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

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
• Introduction to Political Science
• Readings in Humanities
• U.S. China Relations
• East Asia: History and Politics
• American Foreign Policy

Teaching Interests:

• International Relations
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• China/East Asian Politics
• Foreign Relations

Research Interests:

• U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations
• Foreign Policy Decision-Making
• International Politics

Scholarly Activity:

Books

• U.S.-China-Taiwan in the Age of Trump and Biden: Towards a Nationalist Strategy (London/New York: Routledge, 2022).
• U.S.-China Rivalry and Taiwan’s Mainland Policy: Security, Nationalism, and the 1992 Consensus (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
• U.S. Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012).

Journal Articles

• “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, no. 4 (2023), pp. 668-701.
• “Learning the Wrong Lessons from Ukraine? Sources of Beijing’s Misperceptions and Tensions across the Taiwan Strait”(coauthored with Yao-Yuan Yeh), American Journal of Chinese Studies 29, no. 2 (2022), pp. 171-180.
• “The End of Liberal Engagement with China and the New U.S.-Taiwan Focus,” Pacific Focus 35, no. 3 (2020), pp. 397-435.
• “The Trump Administration’s One-China Policy: Tilting toward Taiwan in an Era of U.S.-PRC Rivalry?” Asian Politics & Policy 11, no. 2 (2019), pp. 250-278.
• “Liberal Internationalism, Jacksonian Nationalism, and the US ‘One-China’ Policy,” Asian Survey 57, no. 5 (2017), pp. 885-909.
• “U.S.-China Rivalry and the Weakening of the KMT’s ‘1992 Consensus’ Policy: Second-Image Reversed, Revisited,” Asian Survey 56, no. 4 (2016), pp. 754-778.
• “Security, Domestic Divisions, and the KMT’s Post-2008 ‘One China’ Policy: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 15, no. 2 (2015), pp. 319-365.
• “Constructing Peaceful Development: The Changing Interpretations of ‘One China’ and Beijing’s Taiwan Strait Policy,” Asian Security 10, no. 1 (2014), pp. 22-46.
• “The Strategic Implications of Ma Ying-jeou’s ‘One ROC, Two Areas’ Policy on Cross-Strait Relations,” American Journal of Chinese Studies 20, no. 1 (2013), pp. 23-41.

Book Chapters

• “On Route to Greater Strategic Clarity on Taiwan: Obama, Trump, and Biden,” (coauthored with Yao-Yuan Yeh) in Yao-Yuan Yeh and Charles K.S. Wu, eds., New Developments in the Trilateral Relationship between the United States, Taiwan, and China (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2025), forthcoming.
• “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 (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), forthcoming.
• “Xi Jinping and the Derailment of the KMT-CCP ‘1992 Consensus,’” in Qiang Fang & Xiaobing Li, eds., China under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment (Leiden University Press, 2024), pp. 223–252.
• “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 (Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), pp. 347-396.
• “Fascism with Chinese Characteristics: Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Vision in the 1930s and Implications for U.S.-PRC Rivalry Today,” in Shiping Hua, ed., Chinese Ideology (New York: Routledge, 2022), pp.111-130.
• “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 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), pp. 257-277.
• “In the Shadow of Great-Power Rivalry,” in Kharis Templeman, Yun-han Chu, and Larry Diamond, eds., Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2020), pp. 361-383.
• “Foreign Policies of East Asia,” (coauthored with Dennis V. Hickey) in Shiping Hua, ed., Routledge Handbook of Politics in Asia (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 76-97.
• “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 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 31-54.
• “The Evolution of Taiwan’s Policies toward the Political Participation of Citizens Abroad in Homeland Governance,” (coauthored with Pei-te Lien) in Tan Chee-Beng, ed., Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 42-58.