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Ambiguity, Economic Interdependence, and the US Strategic Dilemma in the Taiwan Strait

2006; Routledge; Volume: 15; Issue: 49 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10670560600836705

1469-9400

Scott L. Kastner,

International Relations and Foreign Policy

Abstract As tensions across the Taiwan Strait have risen in recent years, some have argued that the US policy of strategic ambiguity—under which Washington leaves unclear if and how it would intervene in a cross-Strait conflict—has outlived its usefulness because ambiguity may foster dangerous misperceptions about US intentions and hence contribute to future crises. In this essay I critically examine strategic ambiguity, and conclude that ambiguity remains the best policy available to Washington given current US goals in the Taiwan Strait. I argue that ambiguity remains essential both to deterring a Chinese attack and to restraining Taiwanese moves toward independence, but that it nonetheless carries with it inherent risks of conflict. I further argue, however, that these additional risks triggered by ambiguity per se are likely small, and hence are overshadowed by the strategic obstacles faced by the alternatives to an ambiguous policy. Moreover, I show that growing economic interdependence between Mainland China and Taiwan further reduces the risk that ambiguity itself would be a contributing factor to war in the Taiwan Strait. As such, the relative attractiveness of ambiguity has likely increased, rather than decreased as argued by its critics, over the past decade. Notes 1. Criticisms of strategic ambiguity can be found in both academic circles and the mainstream press. See: Thomas J. Christensen, 'Clarity on Taiwan; correcting misperceptions on both sides of the Strait', Washington Post, (20 March 2000), p. A17; John W. Garver, Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), esp. pp. 165–166; Thomas J. Christensen, 'The contemporary security dilemma: deterring a Taiwan conflict', The Washington Quarterly 25(4), (Autumn 2002), pp. 7–21; Yan Xuetong, 'Origins of the policy to "pay any price to contain Taiwan's independence"', China Strategy Newsletter, (20 July 2004), pp. 39–42; 'Strategic clarity', The Washington Post (Editorial), (13 March 1996), p. A20; Don Feder, 'It must be clear: US supports Taiwan', The Boston Herald, (29 May 2002), p. 23; Jeff Jacoby, 'Ambiguity invites Taiwan aggression', The Boston Globe, (14 March 1996), p. 19. See also statements made by William Kristol to the House International Relations Committee in April 2004: 'With regard to China, we need to be quite clear that we expect Beijing not to attack or coerce Taiwan in any way, and that the costs to Beijing of attacking Taiwan would be more than it can bear' (available at: http://wwwc.house.gov/international_relations/108/Kri042104.htm). For counter-arguments, see: Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, 'Strategic ambiguity or strategic clarity?', in Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, ed., Dangerous Strait: The US–Taiwan–China Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Brett V. Benson and Emerson M. S. Niou, 'Comprehending strategic ambiguity: US policy toward Taiwan security', in Taiwan Security Research, available at: http://taiwansecurity.org/IS/IS-Niou-0400.htm (April 2000); Dennis Van Vranken Hickey, 'The US and cross Strait rivalry: strategic rivalry, strategic partnership and strategic ambiguity', paper delivered at the conference War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait, Duke University, 1999, and posted in Taiwan Security Research, available at: http://taiwansecurity.org/IS/IS-Hickey-2.htm; Michael O'Hanlon, 'A need for ambiguity', The New York Times, (27 April 2001), p. 25; and Pei Minxin, 'Calls for US "clarity" on Taiwan pose risk to peace', The Straits Times (Singapore), (4 May 2001), p. 1. 2. So ambiguous was US policy that even during the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, US Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye reportedly answered Chinese queries about the likely US response to a Mainland attack by saying: 'We don't know what we would do, because it's going to depend on the circumstances, and you don't know what we would do'. See Robert Burns, 'Perry noncommittal on US military defense of Taiwan', Associated Press, (6 February 1996), AM cycle. Nye later explained: 'When you talk about this ambiguity, there is a deliberate tactical dimension to it—which is that we don't want to give a signal to Taiwan … or Beijing to be adventuresome'. See 'Congress, public would decide US response on Taiwan: expert', Agence France Presse, (8 February 1996). For an excellent overview and assessment of the 1995–1996 crisis, see: Robert S. Ross, 'The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait confrontation: coercion, credibility, and the use of force', International Security 25(2), (Fall 2000), pp. 87–123. 