There are growing concerns about the risk of conflict between the U.S. and China over Taiwan. James Lee’s presentation explores the rising tensions by analyzing three ways of seeing Taiwan: the pursuit by Beijing of "peaceful" unification with Taiwan; the U.S. commitment to "unofficial" relations with Taiwan; and U.S. opposition to unilateral changes to the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait. For decades, these terms served as a bargain for maintaining peace and stability, but the agreement was unofficial because the U.S. and China never reached a joint understanding of what these terms mean in practice. Against the backdrop of great power competition, the discrepancies in the U.S. approach has been laid bare, raising the risk that the bargain could unravel entirely and lead to war between the U.S. and China.

Speaker:

• James Lee, Assistant Research Fellow, Professor at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica

Moderator:

• UC San Diego

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This hybrid lecture series is organized by the 21st Century China Center at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. For more information on China activities, as well as recordings of previous webinars, please visit china.ucsd.edu.

Bio: 

James Lee is an assistant research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taiwan and an affiliated researcher at IGCC. His research examines international affairs from an interdisciplinary perspective. Using a mixed-methods approach that draws on proficiency in several modern and classical languages, he studies geoeconomics, economic statecraft and grand strategy, focusing on U.S. foreign policy and U.S.-Taiwan relations.