ABSTRACT

This chapter provides the conceptual framework for the book. It is built around ‘small state survival’ utilizing the framework developed by others, for instance, Efraim Inbar and Gabriel Sheffer in The National Security of Small States in a Changing World (London: Frank Cass, 1997) and Michael Handel in Weak States in the International System (London: Frank Cass, 1990). It examines how the Cold War and post-Cold War literature concerning small state survival might hold lessons for Taiwan. It concludes that on balance, given the odds against it, Taiwan’s viability as a small state is questionable. It may be that all Taiwan can really do is to utilize all the strengths and strategies of small state survival that it can muster in order to achieve the limited objective of deterring open war and to buy enough time to somehow arrive at a peaceful accommodation with an increasingly powerful and assertive China, one that would at least preserve its internal autonomy, political system and way of life. Indeed, if open war and resort to large-scale violence can be avoided, this might be the least poor outcome for Taiwan.