This book examines changes in Taiwan's policies toward Mainland China under former Republic of
China (ROC) President Ma Ying-jeou (2008-16) and considers their implications for US policy
toward the Taiwan Strait. In recent years the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s increasingly
assertive foreign policy behaviors have heightened tensions with its regional neighbors as well
as the United States. However under the Kuomintang (KMT) administration of Ma Ying-jeou
Taiwan discounted Beijing's coercion and pursued rapprochement on the basis of the 1992
consensus which was a tacit agreement reached between the KMT and Chinese Communist Party in
1992 that both Taiwan and the mainland belong to one China though that China is subjected to
either side's different interpretations. The author of this volume analyzes why Taipei
underreacted towards the security challenges posed by the PRC and chartered policies that
sometimes went against the interests of Washington and its allies in the Asia-Pacific. The KMT
was pushing for nation-building initiatives to rejuvenate the ROC's one China ruling legitimacy
and to supplant pro-independence forces within Taiwan. The island's deeply fragmented domestic
politics and partisanship have led policy elites to choose suboptimal strategy and thereby
weakening its security position. The implications from this study are equally applicable to
Taiwan's newly elected Democratic Progressive Party government that has taken off ice in 2016.