3. See, for example, Feder, 'It must be clear', and Jacoby, 'Ambiguity invites Taiwan aggression'. 4. See Christensen, 'The contemporary security dilemma' and 'Clarity on Taiwan'; and Yan, 'Origins of the policy'. Christensen argues that for such a policy to work, the US must combine credible deterrence against Chinese coercion with constant reassurance that the US does not support Taiwanese independence. See also Thomas J. Christensen, 'PRC security relations with the United States: why things are going so well', China Leadership Monitor 8, (Fall 2003), available at: http://chinaleadershipmonitor.org. For a similar argument, see Michael D. Swaine, 'Trouble in Taiwan', Foreign Affairs, (March/April 2004), available at: http://www.foreignaffairs.org. 5. For example, in response to Taiwanese plans—announced in late 2003—to hold a national referendum relating to the island's security in the spring of 2004, US officials warned Taiwan that the US strongly opposes 'moves taken, proposals made, that a logical outsider would conclude are really geared primarily toward moving the island toward independence'. See Glenn Kessler and Mike Allen, 'Taiwan warned by US', Washington Post, (9 December 2003), p. A1. In April 2004 testimony to Congress, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly outlined the 'core principles' of US policy in the Taiwan Strait, which include opposition to 'unilateral moves that would change the status quo' as defined by the US (available at: http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2004/31649pf.htm). At the same time, the Bush administration has taken several steps to make US deterrence against Chinese coercion more credible, including offering a substantial arms sales package to Taiwan and increasing military contacts between the US and Taiwan (see, for example, Christensen, 'PRC security relations with the United States'). And Bush himself recently told a reporter: 'If China were to invade unilaterally, we would rise up in the spirit of [the] Taiwan Relations Act. If Taiwan were to declare independence, it would be a unilateral decision that would then change the US equation'. See Taipei Times, (10 June 2005), available at: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/06/10/2003258664. 6. Some might object to this type of analysis, since many factors—beyond stated US policy—would ultimately determine whether the US would become involved in a potential cross-Strait conflict or not. Any US leader would certainly take into account, for example, the nature of the conflict and the probability of success for Washington, the international situation more broadly, and domestic politics in the US at the time. But the type of commitment the US makes to Taiwan ex ante is also important: a commitment that is credible will (by definition) bind the hands of future policymakers, while an ambiguous commitment will allow them more leeway to make a decision based on circumstances at the time. 7. The summary here is obviously cursory. For more detailed accounts of the road to normalization of US–PRC relations in the 1970s, see for example: Harry Harding, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972 (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1992); Alan D. Romberg, Rein in at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy toward Taiwan and US–PRC Relations (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003); and James Mann, About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Vintage, 2000). 