On The Status Of Taiwan In The Japan-US Security System

The topic of this essay is how the status of Taiwan changed in the US-Japan alliance. Dividing by three stages,50's to early 70's, mid 70's to 90's,90's to pre-911 and post-911, this paper analyzes changes of Taiwan's status in the foreign policy of the US-Japan alliance and the reasons for the phenomena in each stage. Through the analysis of the official texts and the research of history, this paper comes to the conclusion that the changes, of all the four periods, can be summed up into three main rules. First of all, if the Sino-US-Japan Trilateral Relations was among the harmony, Taiwan's status would not be prominent. Second, if there was a more important goal to prevent, Taiwan's position would be relatively weakened. Third, if there was obvious contradiction between Taiwan Strait, Taiwan's status would be relatively increased. At the end, the author forecasts Taiwan's status in the US-Japan alliance in the future, using the view of the conclusions above.