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This paper examines the implications of the United States' "hub-and-spoke" alliance system in Asia. It argues that the US enjoys a bargaining advantage in the current bilateral security relations with its Asian allies. In contrast to a multilateral alliance, the US can better prevent free riders and joint resistance in its bilateral relations. It can effectively restrain the behavior of its allies and compel them to accommodate American interests. The hub-and-spoke system helps the US consolidate its policy influence over the Asian allies, supervise inter-alliance cooperation, and increase defense cooperation between allies and non-allies. This paper uses episodes of defense cooperation between the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India to illustrate the American alliance management techniques since 2016. During this time, the US allies have increasingly participated in regional security affairs due to US demands and guidance rather than autonomous decisions. Facing strong US pressure, allies have found it hard to challenge the US under the hub-and-spoke system despite common grievances. This leads to two implications for the future: First, the US allies may have less autonomy in their foreign policies, restraining their ability to pursue neutral positions and policies in regional affairs such as the South China Sea dispute. Second, the US may discourage or even undermine the emergence of multilateral security institutions in Asia. The US is likely to maintain the "hub-and-spoke" system to safeguard its strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific.

Taiwan's relations with South and Southeast Asia have become the focus of scholarly discussion since it proposed the New Southbound Policy (NSP) in 2016. Few touch on the NSP's effect on Taiwan's relations with countries out- side the NSP targets. This paper argues that the NSP has a positive effect on US–Taiwan relations. The people-centered approach of the NSP helps the Taiwanese government create a credible commitment to a moderate foreign policy. It signals Taiwan's resolve to uphold the US interests in Taiwan Strait. Taiwan's policy direction has received the US's approval, resulting in cordial US–Taiwan relations. The public supports from the US have strengthened Taiwan's confidence under tense cross-Strait relations. Recently, the US's Indo-Pacific strategy provides Taiwan an opportunity to establish a closer tie with the US. But the prospect of bilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region depends on a clear proposal. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

US arms sales to Taiwan generate considerable anger in Beijing. Yet China has typically been reluctant to retaliate strongly in response to US arms sales; rather, Beijing has tended to take more symbolic, temporary, actions-such as freezing military exchanges and postponing official visits. Why, on the issue of US arms sales to Taiwan, does the PRC response seem to be mostly bark, with little bite? In this article, we construct a formal model of US arms sales to Taiwan, and use the model to generate expectations about Chinese reactions to those sales. Our model suggests that China faces a tradeoff when responding to US arms sales. On the one hand, domestic pressures and concern that arms sales improve Taiwan's bargaining leverage vis-à-vis the PRC push China to retaliate against the US. By sanctioning the US, China both ameliorates domestic nationalists demanding strong action and at the same time raises the costs to Washington of continuing with arms sales. On the other hand, however; by responding strongly to US arms sales, Beijing runs the risk that the US will continue with the sales despite the high costs; in turn, the higher costs signal a stronger US commitment to Taiwan that could undercut the PRC's future bargaining leverage vis-à-vis the island. We show that several variables determine how China makes this tradeoff, including the magnitude of US arms sales to Taiwan, prior Chinese beliefs about how strongly committed to Taiwan the US is, and how much additional leverage revealed US support for Taiwan provides the island in its bargaining with Beijing over sovereignty-related issues. (Issues Stud/GIGA)

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- 1. Introduction -- Part I. National Identity -- 2. Taiwan's National Identity and Cross-Strait Relations -- 3. Changing Identities in Taiwan under Ma Ying-jeou -- 4. Mingling but Not Merging: Changes and Continuities in the Identity of Taiwanese in Mainland China -- 5. Chinese National Identity under Reconstruction -- 6. Chinese Youth Nationalism in a Pressure Cooker -- Part II. Political Economy -- 7. Varieties of State Capitalism across the Taiwan Strait: A Comparison and Its Implications -- 8. The Nature and Trend of Taiwanese Investment in China (1991-2014): Business Orientation, Profit Seeking, and Depoliticization -- 9. Cross-Strait Economic Relations and China's Rise: The Case of the IT Sector -- 10. Social Entrepreneurialism and Social Media in Post-developmental state Taiwan -- Part III. Political Strategy -- 11. Pivot, Hedger, or Partner: Strategies of Lesser Powers Caught between Hegemons -- 12. A Farewell to Arms? US Security Relations with Taiwan and the Prospects for Stability in the Taiwan Strait -- 13. Xi Jinping's Taiwan Policy: Boxing Taiwan In with the One-China Framework -- 14. Strategies of China's Expansion and Taiwan's Survival in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Perspective -- IV. Conclusion -- 15. Taiwan and the Waning Dream of Reunification -- List of Contributors -- Index