Is it possible to praise a book not for its imagination, stylishness or originality, but for its clarity, perceptiveness and authority? Of course it is, and these are precisely the qualities that make Steven Goldstein’s China and Taiwan such an excellent, indeed outstanding, publication.
The book, which only deals with China in so far as it relates to its relationship with Taiwan, was published last year. It begins with Taiwan’s release from Japanese rule in 1945 and runs up to the closing years of Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) presidency. Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) isn’t mentioned anywhere in the text.
The first half offers Taiwan’s history as a chronological narrative, while the second covers specific topics such as recent developments in cross-straits relations, growing economic links with China and the cross-straits military situation.
Goldstein’s fundamental perspective sees the two territories as involved in a triangular relationship, with the US being the third participant. Indeed, the evolution of Washington’s policy as regards Taiwan, and the author’s sophisticated take on its many developments, form the heart of the book.
All three players, of course, have their own policy aims with regard to the other two, making six policies, often mutually contradictory, in all. As far as the US goes, Goldstein identifies two key aspects. One is that of “dual deterrence,” whereby Washington seeks to prevent Taipei from taking any steps that might provoke Beijing, and at the same time aiming to deter Beijing from engaging in any invasion of the island.
In the light of this policy, Washington welcomed Ma’s policy of increased co-operation with the China, and Goldstein adds his own opinion that in 2014 the situation in the Taiwan Strait was “as stable as it has been at any time in the post-World War II period.”
Related to “dual deterrence” in Goldstein’s view is Washington’s implicit policy of “strategic ambiguity.” The best results, the US believes, lie in keeping both sides uncertain as to its reaction in the case of any actual military conflict. “We don’t know, and you don’t know,” as a US Assistant Secretary of Defense once told a Chinese questioner on the issue.
But to Goldstein nothing is what it seems. On the issue of Taiwan’s armaments, for example, he considers that one of the purposes of its considerable array of US-made weaponry is to enable it to hold off any Chinese invasion for enough time for the US to decide whether, and how, to intervene.
The perception of dualities also appears to be part of Goldstein’s very make-up. There’s a proliferation of paired options and paired consequences — on the one hand this, on the other hand that. And this is one of the reasons why the book appears, and is, so subtle and so penetrating.
Paradoxes are another of Goldstein’s specialisms. During the early 2000s, for instance, he writes that despite often sharp exchanges between presidents Chen and Bush, defense co-operation between the two was actually considerably expanded. On the other hand, China’s short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan grew from an estimated 200 to an estimated 1,300 between 2000 and 2008. A cross-strait conflict is something neither side seeks, Goldstein characteristically writes, but nevertheless all sides (including the US) are preparing for the worst.
The unexpected is also dear to Goldstein’s heart. He says, for instance, that there’s little evidence that increased economic co-operation with China has lessened the hostility of Taiwanese people to the that country’s political system (something Beijing had hoped would occur). But on the other hand further attempts to deepen Taiwan’s economic relationship with the China under Ma were resisted by constituencies committed to Taiwan’s continuing sovereignty, not least the DPP itself under whom trade relations had so unexpectedly expanded.
Nevertheless, by the end of 2014 (effectively when this book was nearing completion), if trade problems arose, Goldstein writes, it wasn’t uncommon for officials to pick up the phone and settle matters with their counterpart on the other side of the strait, representing a huge improvement in relations.
China made favorable arrangements for the conduct of Taiwanese businessmen in China around the turn of the century, albeit in part to strengthen the domestic standing of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Goldstein points out. Even so, Taiwanese enterprises involved in IT on China had their products not only sold internationally under foreign brand names, but also saw them classified as Chinese exports. The best-known such company, Goldstein writes, is Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密),which came to employ over half a million Chinese workers and became the principal manufacturer of Apple iPhones. It also produced, and produces, for Sony, Dell and Nokia. Its allegedly controversial working conditions aren’t mentioned.
But despite everything, writes Goldstein, it’s still the US that stands in the middle of cross-straits affairs, “seeking to maintain its relations with both sides locked in an irreconcilable relationship while, at the same time, serving as the key factor in deterring an armed conflict between them.”
I have to admit that I did find one blunder, most uncharacteristic for such a fine book. In the chronology placed before the book proper begins China’s 2005 “Anti-Secession Law,” discussed as such in the text, is called an “Anti-Succession Law.” This is clearly a typo for which the author may not have even been personally responsible; but it should have been spotted by editors at some stage in the book’s production.
Between 1999 and 2008 Steven Goldstein has produced six articles or working papers on Taiwan, and one book (on Chen Shui-bian’s eight years as president, published in 2008). This new volume, though, is clearly his most ambitious to date, bringing together many of his insights from earlier years.
It’s part of Polity Press’s series China Today, of which it’s the 16th volume. Others include Children in China by Orna Naftali (2016), Ethnicity in China by Xiaowei Zang (2015) and Sex in China by Elaine Jeffreys, with Haiqing Yu (2015).
I found it a shock to come from reading this highly nuanced and carefully considered account to watching US presidential hopeful Donald Trump on TV. That the reins of a power that has for so long managed two complex relationships in this region should pass into such hands barely seems conceivable. But that, as they say, is another story.
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