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This paper identifies and examines a number of long-term trends reshaping the security environment in the Taiwan Strait in ways that might produce a military conflict. Focusing on long-term trends is a useful analytical approach that highlights the possibility that political leaders may knowingly take risky actions in response to perceptions that adverse trends are eroding their security. Taiwan?s democratic transition and growing sense of a separate Taiwan identity have changed the political considerations governing Taiwan?s policy toward the mainland. China worries about growing pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan, but lacks the political tools to build support for unification. As a result, China has sought to deter movement toward Taiwan independence while developing the military capabilities to deter U.S. intervention in support of Taiwan. China?s goal is to force the United States to choose between continuing its support for Taiwan or sacrificing Chinese cooperation on economic and security issues. The perceived Chinese military threat to Taiwan has caused the United States to increase its support for Taiwan, included increased security cooperation. These trends are gradually undercutting the basis for the ?one China? framework that has served U.S. interests effectively for the past thirty years. The paper examines these long-term trends and assesses their implications for the stability of the security environment in the Taiwan Strait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of economic sanctions in Taiwan's decision to reverse its nuclear weapons efforts. Sanctions have long been derided as an ineffective tool of foreign policy, particularly in "high politics" issues such as nuclear weapons programs. Contrary to the prevalent view, in this paper I demonstrate that economic sanctions led to nuclear reversal in Taiwan through the "compellence" mechanism. Drawing on the literature on coercive diplomacy, the paper concludes that Taiwan's dependence on the United States for its very survival facilitated successful US coercion to reverse its nuclear weapons program. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant issue in Taiwan's politics concerns the island's relationship with China. Since 1949, Taiwan has resisted the control of the government on the mainland, tranforming itself into a more economically advanced and politically democratic society than the one on the mainland. But whether or not it should become an independent nation or seek to rejoin the mainland is the central issue cleavage in Taiwan's politics. In this paper, I will examine the role of this issue in Taiwan's politics by going beyond traditional measures of attitudes on this question to include consideration of conditional preferences toward national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Taiwan, since the early 1990s, Taiwanese identity has rapidly supplanted Chinese identity. This has pushed all the main political parties towards the new identity, and brought the Democratic Progressive Party to power. Rising Taiwanese identity has also affected military strategies. It has accelerated the cross-strait arms race by alarming Beijing and supporting an offsetting build-up in Taiwan. It has also strengthened Taiwan's will to retain her independence, and thereby led to newer, more unconventional defense strategies. One such strategy is to enhance ideological legitimacy in the US and Japan. Another is to embrace economic integration with China--a development hitherto seen as threatening. A third is to deter a Chinese attack by credibly committing to a more dogged fight to preserve independence, even under conditions where such a fight seems hopeless. Last, a strong Taiwanese identity makes it more likely that China's increasing conventional military predominance will ultimately call forth a Taiwanese nuclear deterrent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]