Xiaoting Li

I worked for the John Thornton China Center of the Brookings Institution in 2004-2007. My job at Brookings was to analyze Chinese foreign and security policy, with a focus on China-Taiwan-U.S. relations. Inseparable Separation is my first published book, which interprets the evolution of China's Taiwan policy over the past six decades. Drawing on many previously unused Chinese primary materials, I argue that China has, contrary to its often bellicose image, remained a status quo power on the Taiwan issue for many years. For the foreseeable future, Beijing would be mostly likely to leave Taiwan in peace, as long as the two sides of the Taiwan Strait continue to acknowledge that both of them are parts of a loosely defined "One China."

Since 2008, I have been enrolled as a PhD candidate (degree expected in 2013) in the Political Science Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. My dissertation deals with China's rise and its impact on international security. In particular, I am interested in exploring one question: Under what conditions would China resort to the threat or use of force against another state? In addressing the question, I argue that we need to take into account not only Beijing's growing power capabilities, but also its changing sense of (in)security. Using both historical case studies and large-N quantitative analysis, I demonstrate that China does not, as suggested by the conventional wisdom, act mainly according to the dictates of Realpolitik (power politics). Instead, the gradual softening of the militarized worldview held by successive Communist leaderships in Beijing has a major constraining impact on China's behavior in militarized interstate disputes.