The Struggle for Taiwan (2024) [-]
Dec 02 2024
The Struggle for Taiwan: A History America, China, and the Island Caught Between by Sulmaan Wasif Khan, Denison Chair in History and International Relations at the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
It's a political history starting from the end of the last Chinese Dynasty, when the KMT party was created and ending I guess late 2023 or early 2024 (book was published May 2024 so I guess published quickly to make it trendy).
The main part is Taiwan's political history from the KMT takeover through their dictatorship which ended in the 1970's and then democracy. Meanwhile you get things that the USA did or mainland China did as they evolve their relationship with Taiwan as a key bone of contention.
A lot of four on internal politics in Taiwan and USA since I guess there are more documents available whereas PRC (People's Republic of China) coverage is less and more guesswork.
The tone is rather 20-20 hindsight. The author points out a lot of mistakes each side makes without really going into "this is how these guys saw it so it makes sense from their POV".
My sense is that the bias is that the author would like to avoid war — several times he strings together a string of unlike what-if's that might have resulted in armed conflict and portraying it as a horror to be avoided. And maybe because of that I get the feeling the author would be just fine if the PRC took over Taiwan (without war, not necessarily peacefully though) and therefore ended that possible flashpoint.
This is my first book on Taiwan and the political history side seems ok. Did not appreciate the tone nor bias (I wouldn't say pro-PRC but more like pro-this problem should go away and if the price is Taiwan's current independence then that's fine).
It's a political history starting from the end of the last Chinese Dynasty, when the KMT party was created and ending I guess late 2023 or early 2024 (book was published May 2024 so I guess published quickly to make it trendy).
The main part is Taiwan's political history from the KMT takeover through their dictatorship which ended in the 1970's and then democracy. Meanwhile you get things that the USA did or mainland China did as they evolve their relationship with Taiwan as a key bone of contention.
A lot of four on internal politics in Taiwan and USA since I guess there are more documents available whereas PRC (People's Republic of China) coverage is less and more guesswork.
The tone is rather 20-20 hindsight. The author points out a lot of mistakes each side makes without really going into "this is how these guys saw it so it makes sense from their POV".
My sense is that the bias is that the author would like to avoid war — several times he strings together a string of unlike what-if's that might have resulted in armed conflict and portraying it as a horror to be avoided. And maybe because of that I get the feeling the author would be just fine if the PRC took over Taiwan (without war, not necessarily peacefully though) and therefore ended that possible flashpoint.
This is my first book on Taiwan and the political history side seems ok. Did not appreciate the tone nor bias (I wouldn't say pro-PRC but more like pro-this problem should go away and if the price is Taiwan's current independence then that's fine).