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Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)<br />

Military Expenditure Database, available from www.sipri.org/<br />

research/armaments/milex/milex_database.<br />

Figure 9-1. Taiwan’s Defense Spending, 1990-2012.<br />

TAIWAN’S SECURITY ENVIRONMENT<br />

These trends are surprising when one considers<br />

the inhospitable security environment in which Taiwan<br />

has found itself in the past 2 decades. In 1995,<br />

the PLA conducted a series of missile tests in waters<br />

around Taiwan to express its displeasure at former<br />

Republic of China (ROC) President Lee Teng-hui’s<br />

visit to the United States. China did so again in the<br />

lead-up to Taiwan’s 1996 presidential election. In both<br />

cases, the United States responded by sending aircraft<br />

carriers to the region.<br />

In 2005, Washington was seemingly preoccupied<br />

with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Beijing was<br />

facing a Taiwanese president (Chen Shui-bian) who<br />

prioritized asserting Taiwan’s status as an independent<br />

democratic state. Against this backdrop, Beijing<br />

204

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