U.S.-Taiwan Relations

Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?

By Ryan Hass, Bonnie Glaser and Richard Bush

Anxiety about China’s growing military capabilities to threaten Taiwan has induced alarm in Washington about whether the United States remains capable of deterring attempts to seize Taiwan by force. This alarm has fed American impulses to alter longstanding policy, and to increasingly view challenges confronting Taiwan through a military lens. While Taiwan clearly is under growing military threat, it also is facing a simultaneous and intensifying Chinese political campaign to wear down the will of the Taiwan people. This latter line of effort receives less attention, but left unaddressed, has the potential to do far more damage to American interests.

This book rightsizes the risks confronting Taiwan by taking a holistic view of China’s national ambitions and Taiwan’s role in them, China’s strategies for pursuing unification with Taiwan, and America’s most effective responses. Contrary to many other books on the market, the authors make the case for why conflict in the Taiwan Strait is not preordained, and in fact, it would be strategic folly for the United States to conclude that conflict is inescapable. Hass, Bush, and Glaser argue that the center of gravity for determining the future of Taiwan is the will of Taiwan’s 23 million people. American policy should focus on their hopes and fears if the United States wishes to maintain influence over events in the Taiwan Strait.

Richard Bush is author of seven books, including most recently, Difficult Choices: Taiwan’s Quest for Security and the Good Life (Brookings Press, 2021).

Bonnie Glaser is Director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Ryan Hass is the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies at the Brookings Institution.

An invaluable resource for students, researchers, and journalists to understand this critical moment in U.S. foreign policy.

Brookings Institution Press

April 2023

184 pages

4 illustrations

Hardback

978 0 8157 4034 6

Paperback

978 0 8157 3999 9 eBook

978 0 8157 4000 1

Political Science • International Relations / General