the end of the administration of President Chen Shui-bian in 2008 featured
repeated episodes of escalating tensions in US-China relations regarding Tai-
wan. They usually were prompted by actions by Taiwan’s government, often
in reaction to escalating coercive pressure from China, to move in directions
seen by China as supporting Taiwan’s independence. As indicated in chap-
ters 5 and 6, the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations had a hard time
in efforts to deter the two sides from provocative actions, to calm tensions
when one side or the other took steps that worsened cross-strait relations, and thereby to sustain the broad American interest in preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan area.
The election of Ma Ying-jeou as president of Taiwan in 2008 significant-
ly reduced cross-strait tensions and the salience of the Taiwan issue in Sino-
American relations. Ma reversed the policies and practices of his immediate
predecessors that were seen by China as moving Taiwan toward indepen-
dence of China. He put aside the zero-sum competition that had generally
prevailed in Taiwan-China relations for sixty years. He opened Taiwan to
much greater interchange with China that made the Taiwan economy more
dependent than ever on close and cooperative relations with China. China
reciprocated with policies and practices designed to foster closer ties and
build closer identity between Taiwan and the mainland. US policy makers in
the Bush and Obama administrations warmly welcomed the moderation of
cross-strait tensions. 4
The domestic foundations of Ma’s positive engagement with China re-
mained unsteady. Vocal oppositionists continued attacking as they grew in
political prominence. Domestic opinion in Taiwan turned against closer ties
with China, and mass demonstrations opposed agreements seen as making
Taiwan more dependent on China. Ma’s overall approval rating plummeted
and his Nationalist (or Kuomintang, KMT) party lost the presidential and
legislative elections in 2016 by such wide margins that it was questionable
how soon it would revive as a leading force in Taiwan politics. The incoming
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Tsai Ing-wen administration promised to sustain the status quo in cross-strait
relations as it refused Chinese demands and pressures to accommodate Chi-
nese interests. Beijing gradually increased negative military, diplomatic and
economic pressures with an eye to weakening Taiwan and thereby eroding
domestic support for the Tsai government. 5
Why Cross-Strait Relations Improved, 2008–16
The relevant context of cooperation and easing of tensions in cross-strait
relations in this period is the tumultuous period dating from President Lee
Teng-hui’s visit to the United States in 1995 to the end of the administration
of President Chen Shui-bian in 2008. Tensions in cross-strait relations and
the perceived danger of conflict in the Taiwan area rose dramatically in the
mid-1990s, lasting until the election of Ma Ying-jeou. In the end, Taiwan
voters and US policy makers reacted strongly against the extremes of Tai-
wan’s leaders in this period, establishing the momentum behind an improve-
ment of relations. China welcomed and endeavored to influence this turn of
events.
Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui surprised Chinese leaders by gaining
permission from the United States to visit Cornell University in 1995. Lee’s
international activism and the US role in it were seen in China as fundamen-
tal challenges to Chinese interests, and Beijing responded harshly, notably
with a series of military exercises in the Taiwan area during a nine-month
period leading up to Taiwan’s presidential election in March 1996. The Clin-
ton administration became seriously concerned with the need to reassure
China of US intentions toward Taiwan while deterring China from using
force. Prior to Taiwan’s presidential election, the United States deployed two
aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. 6
Tensions rose again following Lee Teng-hui’s declaration in an interna-
tional media interview in 1999 that he viewed cross-strait relations as a
relationship between two separate states, an implicit challenge to China’s
one-China principle, which considers Taiwan to be part of China. China’s
top leaders warned Taiwan voters against choosing the Democratic Progres-
sive Party (DPP) candidate, Chen Shui-bian, in the 2000 presidential elec-
tions, given that Chen and his party had a long record supporting self-deter-
mination for Taiwan, an anathema to China. In spite of such objections, Chen
won the election. He made little progress with China, which chose to work
with the KMT and its political allies, who controlled the legislature and
opposed many of Chen’s initiatives. 7
Chen’s reelection campaign in 2003–04 featured a series of appeals to
Taiwanese nationalism and autonomy from China, which Chinese leaders
again saw as direct challenges to their national interests. The Bush adminis-
tration initially was very supportive of Taiwan but US leaders from the
Taiwan and East Asian Maritime Disputes
219
president on down came to see Chen’s actions as dangerously provocative,
and they turned against him. As the Chen administration wound down its
term in office with a reputation for poor governance and rampant corruption
as well as with low approval ratings, Chen carried out a variety of controver-
sial policies and practices treating Taiwan as a state separate from China.
