Professor of Political Science

Year Joined RCNJ: 2012

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-7755
• Email: dchen@ramapo.edu
• Office: B-203
• Office Hours: T 2:00-5:00 pm; Also By Appt

Education:

• B.A., San Francisco State University
• M.A., University of California, Santa Barbara
• Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara

Courses Offered:

• International Politics
• United Nations: World Politics
• China: History, Politics, and Culture
• Political Science Senior Seminar
• Studies in Arts & Humanities
• U.S. China Relations
• East Asia: History and Politics
• American Foreign Policy
• China’s Political Economy in the Digital Age

Teaching Interests:

• International Relations
• UN & International Institutions
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• Sino-American Relations & Diplomatic History
• Chinese Political Economy
• China & East Asian Politics

Research Interests:

• American Grand Strategies
• U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations
• Chinese Political Economy
• Foreign Policy Analysis
• International Security
• The State and Neoclassical Realism

Scholarly Activity:

Books (Peer-Reviewed)

• 2022. U.S.-China-Taiwan in the Age of Trump and Biden: Towards a Nationalist Strategy. London/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003286615.
• 2017. U.S.-China Rivalry and Taiwan’s Mainland Policy: Security, Nationalism, and the 1992 Consensus. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47599-8.
• 2012. U.S. Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781935049845.

Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed)

• 2026. International Crises and China’s Technonationalist Strategies: Chiang Kai-Shek’s Prewar S&T Planning versus Xi Jinping’s Amid U.S.-PRC Rivalry. Asian Politics & Policy 18(2): e70083. https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.70083.
• 2023. China’s Leninist State and Strategic Relations with the United States: Chiang’s KMT in Nanjing Decade and Implications for the Chinese Communist Party after 1949. Asian Politics & Policy 15 (4): 668-701. https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.12714.
• 2022. Learning the Wrong Lessons from Ukraine? Sources of Beijing’s Misperceptions and Tensions across the Taiwan Strait. American Journal of Chinese Studies 29 (2): 171-180. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45437144. (coauthored with Yao-Yuan Yeh).
• 2020. The End of Liberal Engagement with China and the New U.S.-Taiwan Focus. Pacific Focus 35 (3), 397-435. https://doi.org/10.1111/pafo.12176.
• 2019. The Trump Administration’s One-China Policy: Tilting toward Taiwan in an Era of U.S.-PRC Rivalry? Asian Politics & Policy 11 (2): 250-278. https://doi.org/10.1111/aspp.12455.
• 2017. Liberal Internationalism, Jacksonian Nationalism, and the U.S. One China Policy. Asian Survey 57 (5): 885-909. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2017.57.5.885.
• 2016. U.S.-China Rivalry and the Weakening of the KMT’s “1992 Consensus” Policy: Second-Image Reversed, Revisited. Asian Survey 56 (4): 754-778. https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2016.56.4.754.
• 2015. Security, Domestic Divisions, and the KMT’s Post-2008 “One China” Policy: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 15 (2): 319-365. https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcv001.
• 2015. America’s Liberal Culture, One China, and the Security of Taiwan. American Journal of Chinese Studies 22 (Special Issue): 209-233. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44289168.
• 2014. Constructing Peaceful Development: The Changing Interpretations of “One China” and Beijing’s Taiwan Strait Policy. Asian Security 10 (1): 22-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/14799855.2013.874337.
• 2013.The Strategic Implications of Ma Ying-jeou’s “One ROC, Two Areas” Policy on Cross Strait Relations. American Journal of Chinese Studies 20 (1): 23-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44289005.

Book Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)

• 2025. On Route to Greater Strategic Clarity on Taiwan: Obama, Trump, and Biden. In Yao-Yuan Yeh and Charles K.S. Wu, eds., New Developments in the Trilateral Relationship between the United States, Taiwan, and China (pp. 97-123). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781978747968.ch-006. (coauthored with Yao-Yuan Yeh).
• 2025. U.S. Industrial Policy for the 21st Century: The Washington-Taipei Techno-Democracy Partnership amidst Chip Rivalry with Beijing. In Peter C. Y. Chow (Ed.), Technology Rivalry between the USA and China (pp. 27-57). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76169-0_2.
• 2023. Competitions and Coalitions: An Emerging U.S. Domestic Nationalist Consensus, Executive Branch Prerogatives, and the Taiwan Strait Tensions. In Wei-chin Lee (Ed.), Protests, Pandemic, and Security Predicaments: Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and the U.S. in the 2020s (pp. 347-396). Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33776-5_11.
• 2022. Fascism with Chinese Characteristics: Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist Vision in the 1930s and Implications for U.S.-China Rivalry Today. In Shiping Hua (Ed.), The Chinese Ideology (pp. 111-131). London/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003007364.
• 2022. Trump, Biden, and China: From a Wilsonian World Order to Jacksonian Nationalism. In Shiping Hua (Ed.), The Political Logic of the U.S.-China Trade War (pp. 257-277). Lanham, MD: Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781978733084.ch-13.
• 2020. In the Shadow of Great-Power Rivalry. In Kharis Templeman, Yun-han Chu, and Larry Diamond (Eds.), The Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Era. (pp. 361-384). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781626379220-018.
• 2018. Foreign Policies of East Asia. In Shiping Hua (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of Politics in Asia (pp. 76-97). London/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315627670. (coauthored with Dennis Hickey).
• 2014. An Indispensable Pillar of Obama’s “Pivot” to Asia: Continuing Strategic Ambiguity across the Taiwan Strait. In Peter Chow (Ed.), The U.S. Strategic Pivot to Asia and Cross Strait Relations (pp. 31-54). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137360779_3.
• 2013. The Evolution of Taiwan’s Policies toward the Political Participation of Citizens Abroad in Homeland Governance. In Tan Chee-Beng (Ed.), Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora (pp. 42-58). London/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203100387. (coauthored with Pei-te Lien).

Policy Papers & Monographs

• 2024. The Role of the 1992 Consensus and Taiwan’s 2024 Presidential Elections. EWC Occasional Papers Series # 6. East-West Center Washington. (coauthored with Kiely Paris-Rodriguez).
• 2013. Sustaining the Triangular Balance: The Taiwan Strait Policy of Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, and Ma Ying-jeou. Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies. Baltimore: MD: University of Maryland School of Law.

Book Reviews

• 2023. Review of Taiwan and the Changing Dynamics of Sino-U.S. Relations: A Relational Approach by Hung-Jen Wang Routledge 2022. International Journal of Asian Studies 20(2): 934-936. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591422000201.
• 2017. Review of American Justice in Taiwan: The 1957 Riots and Cold War Foreign Policy by Stephen G. Craft University Press of Kentucky 2016. Pacific Historical Review 86 (4): 739-740. https://doi.org/10.1525/phr.2017.86.4.739.