ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Taipei’s strategies toward Peking and Washington in the foreseeable future. Relations between the three actors between 1949 and 1979 can be best characterized as the Forbidden Triad, with Peking having weak ties with Washington and an absence of ties or negligible ties with its archenemy, while the ties between Washington and Taipei can be considered as strong from early on. In adopting the strategy of maintaining the Forbidden Triad, what Taipei has in mind is to keep itself as the non-Communist world’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the Western Pacific and to render help to its compatriots on the mainland, should they decide to topple the Communist regime. The choice for the Republic of China is to continue its strategy of maintaining the Forbidden Triad or to change its strategy to that of “building” a bridge from its end, to eventually meet with the People’s Republic of China.