8. Section 2 of the Taiwan Relations Act requires that the President inform Congress 'of any threat to the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan', while Section 3 notes that 'the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability'. See Dennis Van Vranken Hickey, United States–Taiwan Security Ties: From Cold War to Beyond Containment (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), especially pp. 30–31 and Appendix 1 for the full text. 9. By the 1980s, the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), had all but given up hope of staging a campaign to retake the Mainland by force, one of Chiang Kai-shek's cherished goals in the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1950s and 1960s, the US faced a dilemma very similar to its predicament today: maintaining a credible commitment to Taiwan's defense while avoiding getting dragged into a war to re-establish KMT control on the Mainland. The alliance treaty with Taiwan dealt with the issue by requiring that Chiang obtain prior US approval for military actions against China, and by being deliberately vague concerning the US commitment to the ROC-controlled off-shore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, which the US feared could help trigger a conflict with the PRC (and which were the root of serious crises in the Taiwan Strait in 1954–1955 and again in 1958). Eisenhower's deliberately ambiguous stance concerning US interest in the off-shore islands during the 1954–1955 crisis closely parallels more recent US efforts to strike an ambiguous pose in the Taiwan Strait. See Benson and Niou, 'Comprehending strategic ambiguity'; and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992: Uncertain Friendships (New York: Twayne, 1994), pp. 40–41. 10. Beginning in the late 1970s, the Mainland's policy toward Taiwan began to moderate significantly. The change became apparent in Beijing's 'Message to Taiwan Compatriots' announced in 1979, in which the Mainland called for negotiations to resolve the Taiwan issue. This was the beginning of Beijing's campaign of promoting peaceful reunification as a way of handling bilateral relations. In 1981, Marshall Ye Jianying announced a 'Nine Points' plan for peaceful reunification, which promised a high level of autonomy for Taiwan in a unified China, and which called for the establishment of direct commercial, postal and travel links (santong) across the Taiwan Strait. Taiwanese policy toward the Mainland moderated as well during the 1980s. For example, beginning in 1982 the Taiwan government began to refer to Beijing as Zhonggong dangju [Chinese communist authorities] rather than Gongfei [Communist bandits], and in the 1984 Olympic games Taiwan started to use the name 'Chinese Taipei' rather than 'Republic of China'. Moreover, Taiwan began to allow indirect travel and trade across the Taiwan Strait by the late 1980s. See: Chong-hai Shaw, 'The possibility of cross-Strait political negotiations', in Chien-min Chao and Bruce J. Dickson, eds, Remaking the Chinese State: Strategies, Society, and Security (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 259–278; Suisheng Zhao, 'Economic interdependence and political divergence: a background analysis of the Taiwan Strait crisis', in Suisheng Zhao, ed., Across the Taiwan Strait: Mainland China, Taiwan, and the 1995–1996 Crisis (USA: Routledge, 1999), pp. 21–40; and Hieyeon Keum and Joel R. Campbell, 'Devouring dragon and escaping tiger: China's unification policy vs. Taiwan's quasi-independence as a problem of international relations', East Asia, (Spring/Summer 2001), pp. 58–94. 11. Yun-han Chu, 'The realignment of business–government relations and regime transition in Taiwan', in Andrew MacIntyre, ed., Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), p. 115. 12. Denny Roy, Taiwan: A Political History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 172–175. 13. On Taiwan's democratic development prior to 1996, see: Hung-mao Tien, 'Elections and Taiwan's democratic development', in Hung-mao Tien, ed., Taiwan's Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave (USA: M.E. Sharpe, 1996). 14. John F. Copper, Taiwan: Nation-State or Province? (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996), p. 12. Note that the 85% figure includes both Fujianese and Hakkas. 15. The administration of George W. Bush, for example, embraced a 'forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East' and has repeatedly warned that the failure of democracy in Iraq would be detrimental to US security interests. See David E. Sanger, 'Bush asks lands in mideast to try democratic ways', New York Times, (7 November 2003), p. A1. 16. On this point, see, for example, Christensen, 'The contemporary security dilemma', p. 19. 