ABSTRACT
In the post-Cold War era, the national security policies of Taiwan and China have followed different paths. By the late 1980s, as martial law was lifted and regulations concerning contact with the mainland relaxed, the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan began to modify its national security policy to a strictly defensive posture. Beijing, however, refuses to renounce the use of force to settle the Taiwan issue. As a result, Taipei not only must raise Beijing's costs of a military coercion of the island, but also must prepare to deal with nonmilitary pressure, military shows of force, and other kinds of harassment from China. In the diplomatic arena, Taipei seeks to maintain a substantial number of formal diplomatic relations, for fear of being downgraded to the status of another Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC). According to one of a series of public opinion polls (National Sun Yat-sen University, February 1997), only 25 percent of people on the island regard cross-Strait relations as more important than Taiwan's diplomatic standing, and about 75 percent of the respondents believe that the PRC has been taking a hostile stand toward the ROC since June 1995.
