Interaction across the Taiwan strait: Changes in relations between The People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, 1985-1992.

摘要

This study has two major purposes: to explore the aspects of changes in the relationship between the PRC and the ROC since 1985 and to analyze the determinants of the changes. Since the 1949 flight to the island. Taiwan has maintained a de facto independent status, and officially, both the PRC and the ROC have each claimed to be the sole legitimate Chinese nation. As a result, for almost four decades there were no interactions between the two, and their rhetoric was hostile and malicious. From around 1985, this state has changed dramatically in cultural, economic, and political aspects.;The determinants for this drastic transformation are many, both domestic and international, primarily in the more moderate political approaches of the PRC's Deng Xiaoping and the ROC's Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui. The rapprochement has also paralleled changes occurring in other parts of the world, which in general have been undergoing a period of democratization. The United States has also been an important determinant actor in the changes in relations between the PRC and the ROC. Washington has used a "carrot and stick" approach with the PRC, rewarding with most favored nation (MFN) trade status the PRC's move toward democracy and punishing its human rights and trade violations by threatening to revoke this status. The various U.S. sanctions against the PRC following the 1989 Tiananmen massacre have made the PRC leaders re-evaluate the importance of Taiwan as a trade partner.;The study findings indicate that domestic factors have been more salient determinants than have international factors in the changes of relations between the PRC and the ROC. In both countries, domestic factors have affected the leaders' decision to modify their foreign policies toward each other as well as toward other countries. Among the prominent domestic factors are the influence of the new leaders in the PRC and the ROC who are more practical-minded in their orientation of domestic and foreign policy formulations and less rigid in their decision to reconcile with their former enemies.