Zhang, J. (1999) A game-theoretic analysis of the political situation across Taiwan Strait. In J. Zhang and Y. Yu (Eds), Taiwan in the 21st Century: the Mainland Chinese Scholars Looking Ahead, Global Publishing Co., River Edge, New Jersey. pp 217-236 (in Chinese). SUMMARY The chapter models the Cross-Strait relations between China and Taiwan and the issue of Taiwan Independence as a non-cooperative game by two players trying to maximize their respective payoffs when outcome is jointly determined by their strategies. Here I apply the metagame theory developed by N. Howard in the late 60s to derive meta-equilibrium solutions after an analysis of each player’s strategy (x or y), meta-strategy (or policy, such as “If opponent does x, then I will do y”), and meta-meta-strategy (or counter-policy, such as “If opponent executes policy X, and I will do y”). Depending on whether war is more preferred to forced unification by China (from Taiwan’s perspective) or to unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan (from China’s perspective), four possible scenarios with distinct payoff structures have been assumed. For each scenario, meta-equilibria are obtained through exhaustive listing of meta-games of all titles up to level two; they are discussed in the geopolitical context surrounding 1996 national presidential election in Taiwan.