanisms, media content from 20,000 articles in mass circulation daily newspapers from 1978-2003, and political change over time, this paper argues that improvements in Chinese information control and propaganda increased popular support for the ruling Chinese Communist Party. By comparison, the Nationalist regime in Taiwan proved unable to control media content and yielded space for the emergence of political competitors, who used mass media to advocate political reform and garner support for democratic regime change. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Military threat was intensively used by China during Taiwan's presidential elections but is widely argued as counterproductive because it didn't prevent pro-independence candidates from winning the elections. To explain the logic of China's military threat and outcomes of the elections, this paper develops a formal framework in which China and the incumbent party has better information about the state of the world than voters and non-incumbent party. China's threat is interpreted as a way to transfer information to voters. Although she doesn't prevent the pro-independence party from being elected, China successfully prevents the winning party from declaring formal Taiwanese independence. In this way, China is always better off by issuing threats. In general, this paper not only attempts to improve our understanding of Taiwan Straight confrontation but also tries to shed new insight on the study of military threat in International Relations. It also offers a concrete game theoretic model to illustrate Putnam's two-level game metaphor. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions the conventional view seeing Taiwanese national identity and Chinese national identity as mutually exclusive; further this paper offers explanations to the compatible coexistence of the two national identities. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan has increased its vote share in the past three legislative elections. Nevertheless, the 2004 and 2008 elections were widely viewed as major defeats for the party. Through an analysis of the DPP's performance in recent Legislative Yuan elections, this article considers the effects of electoral rules on election outcomes and the perception of those outcomes. In Taiwan, under both the previous Single Non-transferable Vote (SNTV) and the current Mixed Member Majoritarian (MMM) systems, the mechanical effect of how electoral rules translate votes into seats and the psychological impact this has on voter and party behavior have often dramatically influenced party electoral performance by causing vote and seat shares to diverge. This divergence also affects the perception of party electoral performance by causing outcomes not to meet expectations. In addition, this article analyzes the effects of recent changes to the electoral system in Taiwan and whether these changes structurally disadvantage the DPP. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the creation and functioning of indigenous science and technology (S&T) development programs in Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (hereafter China) as comparative cases illustrating the varied and changing role of the state in fostering high technological industrialization. Taiwan and China’s experiences illustrate the changing relative roles of the state and private sectors of the two nations. .x000d.By both policy and economic standards, despite clear drawbacks in both planning and execution, Taiwan’s approach has been the more successful of the two, but China has laid a strong (albeit uneven) foundation for future R&D work. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the eve of the ROC's national celebration day, a news report about PRC's official occupied the headline in Taiwan. The news says Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou will meet top China negotiator Chen Yunlin to discuss direct passenger and cargo flights in late October. According to Taiwan's topic negotiator on China policy, this meeting will be the largest breakthrough in the cross-Strait relations since 1949. The story behind this news are a Republic which began as a one-pary dominated authoritarin government in 1911 to a fledgling democracy which tries to reshape its relations with Mainland China in order to bring more business opportunities for its citizens through cross-Strait trade than the former administration did. This paper intends to trace this development of citizen's rights in the formation of the Republic, and its political and economic reforms in the later periods. The concepts of authority, territory and rights will be used as analytical tools to dissect different shape and form of political governance, subjectivities, and normative discourse in configuring the people's rights to the Republic and its implications on the citizens' rights claims to the PRC. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent year, there have been significant developments in the peace and stability in cross-Strait relations, which is critical to the international relations in East Asia. In addition, the interaction among mainland China, US, and Taiwan is increasing as they are becoming more active in regional multilateral institutions. This situation raises the puzzle that whether institutions, economic interdependence can facilitate peace and stability among China, Taiwan and the United States. If the answer is yes, what are these causal mechanisms? Liberal theories of international relations emphasize the role of international institutions on fostering cooperation by reducing obstacles. such as uncertainty and transaction costs.. that stand in the way of mutually beneficial agreements between states. In addition, they also hold that interdependence decreases the incentives for conflict and war because states become reluctant to disrupt or jeopardize the welfare benefits of open economic exchange. This paper unifies these theoretical insights to explore the role of economic interdependence, institutions on the stability and cooperation between mainland China, Taiwan, and the U.S. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the relationships between religion and state in Mainland China and Taiwan after 1949, trying to explore their experiences in the past, and to tell the possible development tendency in the future. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the volatility accompanying the pacifying power of economic interdependence in Taiwan-China relations. Viewing from Taiwan's domestic politics, I argue an explanatory factor is how consolidated the Taiwanese leader's power was. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a comparative study of laws of assembly between the People?s Republic of China (PRC) vs. the Republic of China (Taiwan) (ROC). ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper argues that the eventual democratization of Mainland China would not resolve the conflict between Beijing and Taipei. Moreover, political liberalization in the PRC would increase the risk of a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to look at the interactions between the U.S., Taiwan, and China in the period of 1987-1997. It will test two hypotheses that explain conflicts and cooperation between two regional rival states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to fill a void in international relations literature by highlighting the substantial economic and political influence of the Overseas Chinese in Mainland China, Taiwan, and the Pacific Rim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is widely recognized that Taiwan was the most conflictual issue in U.S.-P.R.C relations both in the Cold War and post-Cold War eras (Ross, 1995). How the dynamics of the “strategic triangle” consisting of the U.S., Mainland China and Taiwan to be understood? How is the U.S. “strategic ambiguity” policy to be explained? Neorealists may argue that there was a tacit agreement between Beijing and Washington that so long as cooperation was imperative, the status quo in U.S.