When Governments Collide in the Taiwan Strait

Are authoritarian states better at coercion than democracies? The latter frequently find it difficult to make credible and persuasive threats; orchestrate words and deeds; and signal by deed as well as by word. Authoritarian states are often believed to be less bound by constraints such as divided government and organizational rivalries, but this belief has rarely been tested. This paper examines the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis, in which the People's Republic of China was the coercer and the United States the target. A close examination of what China said and did reveals policy reversals and conflicting signals often associated with the US in the coercion literature.