extension of Taiwan’s existing diplomacy,” China “pragmatic reacted unexpectedly and extremely strongly to Lee’s visit, arguing that this represented a major change in American policy supporting Lee’s alleged effort to turn officiality” “creeping into Taiwan Independence. Indeed, China went ballistic (almost literally) during 1995-96 with a series of war games and missile tests close to Taiwan that were clearly aimed at intimidating voters in the December legislative and March presidential elections. The United States responded with very clear military deterrence aimed at the PRC by, for example, sending aircraft carrier groups through the Taiwan Strait. The confrontation quickly de-escalated after Lee handily won re-election, but as shown in Figure 1 this set off a series of crises that erupted, on average, every two years, with Beijing and Taipei alternating in the initiation of the confrontation. For example, Lee Teng-hui enraged China and flustered the United States in 1999 by proclaiming that Taipei and Beijing were linked by state-to-state relations;” and China retaliated by “special attempting to intimidateTaiwanese voters in the 2000 presidential election and by ignoring the conciliatory policies of the new President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party after the election. President Chen, for his part, set off another round of hostility when he proclaimed that there is “one country on each side of the in July 2002. Subsequently, Chen’s ”
extension of Taiwan’s existing “pragmatic diplomacy,” China reacted unexpectedly and extremely strongly to Lee’s visit, arguing that this represented a major change in American policy supporting Lee’s alleged effort to turn “creeping officiality” into Taiwan Independence. Indeed, China went ballistic (almost literally) during 1995-96 with a series of war games and missile tests close to Taiwan that were clearly aimed at intimidating voters in the December legislative and March presidential elections. The United States responded with very clear military deterrence aimed at the PRC by, for example, sending aircraft carrier groups through the Taiwan Strait. The confrontation quickly de-escalated after Lee handily won re-election, but as shown in Figure 1 this set off a series of crises that erupted, on average, every two years, with Beijing and Taipei alternating in the initiation of the confrontation. For example, Lee Teng-hui enraged China and flustered the United States in 1999 by proclaiming that Taipei and Beijing were linked by “special state-to-state relations;” and China retaliated by attempting to intimidateTaiwanese voters in the 2000 presidential election and by ignoring the conciliatory policies of the new President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party after the election. President Chen, for his part, set off another round of hostility when he proclaimed that there is “one country on each side of the ” in July 2002. Subsequently, Chen’s
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