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The primary objective of this paper is to gain a meaningful understanding of how security relationships develop between former colonies and their former colonizers. Identifying the conditions that prompt a former colony to reject a security partnership with its former colonizer, and, in contrast, the factors that encourage a former colony to embrace a security relationship with its former colonizer will expand one's understanding of the nature of security relations within international politics. Northeast Asia's political climate presents a fascinating case study to examine the politics of alignment. Specifically, this paper aims to first peer through the lens of Korea and Taiwan's unique colonial experiences under Japanese rule to provide historical context to understand why the ROK and Japan struggle to develop a robust military relationship despite perceiving some external threats in the region similarly, and, in contrast, why Taiwan welcomes a security partnership with Japan today. However, this does not mean that Japan and the ROK do not work together to advance each other's interests totally, nor does this study suggest that Japan and Taiwan do not face conflicts of interest. To achieve a more comprehensive understanding of Japan's relationship with Korea and Taiwan, this paper also considers how Seoul and Taipei's unique colonial experiences and contemporary security relationships with Japan affect cooperation across diplomatic channels and economic partnerships. This study also acknowledges that assessing Japan's relationships with Korea and Taiwan prior to the colonial period would be insightful, though it will focus primarily from 1895 to the present. In particular, four critical factors help to explain Japan-ROK's toxic security relationship and Japan-Taiwan's strong, albeit, de facto security partnership: 1) national identity shaped by each country's unique colonial experience under Japanese rule, 2) the United States' managerial role across both of its security triangles in Northeast Asia, 3) shared perceptions of common threats, and 4) the politics of formal military alliances versus the politics of de facto security partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the potential risk effects of alliance commitments on dispute onset and escalation. This issue is theoretically framed as a moral hazard problem from the economic literature: if one party (agent) pledges a particular commitment to another party (principal), the moral hazard for the agent arises if the principal's behavior (e.g. a reckless move) raises the risk for an agent to act on its behalf due to its contractual commitment to the principal. In international relations, alliance commitments might pose such a moral hazard risk in the context of extended deterrence. That is, how much can the protege's behavior vis-a-vis another state actually entrap its ally ("defender") into a conflict? I separate an answer to this question into two specific issues: (1) whether states with alliance commitments from others are more likely to initiate conflicts than other states without such alliance provisions; (2) given that a conflict is initiated between the protege and its opponent, whether the protege is likely to get an aid from its ally and at what escalation level. After the conceptual and theoretical discussion, the paper proceeds with a quantitative empirical analysis and draws conclusions for current U.S. policies in cases of its relations with Taiwan in East Asia, India and Pakistan in South Asia, and Israel in the Middle East. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the U.S. policy toward the Taiwan Strait under the administration of President George W. Bush. It puts the policy under historical perspective by examining the evolution of it. Some previous research literatures will be briefly discussed and argues that all of them cannot convincingly account for U.S. policy toward Taiwan in this time period. It proposes that there are two levels in the international system and rational actors at different levels will play different games to maximize their interests and power.

This study argues that, on the one hand, the reunification of China appears today mostly improbable, Yet, on the other hand, full international recognition of two Chinas remain also very unlikely in the foreseeable future. Like the Korean case, the relationship across the Taiwan Strait shows that the collapse of the Soviet bloc has not put an end to the Cold War in East Asia, or more generally to politic al and ideological rivalries which continue in other forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]