The Roles of Misperceptions and Perceptual Gaps in the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995–1996

The Difference a Day Makes: Understanding the End of the Sino-American “Tacit Alliance”

“…As Figure shows, with a move to the second level of analysis, Sino‐American relations might be reasonably conceived of as having a Kantian dyadic culture during World War II, when the Republic of China and the United States were allies against Japan; a downward spiral into a Hobbesian culture with the 1950–1953 Korean War when the United States and the new PRC faced each other on the battlefield; a return to friends between 1971–1972 and 1989 (up to June 4), including construction of the “tacit alliance”; with a dip back into Hobbesian culture with June 4; and a transition starting in 1992 to a Lockean dyadic culture in 1994 to the present, with major dips in 1995–1996 during the Taiwan Strait crises (Moore , ) and in 1999 during the crisis surrounding the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade (Moore ), and a shallower, briefer dip in 2001 with the collision between the US EP‐3 spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet near Hainan Island.…”

“…Certainly Taiwan's democratization, a process beginning with reforms in 1988 and coming to maturity in its 1996 presidential elections, would have been a complication for Sino‐American relations with or without June 4 (see Moore , ), but without the blow to trust June 4 caused the two sides, Taiwan's democratization might have been less of an issue in Sino‐American relations. Certainly, June 4 had a very adverse effect on views of China in Taiwan, which played no small part in driving Taiwan toward democratization,and a desire among people in Taiwan to distance themselves from political practices on and unification with the Mainland.…”

History, Nationalism and Face in Sino-Japanese Relations

“…In the words of a well-known former Tokyo University professor of education, Saburo Ienaga, too many of Japan's textbooks have aimed "…to pull the children's minds and hearts toward militarism." 21 As a writer of many Japanese textbooks that cover the war years, Ienaga's own experience with the Ministry of Education (MOE, or MEXT's predecessor) and the textbook controversy led him to fear a… …revival of jingoistic values in Japan. I have not been pressured to include specific phrases that flagrantly glorify war or praise the military; rather, the government has sought to exclude as much as possible vivid depictions of the horrors of war, and of Japan's responsibility for war and war crimes.…”

“…It was an important source of the 2004-2005 tensions as the Japanese government again approved history texts that white-washed or seriously downplayed 22 See Anthony Faiola, "Japanese Schoolbooks Anger S. Korea, China: Militarist Past is seen as Whitewashed," Washington Post, April 6, 2005, p. A15. 21 Ienaga [9], p. 339. The article was originally published in International Security, V. 18, N. 3, Winter 1993/94, p. 113-133. the actions of Japan and its troops in the Second World War, and Chinese demonstrators protested vehemently and in some cases violently.…”

“…As many have pointed out, 40 the Chinese regime and the ideology it espouses are 39 See Moore [21]. 40 The most recent and interesting example being Shirk's [22].…”