Best Books on the Taiwan Strait Crises and US-China Confrontation

The Taiwan Strait has been one of the most dangerous places in the world at least three times since 1949. In 1954-55, 1958, and 1995-96, the People's Republic of China and the United States moved close enough to direct military conflict that the question of war or peace came down to decisions made by a handful of people in Beijing, Washington, and Taipei. Each crisis was resolved without escalating to full war. Each one left the fundamental question of Taiwan's political status exactly where it had been. Understanding those crises matters more now than it did twenty years ago. The Taiwan question has not gone away. If anything, the military and economic stakes have grown considerably. These books provide the historical grounding for anyone who wants to understand how this situation developed and why it is so difficult to resolve. ## The China Mirage by James Bradley James Bradley's *The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia* (2015) is a provocative account of how American misunderstanding of China shaped the catastrophic policy choices that led to the Korean War, the Taiwan confrontation, and eventually Vietnam. Bradley argues that American China policy was built on a fantasy, a dream of Christian, pro-American China that was invented by missionaries and trading companies and had almost nothing to do with the actual country. The Kuomintang government that the United States backed in China was corrupt, brutal, and incapable of holding the country. When it retreated to Taiwan in 1949, the United States found itself committed to defending a government whose main claim on American support was that it claimed to be the legitimate ruler of all of China, a claim that was as fictional as everything else about the relationship. Bradley is a journalist rather than an academic historian, and his book occasionally oversimplifies. But his central point, that American policy toward China and Taiwan was shaped by illusions that persisted long after the evidence contradicted them, is well supported and important. ## The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad Odd Arne Westad's comprehensive account of the Cold War devotes serious attention to the Taiwan Strait crises in their global context. Westad, who has worked extensively in Chinese archives, is particularly good on the Chinese side of the confrontation, on what Mao Zedong thought he was achieving, and on how the crises looked from Beijing rather than Washington. The 1958 bombardment of Quemoy and Matsu, the offshore islands that the Kuomintang still held, was not primarily a military operation designed to capture the islands. It was a political signal, aimed partly at the United States and partly at the Soviet Union, which Mao was beginning to distrust. Understanding the crisis requires understanding Chinese domestic politics and the Sino-Soviet relationship as much as the US-China confrontation. Westad's book is long and covers the entire Cold War, but its sections on East Asia are among the best available in English. ## Destined for War by Graham Allison Graham Allison's *Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap?* (2017) is not primarily a history of the Taiwan Strait crises but provides an essential analytical framework for understanding them. Allison draws on the concept of the "Thucydides Trap," the dynamic by which a rising power and an established power tend to slide into conflict even when neither wants it, to analyze the current US-China relationship. He reviews sixteen historical cases of rising-power transitions, of which twelve resulted in war. The four that did not offer some grounds for cautious optimism, but Allison is honest that the conditions that prevented war in those cases were often contingent and unrepeatable. The Taiwan Strait is the most likely flashpoint in the current US-China relationship, and Allison's analysis of how crises escalate, how miscalculation happens, and how deterrence can fail is directly relevant to understanding the historical crises and the contemporary risk. ## The Question That Never Goes Away What makes the Taiwan issue distinctive is the combination of factors that make it so difficult to resolve. The People's Republic has never controlled Taiwan and has been committed to unification since 1949. Taiwan has functioned as a self-governing democracy since the 1990s. The United States has a legal commitment to Taiwan's self-defense under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 while formally acknowledging the "one China" position. All three positions are internally coherent and mutually incompatible. The Cold War crises showed that this situation could be managed under conditions of rough mutual deterrence. Whether those conditions will hold as China's military capabilities continue to grow is the central strategic question in Asia today. The historical record gives reasons for both caution and concern. Crises that ended short of war did so because decision-makers on both sides chose de-escalation. That choice was never automatic. ## Further Reading Find more books on [Cold War history](/category/cold-war).