Abstract
Why does Ma Ying-jeou pursue a China-tilting policy when US–PRC relations become more competitive after 2010? Indeed, the president’s mainland policy has gone far beyond the strategic requirements to satisfy international pressures for a stable cross-strait relationship. According to neoclassical realism, domestic politics acts as ‘intervening variables’ through which systemic imperatives are translated into a state’s foreign policy response. Based, in part, on this author’s interviews in Taiwan, this paper contends that due to Taiwan’s internal political divisions on the ‘one China’ issue, elected leaders strive for their own nation-building projects, which, in turn, generate policies that undermine Taiwan’s national security. Since 2008, the KMT tries to reshape Taiwan’s identity through the rehabilitation of the ROC as the legitimate ‘one China’. Though Ma’s rapprochement with Beijing on the basis of the ‘1992 consensus’ has contributed to cross-strait stability, his embrace of a China-centric national identity has also placed the administration increasingly at odds with Taiwan’s public which gave the KMT a resounding electoral defeat in Taiwan’s local elections of November 2014. As Taipei becomes more aligned to the PRC, its security ties with America and Japan could be compromised.
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