Domestic Survival: Neoclassical Realism and the Third Strait Crisis Revisited

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security 2

Abstract

Revisiting the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96, how can we explain the most war-like confrontation between Beijing and Washington since the 1960s? While defensive realism, offensive realism, social identity theory, and prospect theory all claim to explain the crisis, it remains anomalous to the former rationalist theories. Particularly, while maintaining conformity with their assumption that states are rational actors, both realist variants are unable to explain the irrational provocation of the crisis: China’s military power was substantially inferior to that of the United States, not to mention “the stopping power of water” across the Taiwan Strait. In fact, some offensive realist scholars have admitted Beijing’s approach towards Taiwan “may not fit neatly” into their theory. This setback has not only led some prospect and social identity theorists to claim China is likely to behave irrationally on the Taiwan issue, but also proved the third-image, structural understanding of China’s Taiwan policy is incomplete. Against this backdrop, the present article elucidates the anomaly to structural realism by process tracing what prevented China to behave rationally in 1995-96. Using a neoclassical realist theoretical framework, it tests two hypotheses. First, Jiang Zemin’s peaceful unification image and attitudes towards Taiwan had initially led to a non-confrontational, non-military response for nearly one month after Lee Teng-hui’s trip to Cornell University. Second, as decision time increases, Jiang was forced to initiate the crisis and respond rationally to domestic survival issues, as opposed to the structural imperatives of the international system. This article backs up its arguments through operational code analysis of Jiang’s speeches from 1989 to 1996 and with hard empirical evidence from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, which suggest Jiang could become a transitional figure, if he insisted on his own peaceful unification image and did not take a hardline approach toward Taiwan in 1995-96.

Author

• Ronaldo Au-Yeung, Simon Fraser University