Content area
Full Text
US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity By Dean P. Chen Boulder, CO: First Forum Press, 201 2 298 Pages $68.50
for six decades, American policy toward China has been shaped by a theme called "strategic ambiguity." The summit meeting in June between President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China in California suggested "strategic ambiguity" has run its course, and should be retired in favor of "strategic clarity, tactical ambiguity."
This book by Dean Chen, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, traces the evolution of "strategic ambiguity" in meticulous detail from its earliest days (before the Communist Party came to power in mainland China) to the present. The author has relied on an extensive reading of declassified files to make his case and, in so doing, shows how Washington works. In particular, he weaves a narra- tive of memos, position papers, directives, meetings, public speeches, and press conferences to explain how a policy is shaped.
Chen is less persuasive, however, in arguing for the continuation of strategic ambiguity. With democracy evidently having taken hold in Taiwan, Chen asserts: "Beijing should come to terms with that reality and learn to show greater respect to voices and political views that are contradictory to its own." Given that Beijing has insisted the world accept its position on a wide range of issues, Chen's plea is roughly akin to asking water to flow uphill.
After...