Strait Talk
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
Relations among the United States, Taiwan, and China challenge policymakers, international relations specialists, and a concerned public to examine their assumptions about security, sovereignty, and peace. Only a Taiwan Straits conflict could plunge Americans into war with a nuclear-armed great power. In a timely and deeply informed book, Nancy Bernkopf Tucker traces the thorny relationship between the United States and Taiwan as both watch China’s power grow.
Although Taiwan–U.S. security has been intertwined since the 1950s, neither Taipei nor Washington ever fully embraced the other. Differences in priorities and perspectives repeatedly raised questions about the wisdom of the alignment. Tucker discusses the nature of U.S. commitments to Taiwan; the intricacies of policy decisions; the intentions of critical actors; the impact of Taiwan’s democratization; the role of lobbying; and the accelerating difficulty of balancing Taiwan against China. In particular, she examines the destructive mistrust that undermines U.S. cooperation with Taiwan, stymieing efforts to resolve cross-Strait tensions.
Strait Talk offers valuable historical context for understanding U.S.–Taiwan ties and is essential reading for anyone interested in international relations and security issues today.
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About Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
Reviews for Strait Talk
Shelley Rigger, author of Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy A signal contribution to an understanding of the desperately complex diplomatic history of Taiwan and the United States, this will become the 'go-to' book on the cross-Taiwan Strait problem.
Alan M. Wachman, author of Why Taiwan? Geostrategic Rationales for China's Territorial Integrity For nearly six decades, Taiwan has bedeviled U.S. foreign policy in East Asia, complicated the U.S. relationship with the People's Republic of China, and generated domestic passions of unusual intensity. Tucker provides a detailed and fascinating look at the policies and people, the mistakes and triumphs that have shaped U.S. relations with Taiwan. Readers will emerge with a far better appreciation of the reasons why she points to confrontation in the Taiwan Strait as 'the single most dangerous challenge for the United States in the world.'
J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. ambassador to China Although Washington's Taiwan policy has been outwardly clear and consistent since 1972
defined by the so-called communiqué framework and the Taiwan Relations Act
Tucker shows that the actual negotiation record from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush was rife with confusion and mistrust. She focuses on the less-studied Washington-Taipei leg of the Beijing-Washington-Taipei triangle, tracing the interaction of policies and personalities with a level of detail made possible by extensive interviews and archival research and with a clarity of judgment made possible by a long familiarity with most of the protagonists. Tucker acknowledges that U.S. grand strategy during this time enjoyed some successes: China became a counterweight to the Soviet Union, and Taiwan survived. But she argues that the United States repeatedly yielded more to China than it had to, and the shoddy way it treated Taiwan created a legacy of mistrust not only in Taipei but also among allies throughout the region.
Andrew J. Nathan
Foreign Affairs