Drawing a line in the Taiwan Strait: 'Strategic ambiguity' and its discontents

The Bush administration's continuing emphasis on US military deterrence of the PRC on behalf of Taiwan threatens to undermine the posture of 'strategic ambiguity' that the United States has proclaimed since 1979. This article argues for the retention of 'strategic ambiguity' and traces the origins of revisionist sentiment towards this effective conflict avoidance mechanism to reactions within the US foreign policy community to the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis. Case studies of this crisis and its predecessors in 1954-55 and 1958 demonstrate that US military deterrence was not a decisive factor in their resolution. US and PRC initiatives and responses in the 1950s crises introduced the essential elements of 'strategic ambiguity' into the triangular relationship between themselves and Taiwan. In particular, they established a precedent for the United States and the PRC in circumscribing the issue of Taiwan so as to achieve a political accommodation.     

Why the Śailendras were not a Javanese dynasty

Archaeologists and art historians generally agree that most of the 8th- to 9th-century Buddhist temples in central Java were constructed by the rulers who claimed to belong to the ?ailendra dynasty. But the unsolved question preying on the minds of scholars for many decades now is the origins of this dynasty. Drawing on a variety of arguments this study contends that the present popularity of the ?ailendra dynasty's Javanese origin is ill-founded, and urges a resumption of research into its foreign origins, whether in India, Sri Lanka or mainland Southeast Asia.     

Environmental Accounts for Land Cover: Their Contribution to 'State of the Environment' Reporting

This paper critically reviews the way land-cover stock and change data are used for 'state of the environment' reporting. The paper considers the relative merits of the indicator approach as opposed to one based on natural resource accounting. It is shown that indicators have a number of shortcomings as measures of the sustainability of land-cover change, and that land-cover accounts offer a more rigorous framework in which to develop and test policy. The argument draws upon the experience gained in the preparation of land-cover accounts for Great Britain using data from Countryside Survey 1990.     

Judicial Bookshelf

Too little attention is sometimes directed to those supports that undergird what is valued most. For example, one current of American intellectual life in the nineteenth century sought a society that would run by itself. Despite vast differences among them, architects of experimental utopian communities, laissez-faire economists, and Marxists had at least one thing in com-mon: all anticipated a day when "the state" would shrink into a minimal background role or wither away completely. In contrast, the twentieth century demonstrated not only the endurance but also the power of political institutions. Government was here to stay, often for the better, as illustrated in the United States as much by the Herculean efforts to end the Great Depression or to conquer space as by the routine maintenance of a climate conducive to "the pursuit of happiness." Yet government could also manifest itself with a vengeance, as illustrated by the oppression and carnage wrought by totalitarianism. Anyone who has thought about why some countries are long on freedom and others short knows that many factors and conditions incline societies toward one and away from the other. Yet two essential elements stand out: limited government and rule of law. The first proclaims that there are certain policies which government may not pursue; the second codifies those restraints independent of those who administer them. The first places some objectives out of reach, and the second sets the ruler apart from the rules. Louis XIV's reputed boast "L'ëtat, c'est moi" is as alien to as it is subversive of both.