These steps usually were seen as provocative by China and by the Bush
administration, with the US government weighing in publicly against mea-
sures it saw as upsetting the stability in the Taiwan Strait. The Chen adminis-
tration’s relations with the United States eventually reached a point where
the United States began restricting stopovers for Chen’s transits on trips
abroad to locales as far away from Washington as possible. 8 The administration was loath to move forward with arms sales, senior-level contacts, or
other initiatives that would appear to be supporting Chen.
China duly registered public opposition to Chen’s initiatives but placed
more emphasis on working in consultation with the Bush administration to
deal with Chen’s maneuvers. Beijing strengthened the impressive military
buildup focused on Taiwan and deepened Taiwan’s economic interdepen-
dence with the mainland. Looking beyond the Chen administration, Chinese
officials built increasingly positive connections with the KMT and other
opposition political leaders and broader segments of Taiwan business elites
and other opinion leaders. 9
Chen’s maneuvers and their negative consequences for cross-strait and
Taiwan-US relations, along with the Taiwanese president’s apparent deep
personal involvement in corruption scandals, undermined the attractiveness
of DPP candidates in legislative elections in January 2008 and the presiden-
tial election in March 2008. The result was a landslide victory for KMT
candidates. The party gained overwhelming control of the legislature, and
new president Ma Ying-jeou received a strong mandate
to pursue policies of
reassurance and moderation in cross-strait relations. 10 The United States and China both welcomed this new policy direction.
President Ma had an agenda emphasizing reassurance of China that his
government would not move Taiwan toward independence; it was based on
closer economic, social, and other contacts across the strait. Ma and his
colleagues in Taiwan and their counterparts in China emphasized that
progress would be easier in building closer and mutually advantageous eco-
nomic and social ties. Issues of security and sovereignty posed by the grow-
ing Chinese military buildup opposite Taiwan and Taiwan’s desire for great-
er international participation would be harder to resolve. 11
On the whole, the improvements in cross-strait relations were rapid and
impressive. Admittedly, the Chinese government took no significant action
to reduce its military presence directly opposite the island. Likewise, Ma was
reluctant to engage in talks with China on a possible peace agreement, while
arguing that discussion of reunification would have to await developments
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Chapter 10
after his term in office. Nonetheless, the security situation in the Taiwan
Strait entered a period of relaxation of tensions as both Beijing and Taipei
emphasized enhancing people-to-people contacts and expanding economic
ties. A major development was the 2010 free trade agreement (FTA) between
China and Taiwan, known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agree-
ment (ECFA), which provided privileged access to Chinese markets and
other economic benefits for important constituencies in Taiwan. 12
The numerous cross-strait agreements increased face-to-face interaction
between Taiwan and Chinese authorities after decades of no direct dealings.
The agreements were between ostensibly unofficial organizations—Taiwan’s
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations
Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS). They required officials of the two
governments to deal with each other on transportation, food safety, financial
regulation, law enforcement, and other issues. In effect, three channels of
communication became active between Taiwan and Chinese authorities: the
SEF-ARATS exchanges; exchanges between the leaders of the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) and Taiwan’s KMT; and widening government-to-
government coordination and cooperation on a variety of cross-strait issues.
Many of the agreements, interactions, and understandings focused on manag-
ing the large-scale trade and investment between Taiwan and China. 13
Meanwhile, the Ma Ying-jeou government achieved a breakthrough in
convincing China to allow Taiwan to participate in the annual World Health
Assembly (WHA) meeting as an observer, using the name “Chinese Taipei.”
Other evidence of progress in China-Taiwan relations regarding Taiwan’s
participation in international affairs was the diminishment of what had been
intense competition between the two countries for international recogni-
tion. 14
The Bush administration welcomed the efforts of the Ma government and
China’s positive response as stabilizing and beneficial for all parties con-
cerned. After the United States turned aside an initiative by President-elect
Ma to visit for talks with US officials prior to his inauguration, Ma made no
other such requests and worked hard to keep his transit stops in the United
States discreet in ways that would not complicate US relations with China.