17. Of course, the US also supports Taiwan for reasons other than its democracy. As Swaine ('Trouble in Taiwan') notes, 'Washington's policies toward Taipei directly affect the credibility of US commitments to other potentially destabilizing regional or global issues', and furthermore, 'it is always important to demonstrate loyalty to long-time friends'. And some—including some of China's top officials—see the US interest in Taiwan as entirely driven by concerns about the balance of power: in this view, the US wants to prevent reunification because it would strengthen Chinese power and deprive the US of an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' in the region. See, for example, remarks attributed to former vice-premier Li Lanqing in: Zong Hairen, Zhu Rongji zai 1999 [Zhu Rongji in 1999] (New York: Mirror Books, 2001), p. 112. See also Yan, 'Origins of the policy', and Peng Guangqian, 'The reorientation and development of China's Taiwan policy', China Strategy Newsletter, (20 July 2004), pp. 34–38. 18. Yun-han Chu, 'Making sense of Beijing's policy toward Taiwan: the prospect of cross-Strait relations during the Jiang Zemin era', in Hung-Mao Tien and Yun-han Chu, eds, China Under Jiang Zemin (USA: Lynne Rienner, 2000), p. 205. 19. See: Michael D. Swaine, 'Chinese decision-making regarding Taiwan, 1979–2000', in David M. Lampton, ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), p. 315; Sheng Lijun, China's Dilemma: The Taiwan Issue (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001), pp. 96–97; and Suisheng Zhao, 'Changing leadership perceptions: the adoption of a coercive strategy', in Zhao, ed., Across the Taiwan Strait, pp. 110–111. Lee's 1994 interview with the Japanese writer Ryotaro Shiba, during which he indicated a desire to lead Taiwan away from the Mainland (and even compared himself to Moses), was particularly important in convincing leaders in Beijing that Lee sought Taiwanese independence. See Sheng, China's Dilemma, p. 97; and Zhao, 'Changing leadership perceptions'. 20. See Keum and Campbell, 'Devouring dragon and escaping tiger', p. 76. 21. On Beijing's concerns over the referendum, see Tim Culpan and John Pomfret, 'US warning won't deter Taiwan vote on China', Washington Post, (9 December 2003), available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49115-2003Dec9?language = printer. On Chen's statements after his victory, see Philip P. Pan and David E. Hoffman, 'Taiwan's president maintains hard line', Washington Post, (30 March 2004), p. A1, available at: Taiwan Security Research, http://taiwansecurity.org/WP/2004/WP-300304.htm. 22. Christensen, 'The contemporary security dilemma'. Beijing's angry reaction to the US decision to sell advanced radars to Taiwan provides a recent example of the threat seen by Beijing when Taiwan obtains even purely defensive weapons. See: Bradley Graham, 'Pentagon announces plans to sell radars to Taiwan', Washington Post, (1 April 2004), p. A27, available at: Taiwan Security Research. 23. Robert Jervis, 'Offense, defense, and the security dilemma', World Politics 30(2), (January 1978), pp. 186–214. 24. Glenn H. Snyder, 'The security dilemma in alliance politics', World Politics 36(4), (July 1984), p. 467. On entrapment, see also Michael Mandelbaum, The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics Before and After Hiroshima (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), especially ch. 6, and Victor D. Cha, 'Abandonment, entrapment, and neoclassical realism in Asia: the United States, Japan, and Korea', International Studies Quarterly 44(2), (2000), pp. 261–291. 25. Some in the US, of course, do support Taiwan independence. In part because of this, and that many in Beijing are not convinced that the US government wouldn't support Taiwanese independence in the future, Christensen (e.g. 'The contemporary security dilemma') emphasizes the importance of reassurance: the US, that is, should make every attempt to convince and reassure China that the US does not have an interest in Taiwan independence, and that efforts by the US to deter an unprovoked Chinese attack on Taiwan should not be construed as efforts to facilitate a future independent Taiwan. 26. Chinese officials have emphasized repeatedly that China will 'pay any cost' to prevent Taiwan's independence, and will fight a war to halt Taiwanese independence even if the US were to intervene. See, for example, Peng, 'The reorientation and development of China's Taiwan policy'; and Yan, 'Origins of the policy'. James Kelly's April 2004 testimony to Congress indicates that US officials take such claims seriously, and many analysts have likewise concluded that China's commitment to checking Taiwanese independence is quite credible. See, for example, Swaine, 'Trouble in Taiwan'. 