America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan

by Ted Galen Carpenter

One issue could lead to a disastrous war between the United States and China: Taiwan. A growing number of Taiwanese want independence for their island and regard mainland China as an alien nation. Mainland Chinese consider Taiwan a province that was stolen from China more than a century ago, and their patience about getting it back is wearing thin. Washington officially endorses a "one China" policy but also sells arms to Taiwan and maintains an implicit pledge to defend it from attack. That vague, muddled policy invites miscalculation by Taiwan or China or both. The three parties are on a collision course, and unless something dramatic changes, an armed conflict is virtually inevitable within a decade. Although there is still time to avert a calamity, time is running out. In this book, Carpenter tells the reader what the U.S. must do quickly to avoid being dragged into war.

Genres: China, Politics, History

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

T I M E L Y

This was a timely read.
Although quite an old book, and partly outdated, it was still quite accurate at predicting the future.

I thought this was a very good book on the Taiwan / US / China international relations.

Would recommend for other political readers.

4.7/5

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was published in 2005 but yet still very much resonates still today with regards to the US, China and Taiwan.

The best part of the book is the excellent telling of the history of how we got to this point. Carpenter does a very good job of laying out step by step how Taiwan became a quasi-independent country and the development of the One-China policy. He lays out the laws, acts and treaties that have gotten us to where we are now. The moves and counter-moves that each side has make. It is written without a bunch of diplomacy mumbo jumbo.

The only thing I don't like is his recommendations at the end that say we should just walk away from Taiwan and wish them good luck. Sure we should sell them arms but otherwise they would be on their own. Wonder what the rest of our allies in the region would think of that?

[Pei-jean Lu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite keeping in mind that this was published 16 years ago so I went into this well aware that it is not a current analysis it was still rather an over simplistic view as a whole and hardly contributed anything that I didn’t already know.