In the Shadow of China's Rise: Signaling, Trade, and Taiwan's Military Spending

• In Event: Cross-Strait Conflict and Public Perception

Abstract

Scholars have extensively debated how the rise of China will shape international security. Surprisingly, little attention has been devoted to Taiwan's counterintuitive defense spending. While confronting a rising China, Taiwan has been continuously cutting its military spending since the early 1990s. We put forth an original argument to explain this puzzle. The significantly expanded trade relationship with China makes the Taiwanese government more willing to cut defense spending to signal that Taiwan is not seeking independence. By incorporating US-China and cross-Strait relations in the theory building, we conduct a survey experiment to demonstrate how and why Taiwan reduces its defense spending. This project provides both critical theoretical implications and policy suggestions.

Authors

• Wei-hao Huang, National sun-yat sen university

• Jun Xiang, Rutgers University

• Yao-Yuan Yeh, University of St. Thomas