The Bureaucratic Politics of US Arms Sales to Taiwan

Abstract

What influence do bureaucratic factors actually have on US arms sales to Taiwan? This is the core question that this essay addresses. The essay intends to analyze the processes of policy formulation behind US arms sales to Taiwan from bureaucratic decision-making perspective, using case studies that indicate the extent of bureaucratic models. It ultimately investigates and assesses the effectiveness of bureaucratic models in explaining US policy toward China. US arms sales to Taiwan is at the core of the US–Taiwan relationship; it is an indication of how the US regards Taiwan as a political entity and, as such, is a source of China–US friction and conflict. US military exports to Taiwan form the basis of research of many academic works on China–US relations and US policy toward China. Within the relevant American academic circles, US military exports to Taiwan is a focus of research on US policy toward China and US–China relations. Two such studies are particularly noteworthy in the context of this essay. The first focuses on the heightened tension in China–US relations during the early 1980s resulting from the Reagan Administration's intention to sell FX fighters. In his study, Doak A. Barnett analyzes the issue and its ramifications, particularly the influence that selling the FX fighters would have on US–China relations.1 As Barnett's book was published prior to the Reagan Administration's decision not to sell the FX fighters to Taiwan, one that was cut from the same cloth as Barnett's recommendations, many surmised that the Administration accepted Barnett's proposals. Another study by Dennis Hickey takes as its starting point US–Taiwan military and security relations, of which US military exports to Taiwan constitute an important aspect. After the establishment of China–US relations, Hickey conducted a deep and systematic research into US arms sales to Taiwan, particularly after the 17 August Communiqué of 1982, and uncovered certain details regarding the selling of F-16s to Taiwan by the George H. Bush Administration in 1992.2 The historical description and analysis approach of both Barnett and Hickey to their research is echoed among other works on US policy toward China and Sino–US relations, in which the relationship between Taiwan arms sales and the politics of decision-making models is not actually discussed. In recent years, advances have been made insofar as using different policy-making models to analyze particular periods and the important incidents in China–US relations,3 but no specialized research targeting systemic considerations has yet appeared on US weapons sales to Taiwan, and neither has any attempt been made to utilize the issue of US military exports to Taiwan in research examining the effectiveness of foreign policy decision-making models.