| Summary: | <p>This thesis studies the diplomatic behaviours of Nationalist China on Taiwan in
the period from 1958-1971. It examines the decision-making process over the
episodes including the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis; the Chinese representation
debate in the United Nations in 1961; the façade of a military crisis in 1962; the
involvement in the Vietnam War from 1964-1966; and the withdrawal from the
United Nations in 1971. It addresses questions including: what were the
calculations and motivations of Nationalist China’s officials when dealing with
those episodes? How far was policy formulation shaped by their understanding
of the domestic political dynamics and the international circumstances? To what
extent were the behaviours of Nationalist China relevant to the Cold War? And
how influential was the Cold War as a factor on decision-making? These
questions are the lenses from which we make sense of the trajectory in which
Nationalist China’s leaders struggled for consolidating their political status and
attaining the state of stability.</p>
<p>This thesis argues that Nationalist China had agency and possessed the
authority to guide its own course, and that its policy-makers made decisions
based on the calculation on what they deemed as capable of ensuring the stability
of the regime, thereby its survival. In order to achieve these objectives, the leaders
placed the maintenance of the status quo and preservation of the political order
at their top priority. They put the framework of geopolitics in disguise as a means
of gaining credibility. Depending on the circumstances, they sometimes even
sought to gain political leverage by claiming that their actions fit into the Cold
War struggle. With the use of multifarious archival resources, this thesis provides
a more nuanced understanding of the international profile of Nationalist China
and offers new dimensions for the existing historiography of postwar Taiwan.</p>
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