미중 전략경쟁 시대 양안 안보 딜레마의 동학

Abstract

Since the Trump administration took office, the United States has taken a strategy to gain the upper hand in negotiations with China by pressuring China by using the ‘Taiwan card’ and strengthening relations with Taiwan. China’s Xi Jinping regime seeks to secure the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s ruling based on nationalist sentiment. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, also gained political power based on Taiwanese nationalism and anti-Chinese sentiment. The security crisis of the Taiwan Strait is escalating and falling into a serious security dilemma as the platform for communication and negotiation between the Chinese Communist Party and the Democratic Progressive Party disappears due to the international political structure of U.S.-China strategic competition and the domestic political factors of China, Taiwan and the U.S., which are in a triangular relationship over the Taiwan Strait. As strategic competition between the U.S. and China has been structured and prolonged, Taiwan’s strategic importance has increased, and in particular, as competition in the technology sector is a decisive factor in the U.S.-China competition, the importance of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry has grown, making it difficult for the U.S. to abandon Taiwan. On the other hand, as Taiwan’s localism was strengthened amid democratization and demographic changes in Taiwan, it became difficult for the CCP to expect unification through peaceful means. In addition, after Xi Jinping came to power, the possibility of using non-peaceful means is often mentioned in China’s discourses on unification. Nevertheless, China’s invasion of Taiwan is a high-risk option because it has to take a large risk for China, so it is a matter of political decision. The failure to deter war in the Taiwan Strait is likely to arise from Chinese leaders’ misperception of the US capabilities and intentions. The possibility of a Chinese invasion to Taiwan is likely to increase when the United States is considered politically unwilling to intervene and lacks the ability to intervene in the Taiwan Strait militarily, as well as when Taiwan is evaluated that it will surrender to China in a short period of time.