![]() ![]() The escalation of the Sino-American strategic competition also contributed to shape the course of cross-Strait relations, as Taipei consolidated its security relations with Washington against Beijing’s threat. With no breakthrough in sight, both sides across the Strait remained firmly entrenched in their positions, relying on military signalling to communicate their commitment to their respective agendas. ![]() Relations between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China remained frozen, as President Tsai Ing-wen continued to refuse Beijing’s diktat to accept the 1992 Consensus as a roadmap for national unification. While domestic drivers are not the sole aspect of China’s Taiwan policy, the inclusion of China’s ‘national security culture’ (norms, identity and the discourses around them) is a helpful component to an overall dissection of the Taiwan Straits Crisis. It will seek to argue that Taiwan’s counter-project of popular sovereignty, democracy and human rights not only stalls the CCP’s national strategy for the island, but in the national security culture of the CCP, poses a political threat to the party’s legitimacy and thus the state’s national security. Through analysis of its national security policies and initiatives towards Taiwan, and the connection that these policies have with the legitimizing discourses employed by the party-state, this thesis will seek to demonstrate that China’s drive for Taiwanese unification is inspired in no small part to the CCP’s norms of national sovereignty and an authoritarian nationalist identity. Looking at how social and political discourses concerning norms such as sovereignty and national identity in China have become integral to the continued survival of the CCP, this paper aims at employing a constructivist analysis to discover how “social factors shape different aspects of national security policy” in the People’s Republic of China and its approach to the Taiwan issue. ![]() In trying to make sense of why, according to late Singaporean statesman Lee Kuan Yew, the CCP has “whatever the cost”, made Taiwan the regime’s “ultimate red line”, it would be refreshing to analyse social factors. A survey of the situation show that this crisis is in many respects defined by clashing identities and norms. However, Beijing’s growing clutch in the region, widespread uncertainty over the future role of the United States in the region, as well as the structural malaise of the Taiwanese economy, severely constrained the efficacy of the agenda designed by the Tsai administration.ĭespite eight years of socio-political rapprochement and economic integration between the Kuomintang of Taiwan and Mainland China’s Chinese Communist Party, as of 2016 cross-straits relations are quite possibly descending into a nadir, as the victorious Democratic Progressive Party have vowed to put democracy at the heart of future relations with authoritarian Beijing. These measures were taken with the aim of reducing the weight of the existent historical, cultural, political, and economic ties with the Mainland. At home, it pushed an aggressively localist agenda, and started implementing an expansive industrial policy. Abroad, Taipei adapted to the new, disruptive Trump administration, deepened its relations with a sympathetic Abe administration in Japan, and pushed for a more relevant role in the Indo-Asia-Pacific via its New Southbound Policy. Within the context of a protracted stalemate with China, the Tsai administration responded by pursuing an ambitiously proactive agenda. Neither Beijing’s intensive pressure campaign, nor Taipei’s repeated proposals to establish a new model of interaction between the two sides produced tangible results. ![]() The increasing divergence over the issue of national unification between Beijing and Taipei, epitomised by President Tsai Ing-wen’s refusal to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus, shaped Taiwan’s cross-Strait, regional, and domestic politics. After a tumultuous 2016, cross-Strait relations between the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continued to be tense throughout 2017. ![]()
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