Richard Bush, former head of the American Institute in Taiwan and arguably the book's most distinguished contributor, examines the legacy of Lee Tung-hui. He sees Lee, despite his sometimes authoritarian paternalism, as having been pivotal in the balancing of KMT and DPP historical forces, albeit often an irritant in US-Taiwan relations on account of some of the positions he has endorsed.
Shelley Rigger places under the microscope the very complex historical strands the DPP has had no alternative but to try to weave together, and she doesn't hold back from pointing to the party's shortcomings in its early months in government. Steven Phillips, meanwhile, surveys the labyrinthine historical background of independence aspirations on the island.
On the economic front, T. J. Cheng considers the effect of the fast-increasing business ties between Taiwan and China, and concludes that these imply neither growing political harmony nor a business-backed move towards eventual unification.
Michael D. Swaine analyzes Taiwan's military reform and modernization program, and highlights differences in perceptions within Taiwan on military issues, differences exacerbated by uncertainties about the exact levels of future US assistance and commitment. But Michael Chase, also writing about military matters, points to a greater level of US-Taiwan cooperation in the field of military training than the public is generally aware of, while analyzing the differences that remain on the issue of weapons procurement.
All in all, Dangerous Strait is an outstanding book, uniquely authoritative and uniquely sober and careful in all its assertions. It could, of course, be perceived as a contribution to the chorus of critics calling on the current administration in Washington to think again before departing from traditional US policies. But in reality it is more than that. It's true that it is a call for caution by the US in its relations with both Taiwan and China, but it is also an enormously powerful source-book for facts and previous judgments on all aspects of the US-Taiwan question.
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