Can China Economically Coerce Taiwan?
Since the early 1980s, the economic relationship between Taiwan and mainland China has expanded rapidly, driven by far-reaching economic and political reforms on both sides and by powerful natural complementarities in the two economies. The expanding cross-strait relationship raises serious security questions, with many analysts expressing concern that China will exploit the economic relationship to undermine the United States’ long-standing opposition to either side unilaterally or coercively altering the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. A new RAND Corporation study examines these questions and concludes that, for Beijing, there is an irony in its efforts to exploit its economic leverage to bring Taiwan closer to a reunification deal. Cross-strait economic links appear to have the greatest impact on Taiwan’s politics when Beijing is least aggressive in trying to exploit them, as it has been since early 2005. When Beijing uses high-profile, high-pressure economic tactics, they have
