| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article explains the rise and fall of the so-called Taiwan independence policy during the period of 1988-2010. It defines the Taiwan independence policy as an internal political move by the Taiwanese government to establish Taiwan as a separate and sovereign political entity on the world stage. It reviews two existing prevailing theses - electoral politics and shifting identity - and points out their weaknesses, the former's being its indeterminacy and unfalsifiability, and the latter's being its inadequacy to explain policy change. A new explanation focusing on relative power shift (military balance, alliance strength, and diplomatic standing) and domestic constraints (resource and political constraints) is then proposed to explain the rise and fall of the Taiwan independence policy. A brief examination of the 1988-2010 cross-strait history lends strong support to the theory.
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