27. The importance of ambiguity in US strategy toward the Taiwan Strait became especially evident during the 1995–1996 crisis (see Note 2 above), and ambiguity remained central during the remainder of the Clinton presidency, though Clinton would take a tougher stand against Taiwan independence later on. President George W. Bush appeared to lurch away from ambiguity in the Taiwan Strait when he announced on a morning talk show in 2001 that the US would do 'whatever it took' to defend Taiwan, without specifying the conditions under which the US would make such a commitment. Bush's statement, though later qualified, suggested a US policy shift toward unconditional commitment, which some critics of ambiguity who favor a conditional commitment (like Christensen) view as far more dangerous than ambiguity itself. See Tucker, 'Strategic ambiguity or strategic clarity?', pp. 198–203, and Christensen, 'Clarity on Taiwan'. Following Chen Shui-bian's decision to hold a referendum to coincide with the March 2004 elections, Bush administration officials indicated that they were dropping ambiguity from US policy (see Note 5 above). 28. James D. Fearon, 'Rationalist explanations for war', International Organization 49(3), (Summer 1995), pp. 379–414. 29. For a review of bargaining theory and war, see: Robert Powell, 'Bargaining theory and international conflict', Annual Review of Political Science 5, (2002), pp. 1–30. 30. Fearon, 'Rationalist explanations for war'. 31. As Powell notes, most formal models of war tend to focus on uncertainty over the costs of war, rather than uncertainty over the balance of power (or the likelihood of winning a war). See: Robert Powell, 'Bargaining and learning while fighting', American Journal of Political Science 48(2), (April 2004), p. 344. Fearon ('Rationalist explanations for war') discusses both mechanisms, and the remainder of this paragraph draws heavily from his arguments. 32. Since I am interested in only the possible onset of war, and not its ultimate resolution, my treatment here is analogous to formal models that treat war as a costly lottery that states hold as an outside option; more recent studies have sought to model war as part of the bargaining process itself, or as an 'inside option'. See R. Harrison Wagner, 'Bargaining and war', American Journal of Political Science 44(3), (July 2000), pp. 469–484; Powell, 'Bargaining theory and international conflict' and 'Bargaining and learning while fighting'; Darren Filson and Suzanne Werner, 'A bargaining model of war and peace: anticipating the onset, duration, and outcome of war', American Journal of Political Science 46(4), (October 2002), pp. 819–837. 33. Where a red line represents a state's reservation bargain, or the bargain that makes the state indifferent between accepting it and fighting a war. 34. Fearon ('Rationalist explanations for war', p. 392) writes on this point: 'The claim is that given identical information, truly rational agents should reason to the same conclusions about the probability of one uncertain outcome or another. Conflicting estimates should occur only if the agents have different (and so necessarily private) information'. 35. Thomas J. Christensen, ['Posing problems without catching up: China's rise and challenges for US security policy', International Security 25(4), (Spring 2001), pp. 5–40] argues, for example, that there is a widespread belief among China's elites that US resolve is relatively limited vis-à-vis Taiwan. As such, the ability to impose even moderate costs on the US could shape the scope and purposes of any US intervention in a cross-Strait conflict, or even deter US intervention completely (though this more extreme position appears to be in the minority). Such a belief is dangerous in part because it does not accurately gauge true US resolve, which is considerably higher. If Christensen's analysis is accurate, then an underlying divergence in Beijing's and Taipei's prior assessments of US resolve would be present should Taiwan's assessment of US resolve be closer to the truth (see especially pp. 17–20 and the references therein). 