Search

This survey reviews the growing role and presence of China in the Island Pacific. As the late Professor Ron Crocombe remarked, in the Pacific a major transition is under way from a range of European to Asian influences. Many Western observers have viewed this rise of Asian, and specifically Chinese, influence with alarm, but Crocombe saw it as offering Pacific Islanders new opportunities. This paper first analyses the diversity that can be masked by terms such as ‘China’ and ‘the Pacific’. Then it surveys recent literature on China in the Pacific and scholarship concerned with longer Chinese histories in the region that most recent commentators ignore and which question a number of their assertions. Finally, it suggests possible future directions for historical research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1992 Consensus on “one China with different interpretations” is an artful and ambiguous formulation that has served both Beijing and Taipei as the basis for stability in the Taiwan Strait ever since Ying-jeou Ma became Taiwan's President in 2008. Ma unveiled this concept in the early 2000s. At a time when he was Mayor of Taipei, he travelled six thousand miles across the Pacific to be present at an NCAFP trilateral conference on Cross-Strait relations where he unveiled the concept. During subsequent years in NCAFP conferences with China and Taiwan and trips to both sides of the Strait, the concept of basing dialogue on the “'92 Consensus” was regularly discussed in depth by all three parties. The formula had picked up growing support in China and Taiwan, albeit with different nuanced interpretations, by the time of Ma's inauguration as Taiwan President in 2008. It became the basis for Cross-Strait dialogues and negotiations that have produced dramatic progress in economic and cultural ties ever since. We reprint Ma's contribution from a 2001 issue ofAmerican Foreign Policy Interestsbecause of its historic importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]