China–Taiwan economic ties are now among the key factors influencing the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, which is still one of the flashpoints in today’s world.1 In this book, I try to trace the origin and the process of how so-called cross-strait economic ties became such a key factor in China–Taiwan relations throughout the 1990s and how this...

The current rivalry between China and Taiwan originally began in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek and his followers fled to Taiwan after their defeat by the Chinese communists in the Chinese civil war, which erupted immediately after the end of the Second World War.1 Three “Taiwan Strait Crises” have occurred since then, and the Taiwan issue, as both China’s domestic concern...

The growth of Taiwanese nationalism was arguably one of the most important factors leading to tense China–Taiwan relations in the period from 1990 to 2007. It had a negative impact on cross-strait relations in the aforementioned period of time because it brought about, among some of the Taiwanese political elites and the general public, support for Taiwan’s de...

This chapter examines the relationship between the nationalistic sentiment about Taiwan revealed by the Taiwanese government on the one hand and China–Taiwan relations in general on the other by exploring whether the changes in the Taiwanese government’s “Taiwan-first” sentiment as well as its “anti-unification” tendency in the period from 1990 to...

In the previous two chapters, I have demonstrated that there is a relationship between Taiwan’s domestic politics and China–Taiwan relations. More specifically, I have shown that the reason why China–Taiwan relations became less confrontational in 2008 (as compared to their tense relations over the past 18 years) concerns the emergence of an anti-independence president in Taiwan...

In this chapter, I explore the conflict over the issues of cross-strait economic ties in Taiwan’s domestic politics in the period from 2000 to 2006. During this period of time, unlike the period that I have examined in the previous chapter, the conflict involved more actors fighting against each other for their own political or economic interests. The discussions in this chapter are focused...

In this chapter, I discuss the conflict over cross-strait economic ties in Taiwan’s domestic politics in the period from 2007 to 2008 and explain why the pro-openness coalition won the 2008 Taiwanese presidential election. As I will argue in this chapter, due to the ambivalent feeling toward cross-strait economic ties among the Taiwanese general public that I have discussed in chapter 4, the...

The conflict between the pro-openness and anti-openness coalitions in Taiwan’s domestic politics did not terminate with the end of the 2008 presidential election and the changes of the Taiwanese government’s policy on cross-strait economic ties that followed in the same year.1 After the “40% cap” on Taiwanese investment in China was replaced with the “60%...

Defeated once again in the 2012 Taiwanese presidential election, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)–related anti-openness coalition (which is politically for Taiwan’s de jure independence and economically against cross-strait economic ties) that emerged after 2000 was arguably on the verge of collapse. In August 2012, less than three months after President Ma was inaugurated for...

In conclusion, the growth of cross-strait economic ties since 1990 has significantly affected Taiwan’s domestic politics, which in turn has had a profound impact on China–Taiwan relations. Although the growth of China–Taiwan economic ties could hardly resolve the so-called Taiwan problem and might even lead to some political and economic conflicts between the two sides at times,...

Chien-Kai Chen is assistant professor of international studies at Rhodes College (Memphis, Tennessee). He received his BA, MA, and PhD degrees in political science from National Taiwan University (2003), University of Alabama (2007), and Boston University (2013), respectively. Focusing on the region of East Asia, his academic interests bridge...