Author: Chen-shen Yen, NCCU

With the ruling party returned to power after Taiwan’s recent presidential election, both Beijing and Washington have breathed a sigh of relief.

Peace across the Taiwan Strait appears to have been preserved for at least another four years. Read more…

Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU

On 14 January, Taiwan’s incumbent president, Ma Ying-jeou, won a second term in office, obtaining 51.6 per cent of the popular vote while Tsai Ing-wen, his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opponent, managed 45.6 per cent.

Ma’s party, the Kuomintang (KMT), thus retained control of the Legislative Yuan, securing 64 of the 113 seats. Read more…

Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU

The US confirmed last month that it will uphold a commitment to refurbish Taiwan’s aging F-16A/B jet fighter fleet in a US$5.85 billion arms package.

This has once again sparked debate about whether Washington’s continued arms sales to Taipei serve the region’s interests in maintaining the cross-Strait status quo. Read more…

Author: Carlyle A Thayer, UNSW Canberra

The Obama Administration’s decision to sell Taiwan an arms package worth $5.85 billion is a carefully calibrated decision designed to meet US legal obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.

It is also a decision that carefully calibrates the impact on Sino–American relations at a time of improved relations not only between Washington and Beijing but between Beijing and Taipei. Read more…

Author: Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University

In much of the world the Six-Party Talks represent a futile attempt to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and deter it from a path of belligerence.

But in China the talks offer hope for a new regional security arrangement. While observers took keen interest in China’s resistance to condemn the North’s two attacks on South Korea in 2010, few paid attention to Chinese rhetoric on the Korean peninsula, apart from expressing surprise at Xi Jinping’s revival of Chinese support for the North in the ‘glorious’ Korean War. Read more…

Author: Ron Huisken, ANU

In 1996, President Clinton told a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament that ‘the way [China] defines its greatness for the future will help decide whether the next century is one of conflict or cooperation’.

Fifteen years on, China’s trajectory has unmistakably lived up to Clinton’s expectations of ‘greatness’. Read more…

Author: Alfred Oehlers, APCSS

Seasoned observers of the Pacific may be experiencing a sense of déjà vu.

Not long after the ‘truce’ between China and Taiwan, suspending their competitive bidding for diplomatic recognition among Pacific island states, the game has seemingly returned. Read more…

Author: Joel Atkinson, Monash University

The Asia Pacific is in muted tumult. China has seized on perceived changing regional power equations following the financial crisis and attendant economic stagnation in the US, and adopted a harsher and more insisting tone over its interests.

Taken aback, many regional countries have come to view China in a new, more ominous, light and have moved to embrace (or re-embrace) the US. Read more…

Author: Ron Huisken, ANU

China has published defence white papers every even year since 2000. The sixth in this series appeared at the end of March 2011: ‘China’s National Defence in 2010.’

The format is basically the same as in past years, and a great deal of the language on particular issues remains the same or very similar. The 2010 paper has been streamlined (10 sub-headings versus 15 plus appendices in the past) and the odd issue has been placed in a different context. Read more…

Author: Sheryn Lee, ANU

On 25 January, Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou revived calls for the purchase of the latest F-16C/D Fighting Falcon jet fighters from the United States, stating that it was crucial for the survival of Taiwan’s sovereignty. Despite the Obama administration’s apparent commitment to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, Washington has deferred sale of the upgraded fighters since Taiwan first formally requested 66 of them in early 2007.

There are signs of changing attitudes within the administration. Read more…

Authors: Geoffrey Barker and Paul Dibb, ANU

Ross Babbage has deep concerns about China’s growing military power and assertiveness. His concerns are magnified by his pessimism over the economic outlook for the United States throughout the next decade.

In Australia’s Strategic Edge in 2030 (Kokoda Paper No. 15, February 2011) Babbage asks what Australia should do to ‘offset and deter’ the rapidly expanding Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the Western Pacific. Read more…

Author: Sam Bateman, UOW and NTU

Sea piracy is a major maritime security problem for East Asia. Regional countries are major shipper and shipping countries and some, especially Indonesia and the Philippines, are leading providers of international seafarers.

Northeast Asian economies, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, are heavily dependent upon seaborne trade through waters at risk of pirate attack off Somalia and in Southeast Asia. Japan is situated at the forefront of moves to counter piracy in these areas, while China and South Korea have also deployed warships to waters off Somalia. Read more…

Author: Artyom Lukin, Far Eastern National University, Vladivostock

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States went relatively smoothly and was touted by both sides as a success, despite yielding no breakthroughs.

The relations between the two powers, often billed as ‘the most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century’, remain quite difficult, even precarious. Read more…

Author: Charles W. Freeman III, CSIS

As was to be expected, President Hu Jintao encountered increasing ambivalence among mainstream policy circles about the US relationship with China on his recent US state visit.

This is worth examination: US policy toward China has been remarkably consistent over the past 40 years. While originally conceived in a Cold War context, the fundamental thrust of that policy is to engage China and build equities for Beijing in a US-led international order in such a way as to (1) reduce Beijing’s interests in disrupting or challenging that order; and (2) encourage Beijing to contribute positively to the maintenance and strengthening of that order. Read more…

Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, UNSW at ADFA

We now know, courtesy of Wikileaks, that the assessment of Japan’s DPJ, at the highest levels of the US government, was that it was ‘completely different’ from the LDP.

At first, this appeared to be the case. It was not just the Futenma debacle, although that was bad enough. Read more…