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BY JUDITH NORTON | PRESS ITEM Recently, the newly inaugurated Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) encouraged the Taiwanese public to focus less on the “so-called” “1992 Consensus” that served as the framework for cross-strait relations during the Ma Ying-jeou administration and to focus more on certain laws as the framework for cross-strait ties. His statement is not a major shift in the Tsai administration’s position on the 1992 Consensus. But it highlights the direction of the administration’s cross-strait policies, which aim to continue to move away from the established concepts that represent China’s “One China Principle” and toward concepts that, at the very least, present Taiwan as not a part of the ‘one China’ political formula but as a separate entity. His statement indicates the 1992 Consensus remains a major battleground in the cross-strait relationship.
BY CHONG-PIN LIN PHD | OUTSIDE PUBLICATION As the United States hedges against a potential military confrontation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Beijing has opted to circumvent Washington’s preparations by adopting a grand strategy that utilizes “extra-military instruments” to gradually diminish the preponderant influence of the United States. These instruments—economic aid, cultural contributions, legal compulsion and diplomatic coercion—transcend, but certainly do not exclude the use of military force. Even though Chong-pin Lin wrote the article in 2007, it remains salient today.
BY JUDITH NORTON AND EDWARD J. BARSS | TRANSLATION (UPDATE: MAY 24, 2018) The EAPASI provides a translation of the official Chinese document titled "Some Measures for Promoting Cross-Strait Economic and Cultural Exchange Cooperation". The PRC passed the measures in order to attract Taiwanese businesses, professionals, and students to invest in, to relocate to, and to study on the mainland. The incentives bypass the Tsai administration, which, in response to the 31 Measures, implemented a counter-measure called the "Four Directions and Eight Strategies". It appears however that the PRC originally introduced the 31 Preferential Policies during the Fifth Straits Forum in southeast China's Xiamen in 2013 and, now, in 2018, aims to actively implement them.
BY LAWRENCE J. LAU, PHD | OUTSIDE PUBLICATION Lawrence J. Lau says the removal of the term limits on the office of China’s president would seem to signal Xi Jinping’s resolve to continue his anti-corruption campaign and economic reform agenda, while pre-empting any challenge to his power.
BY EDWARD J. BARSS AND MONTE R. BULLARD | BOOK REVIEW In War by Other Means, Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris argue that geoeconomic warfare requires a new vision of U.S. statecraft.
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