This book will serve as an excellent guide to Taiwans contemporary and future security risks, offering the reader updated assessments on Taiwans strategic choices. It is one of those rare gems that all students and practitioners of Taiwan security affairs, Asia-Pacific strategic studies, and foreign policy should own.
Assoc. Prof. Dr Adam Leong Kok Wey, Senior Lecturer, National Defence University of Malaysia
The Taiwan Issue
While global attention has been focused on other regional issues, such as China-US tensions and North Koreas nuclear ambitions, little attention has been paid to Taiwan. Yet the so-called Taiwan issue, namely the continued separation of the island from mainland China, remains a major regional security challenge that could potentially spark direct conflict involving the USA, China and Japan, the three largest economies in the world, two of which are nuclear powers. Although Taiwan has continued to find opportunities to maintain the current status quo despite a deteriorating geostrategic environment as a result of the rise of China and the uncertainties of the Trump Administration, its room for manoeuvre continues to narrow. This volume examines the challenges and evaluates the prospects for preventing conflict on the Taiwan Strait by focusing on the political conditions that Taiwan faces internally and externally.
Benjamin Schreer is Professor and Head of the Department of Security Studies and Criminology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Previous positions include senior analyst for defence strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute; senior lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University; and senior analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Studies (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik). He has published widely on international security and defence affairs, including East Asian strategic trends.
Andrew T. H. Tan is Associate Professor in the Department of Security Studies and Criminology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He was previously Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales and Senior Lecturer at Kings College London, UK. Andrew has published 19 sole authored, edited and co-edited books, and over 60 refereed journal and chapter articles. Some of his latest books include: Terrorism and Insurgency in Asia (London: Routledge, 2019), The United States in Asia (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018) and USChina Relations (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2016).
Europa Country Perspectives
The Europa Country Perspectives series, from Routledge, examines a wide range of contemporary political, economic, developmental and social issues from areas around the world. Complementing the Europa Regional Surveys of the World series, Europa Country Perspectives is a valuable resource for academics, students, researchers, policymakers, business people and anyone with an interest in current world affairs.
While the Europa World Year Book and its associated Regional Surveys inform on and analyse contemporary economic, political and social developments at the national and regional level, Country Perspectives provide indepth, country-specific volumes written or edited by specialists in their field, delving into a countrys particular situation. Volumes in the series are not constrained by any particular template, but may explore a countrys recent political, economic, international relations, social, defence, or other issues in order to increase understanding.
Beyond the Drug War in Mexico: Human rights, the public sphere and justice
Wil G. Pansters, Benjamin T. Smith, Peter Watt
Greece in the 21st Century: The Politics and Economics of a Crisis
Edited by Constantine Dimoulas and Vassilis K. Fouskas
The Basque Contention: Ethnicity, Politics, Violence
Ludger Mees
Bolivia: Geopolitics of a Landlocked State
Ronald Bruce St John
The Taiwan Issue: Problems and Prospects
Benjamin Schreer and Andrew T. H. Tan
For more information about this series please visit: www.routledge.com/Europa-Country-Perspectives/book-series/ECP
First published 2020
by Routledge
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2020 Benjamin Schreer and Andrew T. H. Tan
The right of Benjamin Schreer and Andrew T. H. Tan to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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Europa Commissioning Editor: Cathy Hartley
Editorial Assistant: Lucy Pritchard
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
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ISBN: 9781857439199 (hbk)
ISBN: 9780429319082 (ebk)
This edited volume aims to better understand the issues and challenges that Taiwan faces in the fast-changing and uncertain geostrategic environment in north-east Asia. This volume would not have been possible without the involvement and contribution of all those whose work appears in this volume.
The editors and contributors are especially grateful to the Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation, Taiwan, which provided a generous grant enabling the contributors of the volume to meet and present their papers at a workshop at Macquarie University, in Sydney, in December 2018. The workshop provided invaluable feedback that enabled the contributors to complete their chapters.
The editors would like to thank Cathy Hartley at Routledge for her support and encouragement for this book project, without which this important and timely volume would not have been possible. The editors are also grateful to the two anonymous referees who evaluated the book proposal for their useful suggestions and comments. Last, but not least, the editors are very grateful to the referee who invested the time and effort to read, comment and offer suggestions on all the final papers in this volume.
Benjamin Schreer and Andrew Tan
Department of Security Studies and Criminology
Macquarie University, Australia
Benjamin Schreer is Professor and Head of the Department of Security Studies and Criminology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Previous positions include senior analyst for defence strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute; senior lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University; and senior analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Studies (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik). He has published widely on international security and defence affairs, including East Asian strategic trends.