Bridging the Strait: Taiwan, China, and the Prospects for Reunification

The defense of Taiwan remains at the heart of the issue of China. The recent initiatives of Peking and Washington, and the impending presidential visit, have inspired hopeful speculation. Discussion has centered on formulas for recognition and entry into the United Nations. Our alliance with the Republic of China on Taiwan has been given less consideration, and its implications are optimistically avoided. But our security relationship with Taiwan-in particular the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954-dictates certain diplomatic solutions and precludes others. Definitive choices will have to be made, and illusions of entertaining contradictory positions will have to be abandoned. If the consequences of our defense arrangement are not grasped, and the problems not deliberately resolved, the expectations that have been aroused may be unfulfilled, and the United States may proceed to underwrite a new order in East Asia that offers at best a tense military equilibrium and perpetual American involvement in the political evolution of the region.