Jacques deLisle Director, FPRI Asia Program · Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania · June Teufel Dreyer Senior Fellow, FPRI · Professor of Political Science, University of Miami · James C. Hsiung Professor of Politics, New York University · Wojtek Wolfe Senior Fellow, FPRI · Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rutgers-Camden University · Andrew J.C. Kao Director-General, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, New York · Republic of China President Ma Ying-jeou delivered a significant speech on U.S.-Taiwan relations on April 15. President Ma's speech provides an occasion to consider the state of, and prospects for, the bilateral relationship as well as cross-Strait relations and the implications of both for the U.S.'s relations with China in a time of possibly significant transition. A few weeks earlier, the National People's Congress session in Beijing completed the formal transition to the Fifth Generation leadership headed by President Xi Jinping (who has been read as signaling a more muscular foreign policy) and unveiled China's new senior foreign policy officials (including a foreign minister previously responsible for Taiwan issues). U.S. President Obama's newly installed second-term foreign policy team faces the task of implementing the promised rebalancing or "pivot" to Asia. These developments come against the backdrop, over the last several years, of greatly improved cross-Strait relations, solid and stable U.S.-Taiwan relations, and rising tensions in Beijing's relations with many of its neighbors.

Be the first to comment