The Formation and Evolution of the Republic of China's Worldview: Implications for Its Foreign Policy toward East Asia.

This paper discusses the formation and evolution of the worldview of the Republic of China (Taiwan), whose government is being controlled by the party favoring Taiwan independence and denying the Chinese root of its past. This paper explores the formation of the ruling party's worldview, and accesses the transformation of such a worldview since May 2001. This paper indicates that there is a dual development in Taiwan's worldview: "realist" in security and "pluralist" in economics (and the former seems to win over the latter in practice). In the last section how Taiwan adjusted and carried out its East Asia foreign policy through the lens of worldviews is presented. It will be risky if Taiwan continues to conduct its foreign policy under such a seemingly dyadic worldview. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]