High-level contacts occurred between the United States and Taiwan in quiet
and private ways that avoided upsetting China, while ongoing US military
consultations with and advice to Taiwan’s armed forces continued. 15
The Bush administration delayed until close to the last minute approval of
a large arms sales package for Taiwan, which at $6.5 billion was the largest
approved by the Bush government. Initial generous offers from the United
States during Bush’s first year in office were repeatedly delayed and whittled
down on account of partisan bickering and funding delays for many years in
Taiwan. This was followed by US reluctance to provide arms that would
appear to support Chen Shui-bian’s perceived provocative stance toward
Taiwan and East Asian Maritime Disputes
221
China. The package in 2008 represented about half of what Taiwan requested
and did not include sixty-six F-16 fighters that Taiwan had been trying for
years to buy from the US government. Nonetheless, China strongly criticized
the arms sale and suspended military contacts with the United States until
mid-2009. 16
The Obama administration also welcomed the new stability in cross-strait
ties and appeared to be relying on Ma and his team to continue to manage
cross-strait ties in positive ways that would not cause Taiwan to rejoin the
already crowded list of US policy priorities needing urgent attention. 17 The Obama government followed through with a $6 billion arms package for
Taiwan in 2010. Although the package did not include F-16 fighters, it still
prompted sometimes strident public complaints along with limited substan-
tive retaliation from China. Later US arms sales included another large arms
package worth more than $5 billion in 2011 that proposed significant up-
grades in the capabilities of Taiwan’s existing F-16 fighters. 18
The thirteen-year (1995–2008) experience with tense cross-strait and US-
Taiwan-China relations reinforced a strong tendency in the US government
to manage issues with Taiwan in ways that avoided major friction with what
was viewed as a much more important relationship with China. The strength
of that tendency was seen during the escalation in recent years of US-China
frictions over a range of security, economic, and political issues, which from
the American side were seen as caused by the newly assertive actions of
Chinese party leader and President Xi Jinping, who was elected in 2012. The
Obama government showed a pattern of very deliberative and transparent
foreign policy making that in the case of China saw gradual escalation of
rhetorical criticism and eventually some serious actions to deal with disputes
with China. The pattern showed that specific differences and disputes with
China were dealt with separately; they were not linked to other issues in US-
China relations or to the overall state of the relationship, which continued to be portrayed by the president and his advisers in a positive and optimistic
way, with priority given to areas of increased constructive engagement and a
credit-worthy foreign policy legacy for President Obama. Under these
circumstances, Taiwan policy was not allowed to change in ways that could
seriously aggravate Beijing.
For example, as noted in chapter 7, President Obama for many years
rarely criticized China, but China’s practices under the rule of President Xi
Jinping prompted a remarkable rhetorical and to some degree substantive
hardening in US government policy. The president’s wide-ranging and often
sharp criticism notably did not include Taiwan. Rather, the president and his
administra
tion continued to adhere to an approach inherited from the George
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Chapter 10
W. Bush administration that Taiwan issues should be handled in ways that
avoided serious negative consequences for American policy toward China.
Thus, the president’s signature rebalance policy in the Asia-Pacific region
was repeatedly and sometimes harshly criticized by China. The Obama
government nonetheless went ahead with a wide range of initiatives with
Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, and other areas around Taiwan, but initial
administration statements about the policy failed to even mention Taiwan. In
response to various queries, the administration began stating routinely that
Taiwan was included in the rebalance policy, though it avoided discussing
any details of what the United States and Taiwan were doing, presumably to
avoid offending the People’s Republic of China in ways seen as adverse to
administration interests. 19
US officials highlighted progress in relations with Taiwan that involved
cooperation on global issues, increased official interchanges at levels some-
what higher than in the recent past, and assisting Taiwan membership in
international bodies and other matters that were deemed less likely to prompt
frictions with China. They avoided taking sides, including during her candi-
dacy in 2015-2016, against President Tsai Ing-wen, a member of the DPP,
which refuses to endorse the view of one China demanded by Beijing. The
Obama government had voiced reservations about Tsai’s cross-strait policy
during her failed 2012 election campaign against Ma Ying-jeou. US officials
encouraged both Beijing and Taipei to avoid provocations, seek constructive
communications, and reach compromise formulas or understandings that
would avoid a break in cross-strait interchange detrimental to peace and
stability. 20
US policy toward Taiwan continued to be challenged by new circum-
stances. For one thing, the Taiwan voters’ deepening wariness of Ma Ying-
jeou’s approach to China supported President Tsai and her DPP colleagues’
firm stance in protecting their view of Taiwan’s sovereignty in the face of
Chinese pressure. Military tension in cross-strait relations rose with Chinese