“One China” and the Military Balance on the Taiwan Strait

Richard D. Fisher

Chapter Chapter 12 in The “One China” Dilemma, 2008, pp 217-256 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Summary Considerations of the military balance across the Taiwan Strait remains critical to the consideration of the issue of “One China,” as force of arms remains a key tool for Beijing to achieve its goal of unification under its terms. During this decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could achieve comfortable superiority in almost all military indices versus Taiwan. The PLA may even for the first time be able to mount a credible invasion threat although at the same time able to deter US intervention. Although the issue of Taiwan’s future relationship with China is one that most residents on Taiwan would prefer be settled peacefully, China’s military buildup against the island is creating pressures, limiting Taiwan’s ultimate room for strategic maneuver, and raising the stakes for Washington. In Taiwan, the fact of the PLA’s continuous buildup exposes the insufficiency of Taiwan’s defensive preparations, as it also exposes weaknesses in the Pan-Blue arguments that it can ensure Taiwan’s security and “enshrine” the status quo with China. Finally, the PLA’s buildup challenges assumptions that the United States can always successfully save Taiwan from Chinese attack, an assumption that is critical for defense decisions in Taiwan, and for Washington to exert leverage in Taipei.

Keywords: Democratic Progressive Party; Ballistic Missile; Defense Spending; Aircraft Carrier; Information Warfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-61193-1_12

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230611931

DOI: 10.1057/9780230611931_12

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().