Insular and Peninsular Security Conundrums

Abstract

Tensions over the unsettled status of Taiwan/RoC, and the partition of the Korean Peninsula into antagonistic state-societies, historically challenged US-Chinese relations. US recognition of the PRC as the ‘one-China’ was subverted by its Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)-based ties with Taiwan. The ‘two Chinas’ contested legitimacy, rendering Taiwan a ‘core’ Sino-US contention. Similarly, RoK-DPRK rivalry resonantly deepened patron-power cleavages. Taiwan and the Koreas thus became systemic flashpoints. North Korea’s sui generis politics, insecurity-driven unpredictability, nuclear weapons and BM programmes, and the two Korea’s mixed relationship with key US ally Japan, convoluted combustible complexity. The RoK’s quest for reunification, the DPRK’s shrill opacity and destabilising responses to perceived slights, challenged stability. Washington’s systemic concerns, the ambivalent PRC-DPRK alliance, failure to ‘denuclearise’ the Peninsula, Pyongyang’s rumoured power-struggles, and feared fall-out from its possible implosion meant the parties neither fully engaged with nor disengaged from peninsular histrionics. This chapter examines the very uneven Sino-US experiences in this challenging milieu, and their impact on relations.