"Accidental State explores the historical formation in the late 1940s and early 1950s of a de facto state on Taiwan separate from the de facto state ruling the Chinese mainland. The peculiar status of the Republic of China on Taiwan as an independent state but not quite a nation-state is important for our understanding of modern East Asia. Too often we have tended to view the existence of the two political entities across the Taiwan Strait as a logical and most likely consequence of the Chinese civil war fought bitterly after World War II between Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong. This book offers a new historical outlook, arguing that the making of the separate Taiwan state was by no means the result of deliberate forethought and planning either by the United States, the Nationalists, or the Communists. The process of this statemaking was intriguing, contingent, and inadvertent, and was never intended when the fate of Taiwan was first planned by FDR, Chiang Kai-shek, and Winston Churchill in the middle of World War II."--Provided by publisher.

1.Taiwan in the balance -- 2. A troubled beginning -- 3. Reformulating U.S. policy toward Taiwan -- 4. Chiang Kai-shek in eclipse -- 5. Last gasp on the mainland -- 6. Floating state, divided strategy -- 7. U.S. military and security policy goes underground -- 8. The island redoubt reinvigorated -- 9. Between mainland and maritime strategies -- 10. The making of an island state.