The Stomach to Fight? Experimental Evidence on US Public Support for Taiwan

• In Event: Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons

Abstract

Would the US public support defending Taiwan? What kind of support would the US public be willing to provide? As China’s military strength increases and tensions in the Taiwan Strait continue to mount, many analysts and policymakers contend that the Taiwan Strait is once again a flashpoint that could erupt in violent conflict. Should a military conflict occur, US political, financial, and military support would have significant implications for the outcome of such a conflict. If US leaders overestimate US public support for Taiwan, it could lead it to engage in a conflict that would prove highly costly and unpopular. Conversely, if Chinese leaders underestimate US public support, deterrence could fail. This article identifies and develops a set of hypotheses about the factors likely to affect public support for intervening in Taiwan. The article then tests these hypotheses using a conjoint survey experiment assessing the effects of randomly varying frames on American public support for defending Taiwan. In so doing, it also considers how various attributes of the conflict affect levels of public support for defending Taiwan.

Author

• Lincoln Hines, Georgia Institute of Technology