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Central Asia occupies a growing role in Chinese security policy. However, an examination of China?s Central Asian policies reveals that they are essentially external projections of Beijing?s vital interest of internal security in neighboring Xinjiang. Accordingly this article examines Xinjiang?s importance for China?s overall security policies. Through this examination it becomes clear that the Xinjiang problem very much resembles that of other discontented provinces within a multinational state with a continuing imperial vocation. Therefore China?s problems in Xinjiang will continue and have important repercussions for its domestic and foreign policies , and other key issues like Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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]

Despite of the fact that China and Japan are becomingthe biggest trade partner with each other in recent years, politicalrelations between both countries have deteriorated. Many people in Chinastill concern over potential Japanese military resurgence, while more andmore people in Japan worry about China's military modernization and growingnationalism. The tension is unlikely to improve in the near future.The role of Taiwan in this China-Japan dispute is worth attention. WhileTaiwan has enjoyed de facto independence since 1949, it is still regarded byChinese leaders as a renegade province, and the recovery of the island wasconsidered in China as the sacred and ultimate goal. In recent years, Taiwanhas increasingly attempted to act as a truly independent state, adevelopment that could be attributed to political democratization on theisland since the late 1980s. The question is whether the leaders in Taiwanwill continue to push the envelope to a point short of de jure independencethat will be intolerable to the leaders in Beijing. On the other hand, bothTaiwan and Japan have shown strong intention in improving politicalrelations between both sides. Creation of a Japan-Taiwan alliance isbecoming a popular view in Taiwan's strategic circle, and Japanese publichave shown more sympathy to Taiwan's international isolation. Japanesegovernment even adjusted its policy toward the island state by including theTaiwan Strait into the sphere of concern in Japan-US Security Treaty. Thesedevelopments have been unthinkable in the past, because both China and Japanhave committed to the One China policy and because the Taiwan issueused to be excluded from China-Japan relations.This paper will examine the Taiwanese perspective of China-Japan relations.The author will outline the developments of Taiwan-Japan relations, identifythe strategies Taiwanese government have utilized to strengthen therelations with Japan, and to assess the Taiwan factor in future Japan-Chinarelations. In addition to analyses of secondary data, the author will alsointerview strategic scholars and even government officials to gain firsthand information. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In the post-Cold War era, China, Japan and Taiwan entered the new phase of their relationship and were forced to reconsider their security and political dialogues. Despite of the US presence in East Asia, they are becoming more active players in the regio ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]