36. Models of crisis bargaining frequently center on the problem of imperfect information and the difficulty of estimating the resolve of an opponent. In these models, states are typically given the opportunity to send costly signals in order to communicate more effectively their true level of resolve. See, for example, James D. Morrow, 'Capabilities, uncertainty, and resolve: a limited information model of crisis bargaining', American Journal of Political Science 33(4), (1989), pp. 941–972; James D. Morrow, 'How could trade affect conflict?', Journal of Peace Research 36(4), (1999), pp. 481–489; James D. Fearon, 'Domestic political audiences and the escalation of international disputes', American Political Science Review 88(3), (1994), pp. 577–592; Erik Gartzke, Quan Li and Charles Boehmer, 'Economic interdependence and international conflict', International Organization 55(2), (2001), pp. 391–438; Kenneth A. Schultz, Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966). 37. It is worth emphasizing that ambiguity itself in no way contributes to the underlying divergence in probabilistic assessments in this scenario, it simply makes it less likely that the two sides will be able to update their beliefs in a manner that leads to greater convergence. Other possible causal pathways through which ambiguity might foster a divergence in expectations of US resolve exist. For example, cultural differences could lead Beijing and Taipei to interpret an ambiguous US commitment differently. Complexity might also be a factor: it is possible that some amount of randomness arises as Beijing and Taipei calculate likely US behavior in the event of a cross-Strait crisis. That randomness could lead to diverging expectations, and if ambiguity itself contributes to complexity in a non-trivial way, it might make policy calculations more random and hence increase the likelihood of divergence. I am skeptical that ambiguity in fact makes things much more complex, but it is nonetheless a possibility. 38. Christensen's critique of ambiguity is more nuanced: ambiguity generates uncertainty both about US resolve and about the credibility of US assurances that it will not support Taiwan independence. 39. See Ted Galen Carpenter, 'Let Taiwan defend itself', CATO Policy Analysis Number 313, (24 August 1998). Carpenter advocates continued US weapons sales to Taiwan, but argues that the United States should make it clear that under no circumstances would the US intervene in a cross-Strait war, leaving it instead up to Taiwan to defend itself. Carpenter's policy prescriptions imply continued friction between Washington and Beijing as a result of continued US arms sales to Taiwan, and US willingness to continue to supply Taiwan with weapons suggests a continued interest in seeing democracy survive there. See also Pan Zhongqi, 'US Taiwan policy of strategic ambiguity: a dilemma of deterrence', Journal of Contemporary China 12(35), (2003), pp. 387–407. Pan argues that the US should clearly advocate peaceful reunification of Mainland China and Taiwan. 40. This assumes that some sort of US commitment is necessary for Taiwan to have enough bargaining leverage vis-à-vis the Mainland over the long term to maintain a meaningful level of autonomy. 41. See Christensen, 'Clarity on Taiwan'. 42. See: Christensen, 'The contemporary security dilemma', 'PRC security relations with the United States', and 'Clarity on Taiwan'. Christensen also argues that such a policy is an easier sell to US domestic audiences than ambiguity—it shows at least some clear commitment to Taiwan, and pursuing it could help keep more hard-line alternatives, like an unconditional commitment to Taiwan, off the table. 43. Tucker ('Strategic ambiguity or strategic clarity?', p. 208) also alludes to this sort of credibility problem. 44. Christensen ('The contemporary security dilemma') suggests one way around this dilemma: convincing Chinese leaders that what makes democracy in Taiwan valuable to the US is that it is a Chinese democracy. The US should emphasize that one of its primary goals is to see China become more democratic, and a democratic Taiwan that is still nominally part of China facilitates this goal by acting as a model (and a counter-argument to cynics who say that Chinese culture is inimical to democracy). If Taiwan were to declare independence, it would lose value to the US as a Chinese role model, and it might well discredit moderates in Beijing to boot. Thus, it is in the interest of the US to defend Taiwan if it is still nominally a part of China, but not if it declares independence. If US leaders were able to convince Beijing that US policymakers actually felt this way (no easy task, but probably not impossible), it would offer a way around the credibility issue surrounding a conditional commitment to Taiwan. 