Source: In The Japan-U.S. Alliance and China-Taiwan Relations

An examination of  “political-military crisis” and “crisis management” in the context of Sino-U.S. relations. Swaine identifies several key principles of successful crisis management:  among them, maintain direct channels of communication and send signals that are clear, specific, and detailed; preserve limited objectives and limited means on behalf of such objectives, and sacrifice unlimited goals; and preserve military flexibility, escalate slowly, and respond symmetrically (in a “tit-for-tat” manner).  It assess the degree to which Washington and Beijing are willing or able to implement these principles, and examines the difficulties involved in applying such principles to a Sino-U.S. crisis over Taiwan in particular.  Swaine concludes with some observations on the implications of this analysis for the U.S.-Japan alliance and Japanese crisis behavior and offers some recommendations.