Taiwan’s China dilemma

Shirley Lin’s new book, “Taiwan’s China Dilemma,” explores a conundrum: Despite a shared culture, and even as Taiwan’s economic interdependence with China deepened in the 1990s and 2000s, the island’s people felt an increasingly strong identity with Taiwan itself. These contradictory trends only continued during Ma Ying-jeou’s presidency, and will certainly shape the environment in which leaders in both Beijing and Taipei attempt to define and manage the cross-Strait relationship.

On September 12, the Center for East Asia Policy Studies (CEAP) at Brookings hosted Shirley Lin to discuss how the growing backlash against economic liberalization has impacted Taiwan’s relationship with China. Brookings Senior Fellow and CEAP Director Richard Bush, provided remarks and moderated the discussion. At the end of the program, Shirley Lin took audience questions.