45. On these issues, see: Culpan and Pomfret, 'US warning won't deter Taiwan vote on China'; John Pomfret, 'Taiwanese leader condemns Beijing, "one China" policy: Chen dismisses fears in US of rising tension', Washington Post, (7 October 2003), p. A18; and 'Pushing referendums "immoral", says China', Taiwan News, (9 October 2003), in Taiwan Security Research. 46. On these types of 'salami tactics', see Schelling, Arms and Influence, especially pp. 66–69. 47. That is, whether the US intervenes in a conflict or not. 48. Based on statistics reported on Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council Webpage: www.mac.gov.tw. 49. 'Taiwan government: China became largest trade partner in 2003', Dow Jones, (11 March 2004), in Taiwan Security Research, available at: http://taiwansecurity.org/News/2004/DJ-110304.htm. 50. Mainland Affairs Council, available at: www.mac.gov.tw. On the estimates of Taiwan's Central Bank, see Jadd Cheng, 'New charter flights give lift to Taiwan–Mainland relations', Christian Science Monitor, (27 January 2003), in Taiwan Security Research, available at: http://taiwansecurity.org/News/2003/CSM-012703.htm. 51. See, e.g. New York Times, (27 January 2003), p. 2. 52. It should be emphasized, however, that while increased costs of war make it less likely that misjudgments about each side's respective resolve would give rise to a scenario where no effective bargaining range is present, increased costs do not mitigate the brinkmanship problem I pointed to earlier: that Taiwan leaders might try to push Taiwan's effective level of independence right up to where they believe Beijing's red line lies. Doing so is dangerous because overestimating Beijing's red line (i.e. overestimating how much independence Beijing would accept rather than fight a war) could lead to fighting. However, increasing the costs of war would imply that Beijing would be willing to accept a bargain somewhat closer to Taiwan's ideal point than before, meaning that Taiwanese leaders might simply move farther in that direction themselves. The danger of miscalculation remains just as acute as before the costs of war increased. On this logic, see Morrow, 'How could trade affect conflict?'. 53. This argument is developed by Morrow, 'How could trade affect conflict?'; Gartzke et al., 'Economic interdependence and international conflict'; and Erik Gartzke and Quan Li, 'War, peace, and the invisible hand: positive political externalities of economic globalization', International Studies Quarterly 47(4), (December 2003), pp. 561–586. 54. Pan, 'US Taiwan policy of strategic ambiguity'. 55. Two representative examples of official statements on the importance of Taiwan include Premier Wen Jiabao's statement that reunification is 'more important than our lives', and Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Li Weiyi's emphasis that 'no one should underestimate the determination and capability of the Chinese government and people to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the motherland at any cost'. The recent passage of China's anti-secession law underscores the importance Mainland China places on Taiwan. On the importance of economic development, see Jiang Zemin's report delivered at the opening of the 16th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in November 2002, when he emphasized that China 'must persist in taking economic construction as the central task', that 'development is the last word', and that China 'must seize all opportunities to speed up development'. Sources (in order): Benjamin Kang Lim, 'China to consider Taiwan reunification law—Premier', Reuters, (11 May 2004); '"New constitution" means timetable for Taiwan independence: official', Xinhua News, (14 April 2004), in Taiwan Security Research, available at: http://taiwansecurity.org/News/2004/Xinhua-140404.htm; and 'Full text of report delivered by Jiang Zemin at opening of party congress', Wen Wei Po, (9 November 2002), in Foreign Broadcast Information Service—China (14 November 2002). Additional informationNotes on contributorsScott L. Kastner Scott L. Kastner is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. He studies international relations and international political economy, and his work has recently appeared in Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, and Comparative Political Studies. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego in 2003, and in 2005–2006 he was a visiting research fellow in the Princeton–Harvard China and the World Program at Princeton University. The author thanks Tom Christensen, Doug Grob, Soo Yeon Kim, David Lake, George Quester, Chad Rector, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article.