Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy
Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy

Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy

Abstract

In Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy, Syaru Shirley Lin presents a detailed history and analysis of Taiwan’s shifting economic policies toward China from the election of President Lee Teng-hui in 1996 to the Sunflower Student Movement protests of March 18 – April 10, 2014. Lin documents many factors influencing the seemingly “inconsistent” and “irrational” oscillation between more restrictive and more liberal cross-Strait trade policies during this critical 18-year period in the evolution of Taiwan’s democracy. In particular, she focuses on the key role played by the increasing self-identification of Taiwan’s people as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese” or “both Taiwanese and Chinese” and how that sense of identity and threats to it have outweighed any purely rational calculation of economic self-interest.

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