Bruce A. Elleman

"Why did the Chinese Empire collapse and why did it take so long for a new government to reunite China? Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989 seeks to answer these questions by exploring the most important domestic and international conflicts over the past 200 years, from the last half of the Qing Empire through to modern-day China. This book reveals how most of China's wars during this period were fought to preserve Chinese unity, and examines the cyclical pattern of imperial decline, fall, domestic chaos and, finally, the creation of a new unifying dynasty." "Exposing China as an imperialist country, and one which has often manipulated western powers in its favor, Bruce A. Elleman seeks to redress the view of China as a victimized nation. Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989 is a concise survey of the military history of China, and makes a valuable contribution to the debate over whether China poses a military threat to the West today."--Jacket.

"China shares borders with 20 neighboring countries--more than any other country in the world, by a factor of two. Each of the neighbors has its own national interests, and in some cases, that includes territorial and maritime jurisdictional claims in places that China also claims. Most of these 20 countries have had a history of border conflicts with China; some of them never amicably settled. This book brings together some of the foremost historians, geographers, political scientists, and legal scholars on modern Asia to examine each of China's twenty land or sea borders. The alphabetically arranged chapters cover Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei, Indonesia, India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, Pakistan, The Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, and Vietnam. Each chapter details the history and status of boundary setting and the ongoing management of transnational interactions--trade, resource exploitation, fishing rights, and population movements. An introduction and a concluding chapter draw out the implications of the book's twenty case studies. Issues examined include: the early history of setting the border with China; the ways in which China has acquired "new" boundaries as a result of changes in the international law of the sea; the type and intensity of China's border conflicts with its neighbors; successful efforts to delimit official borders; unsuccessful efforts to delimit borders; and areas where future border disputes could arise"--Supplied by publisher.

"This book considers the negotiation and conduct of civilian prisoner exchanges between the United States and Japan during the Second World War. Using recently released archival documents, this book examines the details of the diplomatic negotiations, the actual mechanics underlying the two successful exchanges, the reasons for the termination of the exchange program, and its final outcome."--BOOK JACKET.

"This monograph is intended as a contribution to both scholarship and professional naval thinking; it is an academic and comparative examination of twelve selected case studies from maritime history used to illuminate a range of concepts and uses of piracy suppression. The twelve case studies provide the basis for the conclusions, an approach that provides a more thorough understanding of the uses and limitations of naval antipiracy operations in the context of new maritime technologies and within a wider range of modern national policy goals than might otherwise be achievable. Above all this collection provides a sound basis for comparative analysis of varying historical experiences that can stimulate new and original thinking about a basic but often overlooked naval duty."--Foreword

Taiwan Straits: Crisis in Asia and the Role of the U.S. Navy traces the evolution of the tension between China and Taiwan. It details the history of the crises between them and brings this story forward into the present by considering continuing sources of conflict, present diplomatic efforts by the aggrieved nations and other key interests{u2014}from the United States and Europe to other regional powers{u2014}and future possible outcomes in the ongoing struggle between China and Taiwan relations.

Following its defeat on the mainland in 1949, the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan. Although the Nationalist navy was comparatively large, to many it seemed almost certain that the People's Republic of China (PRC) would attack and take Taiwan, perhaps as early as summer 1950. The Korean War began on 25 June 1950, however, and the possibility of a PRC invasion of Taiwan was countered when on 27 June President Harry S. Truman ordered the Seventh Fleet to "neutralize" the Taiwan Strait. Mao Zedong at first postponed and eventually canceled altogether his planned invasion of Taiwan. The U.S. Navy's Taiwan Patrol Force operation lasted from summer 1950 until at least 1979, arguably even sporadically after that date. Lasting twenty-nine years, the Taiwan Patrol Force was one of the longest naval operations in modern history. It was also one of the most successful, since -- as the most obvious symbol of American power -- it ensured that friction over the Taiwan Strait did not escalate into a full-blown war. In fact, the Taiwan Patrol Force did its job so well that virtually nothing has been written about it. U.S. Navy ships acted both as a buffer between the two antagonists and as a trip wire in case of aggression. The force fulfilled the latter function twice in the 1950s -- during the first (1954-55) and second (1958) Taiwan Strait crises -- and a third time in the next decade (1962), at which point additional U.S. Navy vessels were called in to assist. Even after the Taiwan Patrol Force was terminated in 1979 it continued in spirit, as shown by a fourth Taiwan Strait crisis. During the PRC missile tests of 1995-96 two U.S. aircraft carriers were deployed to the area, and in 2001, during the ten days of negotiations over the EP-3 incident of 1 April, a carrier was almost sent. As recently as 2009, when maritime tensions between an American survey ship and Chinese vessels threatened to escalate into a larger conflict, a U.S. Navy destroyer was sent to the scene. Thus, the patrolling functions that began in 1950 have continued largely unchanged to this day, as U.S. Navy vessels act to influence China's military, economic, and political relations with its maritime neighbors.