-Taiwan relations was temporarily acceptable. Revisionists such as Robert S. Ross, however, hold a more sophisticated view that even in the midst of cooperation, the ongoing conflict required continuous negotiations and mutual adjustment between the U.S. and P.R.C. (Ross, 1995). Nevertheless, few study, if any, have provided theoretical answers to the questions that under what conditions the equilibrium of status quo holds, how the U.S. commitment to defending Taiwan will affect the equilibrium outcomes of the game, and how the so-called strategic ambiguity policy is to be explained? By developing a game theoretic model, this paper will provide theoretical answers to those unresolved questions, drawing out both theoretical and policy implications. A historical examination of the interactions between the U.S., Mainland China, and Taiwan since the Korea War will be done to further illustrate the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan Strait is one of the few explosive spots in today's world that has the potential to trigger military confrontations between two major powers (the People's Republic of China and the United States). Since the leader of Taiwan is determined to seek Taiwan's formal independence, which cannot be accepted by the PRC, many scholars warn that a Taiwan Strait War will break out in the foreseeable future. Other observers argue that the PRC will not risk a war over Taiwan because it can hardly afford the economic cost of such a war. What are the possible consequences of a future Taiwan Strait War? This article examines the impact of war on the PRC through the history of three major Sino- wars that occurred after the establishment of the PRC. I also look back to the Tiananmen Square Incident to see the international reactions and its damage of a quasi civil war. Although history indicates that war does not necessarily impede the development of China in the long run, the consequences of a Taiwan Strait War will be more serious because of the uniqueness of the Taiwan issue as well as the highly interdependence between the PRC, Taiwan, and the rest of the world. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research employs historical institutional analysis to explore the absence of formal diplomatic relations between Beijing and the Holy See. By examining the perceived priorities from the two primary leaders of this diplomatic dance, I present the public narrative involved in the potential opening of formal recognition. Beyond the official transcript, however, this research also explores the roles of other interested parties, including the underground Chinese Catholic Church, the Taiwan-based Chinese Regional Bishops' Conference, and interested Catholics around the world. The relationship between the world's largest and smallest state is important beyond the exchange of papal nuncios and missions - its likely impacts will be felt by Chinese Catholics (estimated between 10-15 million, of which 8 million are likely "underground"); Taiwanese Catholics (estimated 300,000); and other groups seeking free religious expression and collective voices beyond religiosity.This bilateral relationship provides both unique factors as well as comparative insights. A distinctive aspect of this case study is the zero-sum nature of the Vatican's recognition of Beijing: should this switch indeed occur, the Holy See would relinquish its diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan, a move it appears prepared to take. Comparatively, the case of Beijing's relationship with the Vatican can best be understood by other cases in which diplomacy, internal affairs and religious freedom coincide, including the Vatican's relationship with the Republic of Cuba, and the seemingly imminent recognition between the Holy See and Socialist Republic of Vietnam. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Post-rationalist PE perspective is used to inspect Taiwan?s debate over the movement of wafer fab to China. Besides materialist interests, non-materialist discourses have resulted in a less predictable but contested sphere for public discussions. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author finds that Taiwanese have a weak sense of extended deterrence, but they are willing to choose independence than to remain status quo across the Taiwan Strait were they attacked by China. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why is the welfare state collapsing in China while it is growing Taiwan? I argue that political institutions mediate the influence of collective identity through a process of idea filtration and lead policy makers to define or redefine their response priorities, which then lead to different models of welfare systems in China and Taiwan through different welfare polices. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, international relation scholars analyze the interactions of states based on the theories of realism and idealism. Recently, scholars try to explain the reasons why there is conflict or cooperation in international society by reviewing the dimensions of concepts, ideas and culture which is so called constructivism. However, as the state boundaries fall away, the contact among states are getting closer. The subject those international relation theories explain has been shifted from states toward international regimes. Some scholars interpret the practice of these international regimes by applying regime theory. The emergence of international regimes not only means the coming era of globalization, but also stands for the difference between regime members and non regime members. In addition, many states believe that they would have higher status if they could join international regimes. Therefore, it is obvious that states look for any chance to become regime members. Since the withdrawal from the UN in 1971, Taiwan has been eager to join international regimes, especially those which require governmental representatives. However, due to the obstruction that Beijing government makes, Taiwan always fails to join international regimes. After striving for several years, Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is one of the most important international economic regimes on January 1st 2002. As a member of WTO, when Taiwan does hard to fulfill its obligation, it is no doubt that Taiwan should possess equal status as other members and enjoy the interests that WTO brings to Taiwan. Yet, because China keeps protesting in WTO, it is not easy for Taiwan to carry out its duty and to perform as a good regime member. In WTO, the competition between Taiwan and China is everywhere and repeated. How Taiwan can find a way to solve this situation and how to protect its national interests by applying the institutional rules of WTO have become significant issues which should be taken seriously. Although the competing relation between Taipei and Beijing has not been better off after both became WTO members, in this research plan, we try to explore the possibility to see whether WTO could be a new arena where both members are able to cooperate in some issues. Furthermore, this papaer also wants to see if the economic interaction within WTO could help Taiwan and China restart dialogue in the near future. After the institutionalization and legalization, international regimes have gradually become the bridge among states. From internal perspective, regimes must defend their members’ interests, and solve the disputes and conflicts between members. Besides, international regimes have to play the role of the guard of international order from the external perspective. Furthermore, in small states’ point of view, how to interact with powerful states, gain maximum interests, and bring their influence into full play are those issues that they care about most. There is no common opinion in the international relation theories when seeing international regimes. However, even though the regime theory has developed since 1980s, it is still a question whether it is able to explain the interaction between Taiwan and China in international regimes. There might be something to be supplemented and needed more research and analysis. The core issues of my research plan are as follows: 1) the interaction between Taiwan and China within WTO: competition and cooperation; 2) what international relational theories and regime theory would say about the interaction between these two members in WTO: explanation and supplement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]