people，shouldhave learned from US support of Chiang Kai-shek's authoritarian regime（or perhapsfrom reading the thoughts of Samuel Huntington），Americans have not been consistentsupporters of majoritarian politics as such.Second ，the Taiwan Relations Act（TRA ）is a domestic US law ，not an international treaty of alliance.It saysAmerica will "maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort toforce ……that would jeopardize……the people of Taiwan"and will "make availableto Taiwan such defense articles ……to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability."But in the slippery style that should be expected of US lawyers ，it does not unambiguouslycommit America to defending the island with its own forces.The US government（for military purposes the President ，who is constitutionally Commander-in-Chiefno matter what reports Congress may require ）is likely to construe the TRA accordingto his or her view of overall US interests，including US prestige worldwide andUS interests in China.Nonetheless，the TRA should remain a major buttress fora potential cross-strait truce.In negotiating that ，Beijing cannot ask Taipeito rescind the TRA，since Taipei never passed it.If the ambiguous military aspectsof this foreign law give leaders on the small island more confidence that they canenter a credible truce with the big mainland，then even the imperialists may aidChinese unification.Third，each individual or collective can concurrently possessseveral different identities，any of which may become a basis for "self-determination."No group has an obvious right to determine the identity of any other，but any self-determinationimplies a responsibility to bear the consequences of whatever identity is selected.For example ，it is not evidently the right of mainland Chinese，nor certainlyof Americans，to tell Taiwanese who to be.By the same token ，Taiwanese ratherthan anyone else face the consequences that flow from the choices they make.Theyare accountable for any aftermath ，too，of the manner and time in which theypick their preferences.The American bias for the self-determination of peoples ，by democratic or any other methods，does not imply a US duty to be the main upholderof such a choice against resistance （unless some other US interest motivates adecision to help）。Max Weber has outlined the sort of morality that is relevanthere.A principle or "ultimate end，"e.g.an ethnicity ，does not exhaust theanalytic criteria for judging the ethics of a policy.What is right may also bedefined by net benefits ，consequences ，and "responsible"results.If most peopleon Taiwan decide they want to be Taiwanese and not Chinese（or if they postponethis choice until a time after which nobody will gain from trying to enforce it ），they alone have that right—and the parallel responsibility to take the consequences，alone if need be.Fourth，the US is interested in China's potential future democracyas well as Taiwan's current democracy.PRC and other Chinese leaders have oftenseen this interest merely as a legacy of missionary sermonizing ，19th centuryimperialism brought up-to-date in secular form.Do Americans have any concrete interestin making liberal critiques of authoritarian states with which US trade is profitable？Have the Americans any more-than-merely-meddlesome reasons to express themselveson human rights in places with different cultures such as China and Taiwan？DoAmericans benefit in protecting the island's people from a regime that still regularlyimprisons people for peaceful dissent ？The answer to these questions is positive.The US interest in foreign democracies is not just altruistic and not just electoralrhetoric by American politicians.Beyond the fact that state elites as a genre（including those in the US ）all tend to be arrogant，it is possible to explaina universally presentable Realpolitik reason why any liberal regime wants othersin the world：Such states do not attack each other.Immanuel Kant was the firstto note this odd fact.（He claimed to know the reason ："It is the spirit of commercethat sooner or later takes hold of every nation and is incompatible with war."）But the democratic peace conjecture is most cogent as an empirical finding，notas a normative philosophy.The theoretical reasons why it holds true in historicalcases are quite unclear.Recent research has refined the conjecture by looking atconflicts of various sizes，showing that democracies go to war as often as otherregimes —although not against each other ，and often against weaker states.Geographicaldistances and past alliance patterns may affect the evidence.Authoritarian countriesthat are arguably in the process of democratization （the PRC is the globe's largestexample in this coding category ）tend to be particularly bellicose，althoughthey become more pacific toward other liberal states when democracy seems irreversible.Also，international institutions can engage non-liberal countries in peace mechanisms（e.g.，at the UN，where the PRC has gained so much face on the Security Councilthat it has behaved more carefully than anyone had earlier predicted）。Such institutionshelp the non-violent resolution of disputes regardless of state forms.But establisheddemocracies apparently need nothing more than their mutual liberalism to get alongwell，even when they have radically different levels of objective power.This historicalbut atheoretical conjecture has become an explicit ideological basis of Americanforeign policy.President Bill Clinton said in his 1994State of the Union speechthat "democracies don't attack each other."If so （and presuming the US will remaina democracy ），then there is a ubiquitous Realpolitik rather than a culture-specificmoralizing argument that a long-term aim of American policy should be to expandthe number and power of other democracies.The US wants to maintain its internationalinterests without much need to expend lives and wealth in future wars.China，becauseof its size and i