7 - Postscript

Summary

This book focuses on cross-strait relations from early 2000 when Chen Shuibian won the presidential election in Taiwan up to August 2001 when the manuscript was submitted for publication. Events after that date have further proved the major arguments in the book. For instance, the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the United States have demonstrated the prescience in my earlier analysis in the book of the eroding U.S. security surplus and its vulnerability to asymmetrical warfare by smaller powers and global terrorists.

I said in the book that, nowadays, with the rapid advances in military technology, more and more medium and small countries, and even global terrorist groups have, or will have, more lethal but low-cost weapons that could threaten vital U.S. interests in the mainland in a potential asymmetrical warfare, without possessing and sending powerful naval and air fleets across the two oceans. Hence, instead of just with Canada and Mexico, the United States has suddenly “bordered” itself with many other countries in this increasingly globalized world, more and more unsure of where the threat would come from next. Its surplus security has thus been massively reduced to a lower level than even half a century ago despite having much more glaringly expensive weapons in its hands. The gap between America and other major powers is fast vanishing in terms of security surplus, if not in absolute terms of military weapons. This trend, if not reversed by a correct strategy, may eventually cost America its capability for world leadership.

I also pointed out that together with the diminishing security surplus is the diminishing marginal strategic utility of America's military strength that also contributes to the erosion of the U.S. security surplus. Therefore, to the United States, China is not the sole or even the most serious problem in the new century.