The Republic of China's new national strategy for the post-Cold War world

A general theory of strategy allows scholars to explain or predict national strategies based on certain stable social characteristics. The interactions between national values and national strategy is tested here on a case study of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. The first part of the paper concerns itself with the identification of the ROC's national values. Taiwanese society is deemed to have materialism and individualism as national values. Accordingly, the theory predicts that Taiwan will adopt a direct strategy of action. An examination of the historical record of the ROC on Taiwan under the process of de-Chiangization takes up the first part of the paper. The second half of the paper concerns itself with empirical investigation of the hypothesis.