EVENTS

On January 5, 1950, the Truman administration announced its “Hands-off policy” toward the Chinese Nationalist (or Koumintang, KMT) government on Taiwan. The US government planned to withdraw from the quagmire of Chinese Civil War by distancing itself from KMT’s leader Chiang Kai-shek.

Dr. Liu’s research explores the birth and development of the “Hands-off Policy” and how the KMT government adjusted its diplomatic strategy to adapt the change of US China policy. By using declassified files from US and Taiwan, he argues that the “Hands-off Policy” is the product of irreconcilable divergence between the Departments of State and Defense. This divergence was exacerbated by the post-war US bipartisan politics. Decision-makers in Washington DC had considered to detach Taiwan from KMT government’s control over the island, but this attempt eventually failed.

US policy towards Taiwan today can even be traced back to the 1950s. Although the importance of Taiwan and its definition changes in different time, “strategic ambiguity” has always been the core in US Taiwan policy. As Washington distanced itself from Chiang and his government, the KMT regime adjusted its US policy from relying on the formal channels to using more back or personal channels, including the “China Lobby” in Congress and secret relationships with government officials, military officers and politicians. Many of these tactics are still used by Taipei to maintain the relationship with US today.

About the Speaker

Roger Chi-feng Liu is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Security Studies at JSIA. Professor Liu earned his Ph.D. in political science from University of South Carolina. His research interests span political geography, geopolitics/geoeconomics, interstate/intrastate conflicts, geographic/quantitative IR methodology and governments and politics of East Asia countries. Professor Liu’s latest research project based on his doctoral research, "The Geography of Conflict: Using GIS to Analyze Israel’s External and Internal Conflict Systems (co-authored with Harvey Starr and G. Dale Thomas)," is published as a chapter in The Israeli Conflict System: Analytic Approaches by Routledge/Taylor and Francis Group in 2015. 

Dr. Liu had worked for major foreign policy think tanks in Taiwan as research fellows before he earned his Ph.D. He had also worked as a political reporter covering foreign affairs and China policy for major Chinese and English newspapers in Taiwan. His research papers and news reports have been referred and used by different government departments and agencies for policy analysis and implementation. Professor Liu is currently also a correspondent research fellow with the Center for Globalization and Peace Research, Soochow University, Taiwan.