衝突過程：美中對台灣過分誇大的攤牌

Collision Course: The Looming U.S.-China Showdown Over Taiwan-衝突過程：美中對台灣過分誇大的攤牌

Chinese coercion against democratic Taiwan would challenge the basic principles of the liberal regional order, as well as U.S. reliability.

A new crisis in relations between China and Taiwan is likely in the coming months, one that will pose more acute difficulties than in the past for Taiwan’s benefactor, the United States. China is relatively stronger than Taiwan, less inhibited from behaving assertively, and more insistent on attaining its objectives—which include ruling Taiwan. The people of Taiwan, however, are showing signs of evolving toward permanent opposition to political unification with China. Reaffirming U.S. willingness to protect Taiwan from forced unification would put at risk America’s relationship with the world’s second most important country. Abandoning Taiwan to involuntary absorption, however, would signal to the region the end of Pax Americana.

人國