ABSTRACT
During the twelve years of President Lee’s rule, Taiwan entered a zigzagging course of policy change on cross-strait relations. On the face of it, Taiwan’s mainland policy has gone a long way from zero-sum struggle in the era of two Presidents Chiang toward positive-sum engagement in the period of President Lee. But in probing deeper, we find that not only the evolution of mainland policy has often been off the track of its intended goals, but policy shifts have tended to occur in a dramatic way beyond what was anticipated. Worse, policy changes have sometimes even jeopardized cross-strait interactions and led to political deadlocks on the brink of confrontation. In retrospect, Taiwan’s vacillating position and strategic ambiguity on cross-strait relations are particularly impressive as compared with Beijing’s everlasting resoluteness and strategic clarity.1
