Fw: H-ASIA: NBR Report on Taiwan's future

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2011 11:42 PM
Subject: H-ASIA: NBR Report on Taiwan's future

> H-ASIA
> May 19, 2011
>
> NBR Report on Taiwan's Future
> ***********************************************************************
> From: Tracy Timmons-Gray <ttimmonsgray@nbr.org>
>
> Dear H-Asia members,
>
> NBR has just released a new report about the future of Taiwan and how
> accommodating China may mean losing Taipei's freedom. A summary and a
> link to the report are below.
>
> (This report will be free to access through July 18, 2011.)
>
> "Taiwan's Future: Narrowing Straits,"
> By Robert G. Sutter (NBR Analysis, May 2011)
>
> Link to report: http://m.nbr.org/ix2J0A
>
>
> REPORT SUMMARY
>
> Indigenous weakness and eroded U.S. support give Taiwan little choice
> other than continued accommodation of overwhelming and ever-increasing
> Chinese leverage.
>
> Main Argument
>
> Cross-strait relations continue to improve because this trend is
> perceived as being in the interests of the three main actors: the
> governments of China, Taiwan, and the U.S. The Taiwan presidential
> election of 2012 is unlikely to seriously alter recent improvements.
> Many in Taiwan and abroad favor what they erroneously see as a status
> quo in which the Taiwan administration enjoys independence of action.
> However, China's economic, military, and diplomatic leverage over Taiwan
> increasingly constrains Taipei to follow a path leading to accommodation
> of and eventual reunification with China. Taiwan's weak
> self-strengthening and a marked decline in U.S. support for the island's
> freedom of action further bind it to the recent trajectory of
> accommodating China.
>
> Policy Implications
>
> - Policy elites in Taiwan and the U.S. privately may be aware of the
> implications of Chinese leverage in determining Taiwan's future and
> perhaps may favor Taiwan's eventual reunification with China. However,
> other stakeholders in the media, among politicians and interest groups,
> and in the general public are not. Without a clearer view of existing
> realities, these groups may lash out in ultimately futile but highly
> disruptive ways as their preferred status quo wanes.
>
> - A similar backlash can be anticipated from like-minded stakeholders
> within the Taiwan and U.S. administrations who cling to unrealistic
> expectations that Taiwan can preserve freedom of action amid the
> increasingly constraining circumstances caused by a rising China, a
> weakened Taiwan, and declining U.S. support.
>
> - U.S. allies and friends in Asia, notably Japan, will require
> extraordinary reassurance that U.S. government encouragement of
> conditions leading to the resolution of Taiwan's future and
> reunification with China does not forecast a power-shift in the region.
> Perceptions of such a shift would require dramatic and probably
> disruptive policy changes by regional states, ranging from bandwagoning
> with China to indigenous rearmament to become less reliant on declining
> U.S. power and resolve.
>
> Read the full report at: http://m.nbr.org/ix2J0A
>
>
> (Free through July 18)
>
> Tracy Timmons-Gray
> The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR)
> Seattle, WA
>
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