‘Stand up like a Taiwanese!’: PRC coercion and public preferences for resistance

Abstract

Taiwan's opposition to PRC demands such as acceptance of the ‘92 Consensus’ and ‘One Country, Two Systems’ formula since 2016 has invited a series of retaliatory measures from Beijing, designed to coerce Taiwan into compliance. Given the stark asymmetry in economic size, military capability, and diplomatic status, Taiwan provides a case for studying coercive diplomacy that takes the form of threats to punish. Material differences suggest that Taiwan should capitulate, and ‘cheap talk’ theses expect PRC threats to have no discernible effect, while balance of threat arguments expect resolve. In this article, we use the survey data collected in the 2016, 2019, and 2020 rounds of the Taiwan National Security Study to examine how Taiwanese respond to China's intensifying and expanding threats. Our paper identifies four strategies that the public sees as responses to PRC coercion: isolation, bandwagon with China, balance against China by allying with the USA and Japan, and hedge by deepening economic ties with China while aligning with the USA and Japan against China. We show that the popular support for balancing against China rises as PRC coercion grows and Taiwanese citizens increasingly perceive China to be a threat. Our findings imply that citizens in a liberal democracy can develop the will to pushback against pressure from an authoritarian regime despite sharp asymmetries in capabilities and material limitations.

Public Support for Self-Defence in Taiwan: The Current State of Research

“…The beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war in February 2022 added more fuel to the topic, prompting the U.S. to assist the island with more overt military assistance and training programs. While some might argue that growing Chinese pressure might lead the Taiwanese citizenry to capitulate to Chinese coercion, Chong, Huang, and Wu (2023) found the contrary. Using data from the Taiwan National Security Studies (TNSS), their analysis revealed that compared to attitudes in 2016, citizens in 2020 were much more likely to support balancing than bandwagoning against China, the former defined as reducing economic engagement with China while increasing alliances with the U.S. and Japan against China.…”