Accession Number:

ADA564976

Title:

The Future Strategic Environment of East Asia: Implications of a PRC-Taiwan Reunification

Descriptive Note:

Corporate Author:

CENTER FOR NAVAL ANALYSES ALEXANDRIA VA

Personal Author(s):

• Kaufman, Alison
• Ferguson II, Larry
• Kivlehan-Wise, Maryanne

Report Date:

2011-09-01

Pagination or Media Count:

65.0

Abstract:

When the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, no one anticipated that six decades later the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would still be separate political entities. Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan a small outpost of Chinese territory that had only recently returned to China after 50 years of Japanese colonization fully anticipating that his struggle with the new leaders of the People s Republic of China PRC was not over. Still, both he and his rival Mao Zedong declared that mainland China and Taiwan were part of the same country, and must be reunified under a single government. Most observers assumed that it would be only a short time before Taiwan fell to the Communist forces. President Truman made a strategic decision not to intervene with U.S. military force in the face of an anticipated PRC invasion of Taiwan in the spring of 1950.1 Only with the onset of the Korean War in June 1950 did the U.S. armed forces take on the deterrent posture in the cross-Strait situation that persists today.2

Descriptors:

• *STRATEGIC ANALYSIS
• *TAIWAN
• ASIA
• CHINA
• CIVIL DISTURBANCES
• DETERRENCE
• LEADERSHIP
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• WARFARE

Subject Categories:

• Military Operations, Strategy and Tactics

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE