ABSTRACT
Since Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan) forces fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, Taiwan’s foreign policy objective has remained the same: to ensure its survival as a separate entity from mainland China. After the ending of martial law in 1987 and a series of democratic reforms, its consolidation as a two-party system has enabled the development of an electorate that identifies as Taiwanese and also has a vested interest in remaining an independent democratic polity. Consequently, Taiwan’s foreign policy objective has evolved to maintain the cross-Strait status quo in order to sustain the ROC’s de facto independence. In the face of increasing geoeconomic and geostrategic pressure from mainland China, both the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party support this goal of de facto independence, and to this end both parties have invested in three approaches. First, to ensure the United States’ unofficial security guarantee via the Six Assurances and the Taiwan Relations Act; second, to strengthen its unofficial ties with ideological like-minded partners such as Japan; and finally, to utilize its development assistance programme to ensure its regional integration.
