ABSTRACT
The “Rise of China” refers to increased capabilities. Equally important are China’s intentions, or the ways Chinese leaders choose to employ their growing capabilities. Taiwan and other Asia-Pacific states are reacting not merely to the rise of China, but to the policies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) accompanying that rise. Beijing well understands that the increase in PRC capabilities still leaves open a number of possibilities in China’s relationships with the region ranging from amicable cooperation to cold war. This explains why Chinese officials have assiduously worked to persuade other Asian states that there is no need for them to form a defensive coalition against a rising China. Thus, Taiwan’s reaction to the rise of China is highly contextualized, and the degree to which policy decisions in Beijing shape Taiwan’s behavior should be recognized. China’s capacity to build hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles creates a certain security environment for Taiwan, but this capacity combined with the policies of aiming the missiles at Taiwan and asserting the right to use force against the island creates a far more threatening environment. The same “rising” Chinese military, political, and economic capabilities combined with a relaxed and conciliatory PRC cross-Strait policy would constitute quite a different security environment, eliciting correspondingly different reactions from Taiwan. It is important to understand that the question of Asia-Pacific reactions to the rise of China involves not simply decisions by regional governments in relation to a growing but implicitly passive PRC. Rather, along a dimension separate from and in addition to its growing capabilities, Beijing actively shapes the environment in which regional governments make their decisions, and therefore bears part of the responsibility for the character of those decisions.
