Taiwan's strategic role and national policy during the Cold War: re-examination of de-classified documents

This thesis looks at Taiwan’s strategic role and national policy during the Cold War in hope to answer to current decay of relationship between US-China and China-Taiwan. It affirms three major points with the re-examination of recently de-classified documents. Firstly, one could argue that Chiang’s development of the Taiwan strategy was shaped more by personal factors than by adherence to a specific political ideology, not to downplay the latter factor, which adheres to what many scholars assert, including that of John Garver (Garver 2015) and Tubilewciz (Tubilewicz 2005). Secondly, that despite the general facade of an alliance between the USSR-CCP and the USA-KMT during the beginning of the Cold War, there is much more underlying tension and disagreement between the two alliances due to the unspoken risk of Nuclear War between the USA and the USSR if Taiwan were to face a full-scale invasion after their relocation of 1949. Finally, that the strategies and policies hence of Taiwan during the Cold War aligns with its need for security, party survival, and the statehood of the "Republic of China", considering the threat of the Taiwan Strait Crisis and the problem of the Taiwan Question.