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This paper attempts to understand how and why China has been portrayed as the primary military threat in Taiwanese security discourse through an examination of offence-defence theory. It is based on the premise that those events or factors that one identifies as dangerous come to be ascribed as such only through an interpretation of their various dimensions of dangerousness. The paper first introduces the protracted debate among the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government, the 'Pan-Blue' opposition parties and US officials and analysts over the 2004 Special Defence Budget controversy. In defence of its arms procurement program, the Chen Shui-bian administration resorted to a particular mode of interpreting danger, that is, the military balance across the Taiwan Strait has been shifting in China's favour and thus it is imperative to correct the imbalance through fielding the weapons systems provided by Washington. The paper then explores the underlying assumption of that pervasive interpretation in the official articulation of Chinese military threat in Taiwan and the United States, which holds that offensive advantages make war more likelyâ??a principal hypothesis of offence-defence theory. Rather than questioning the methodological ambiguities about how to define and measure the 'offence-defence balance', the paper argues that it is precisely these ambiguities that make China's threat image in Taiwan possible. The special budget case is indicative as to how Taiwan's defence policy is better understood as a political practice central to the constitution, production, and maintenance of a peace-loving Taiwanese identity contrary to the belligerent Chinese than as an instrument to build and maintain a capable defence posture against potential attacks from the mainland. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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]

This paper examines the various impacts of contemporary globalization on national security, with special reference to the migration of the Taiwanese semiconductor industry to China and its security challenges to the United States, Taiwan and China. The paper adheres to a sectoral approach to the study of globalization-security interconnections and adopts a broadly based definition of security pertaining to the case study in question that encompasses economic, technological and defense security. The analysis of the subject matter is grounded in evidence collected in more than 140 interviews with chip industry, defense sector and government insiders in the US and Asia, as well as English-language and Chinese-language secondary data. On sectoral migration, the paper argues that the scope of the migration is extensive, the direction complicated, the cause multiple, and the outcome significant in boosting the development of the indigenous Chinese chip industry. It has been discovered that some Taiwanese non-state chip actors have violated government regulations in the process of spearheading the migration, and some have even forged business ties with their PRC counterparts associated with the PLA. As for the ensuing security ramifications, it is argued that there is no immediate security risk involved, although long-term strategic repercussions are paramount. The depth and scope of the continuous sectoral migration in years to come will determine the level of economic security risks faced by the US and Taiwan. Long-term technological and defense security repercussions need to take into account two important elements at play: technological change in the sector (increasing commercial-to-military spin-on and dual-use nature of the chip technology), and the PRC dual-track (economic and defense) grand strategy behind its resolve to upgrade its indigenous chip capability. Four pertinent aspects are analyzed: (a) concerns over the PRC chip industrial base, its contribution to the PLA modernization and the ensuing shift in the balance of power in Beijing's favour; (b) technology-related misgivings over the trustworthy supplies of chips for the US and Taiwanese military end uses, as well as the shrinking "chip gap"; (c) fear of denial of chip supply due to foreign dependency; (d) dubious implementation of export control policies at the unilateral and the multilateral level that exacerbate some of the above security repercussions. The concluding section elucidates how the case study helps to show the impact of globalization on security as far as the agency and scope of security, the autonomy and capacity of the state, as well as the balance of power are concerned. To sum up, the study offers a fresh look at the complex security repercussions of the globalization of a strategic industry that occurs in a politically sensitive region in world politics today. It not only helps us disentangle an important policy issue, but also advances our theoretical understanding of the globalization-security interconnections in international relations today. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cube Law is a benchmark for the relationship between seats and votes for elections under the first-past-the-post system. Mathematically, there are two assumptions underlying the Cube Law: that the distribution of vote share at the district level is normal and that the standard deviation of the distribution is of a certain magnitude. While the first assumption is not unusual, the second begs an explanation why the standard deviation would be large enough to sustain the Cube Law. In this regard, scholars generally point to contagion or clustering in voting behavior.In this paper we argue that spatial autocorrelation can help explain the extent to which the relationship between seats and votes conform to the Cube Law. We demonstrate mathematically that an increase in the spatial autocorrelation in vote share indeed leads to an increase in its standard deviation. Empirically, we propose to investigate recent legislative elections in Taiwan and see how the spatial autocorrelation and standard deviation of vote share are related to each other and how they affect the relationship between seats and votes. We believe this project will enhance our understanding of the Cube Law. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taiwan Lobby in the United States comprises 5 different components. There is Taiwan's unofficial embassy, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO); the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce of North America (TCCNA); World United Formosans for Independence (WUFI); the Formosan Association for Political Activity (FAPA); and there is the Kuomintang (KMT), which represented the Republic of China (ROC) from 1949 to 2001. TCCNA and FAPA have opposed the KMT. Each organization has used a different lobbying technique to achieve influence. Since Taiwan does not have an official embassy, and hence cannot rely on official interaction with the executive branch, the various lobbies are forced to seek influence over Congress, which is more porous and diverse. The KMT relied on the old "China Lobby", which comprised missionaries, businessmen, military leaders, and members of Congress, especially Republicans. In opposing the KMT, FAPA sought to influence Democratic members of Congress during the 1980s. FAPA succeeded in persuading Congress to convince the KMT to end 40 years of martial law on Taiwan. Over the subsequent 20 years of political liberalization on Taiwam, the different Taiwanese organizations have collectively focused on K Street lobbies as a mechanism to influence Congress, with the Taiwan government paying such lobbies as Cassidy & Associates. Does this strategy make a difference on U.S. foreign policy toward Taiwan? The Taiwan Lobby is second in influence only to AIPAC, and the lobbying firms it hires help generate dozens of congressional bills, such as the most recent call for Taiwan to be admitted to the UN. Yet, the executive branch has dominance in foreign policy, and has not changed its policy toward Taiwan since 1982, thus bills often fail. The Taiwan Lobby has tried to shift the locus of decision-making power from the executive branch to the legislative branch. Has this strategy been successful? If so, what is the extent of this success and how exactly is it achieved? In particular, since FAPA is the most active organization, what are the components of its operation? One possible component is the transnational communal politics practiced by Formosan nationalists and expressed through FAPA. This component is potentially valuable under a three-level framework that entails states, domestic politics, and transnational actors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the interaction of domestic and international factors in determining relations and policies associated with Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait. It considers the possibility of direct military confrontation between the U.S. and its regional challenger, China, over Taiwan. A review of the literature on cross-Strait and the triangular relations of U.S.-China-Taiwan is presented. It considers the impact of U.S. presidential elections on the China policy since 1980.

This paper overviews sophisticated triangular relations among Taipei, Beijing and Washington after 2000. Then, it scrutinizes the development of US mediation as a form of third-party intervention in such complicated dynamics in the Taiwan Strait. The pattern of contemporary US mediation is studied in an analytical way. Then, it analyzes the role and approaches (strategies) of the US in mediating between the ROC and the PRC, as well as evaluates preliminarily the future of US mediation. Some key findings include, for example: the US is gradually moving towards the role of real mediator in the cross-strait dispute, the characteristics of the US itself and the environment are positive forces driving further effective US mediation, as well as the US will continue to play a mediating role throughout the George W. BushÂ’s presidency but has to be cautious of the effectiveness of its mediation and the differences between Taipei and Beijing in order to find a useful way to enhance the understandability and acceptability of its official position on the peaceful resolution of the cross-strait sovereignty dispute. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]