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Taiwan and the One China Principle

Taiwan and the One China Principle Since the conclusion of the Chinese civil war in 1949, China and Taiwan have functioned as separate nations. There has always been the promise by Taiwan to reunify with the mainland, but no real, concerted effort has ever been made. This and the actions of the United States on behalf of Taiwan have caused China to become threatened by the situation in recent months. The Chinese government released a statement last week that will bring the situation to a head in the near future. In light of China’s statement and the response of Taiwan and the U.S., we have to ask what the situation means for China/U.S. relations. There are many factors to this situation, and they make it very hard to understand, but there is an inevitable conclusion that can be drawn from the facts. This conflict between China and Taiwan will directly result in an armed conflict between the U.S. and China. It will result in war because of the political climate between the PRC and the U.S., the white paper released by the PRC last Tuesday, and the United States’ dedication to defending Taiwan. The political climate between the U.S. and China in the last few months has been strained to say the least. The Clinton administration has been lobbying toward permanent normal trade relations with China and membership for China in the World Trade Organization for the majority of this term. This policy has met great opposition in Washington and from many different organizations in the U.S., and through the release of the white paper last week; China has greatly jeopardized its position. Adding to this, the U.S. Senate, which has never fully supported the policy of the Clinton administration on China, has not been motivated to further the process of unrestricted trade or WTO membership, but has been pushed toward passing the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act. The act, if passed, will require a greater volume of arms to be sold to Taiwan this year than in previous years, including the groundwork for a missile defense system. By issuing the white paper at such a critical moment in negotiations with the U.S., China has destroyed any chance of free trade with the U.S. or membership in the WTO as far as Congress is concerned. In addition, China deliberately withheld their intentions for a policy shift in Taiwan from a U.S. delegation to China just two weeks ago; the delegation learned of the shift only after they had returned to the U.S. These actions of the Chinese government weren’t received well by the U.S. government to say the least. To further add to the tension, China also is trying to play with domestic politics in both countries by releasing their statement a month from the election in Taiwan and in the middle of the presidential primaries in the U.S. They are trying to muscle candidates in both countries to submit to their agenda, a unified China in Taiwan’s case, and free trade and WTO membership in the case of the U.S., with the threat of force. The question that needs to be answered is what does China think it will gain from provoking the U.S. and Taiwan in this manner? China thinks that it will gain everything that it wants by threatening Taiwan, but the cost will be enormous. It seems clear that China wants reunification at any cost and it is boldly daring the U.S. to get involved. In essence, they are rattling their sabers to test the U.S. reaction. They are trying to bluff us into backing down on the Taiwan issue and we are not going to do it. The Taiwan Security Enhancement Act will be our saber rattler and it will go back and forth until someone shoots. They are trying to intimidate us to get their way in Taiwan, and it’s going to bite them hard in the end. The white paper that was released last Tuesday outlined the history of the Taiwan/China situation in traditional one-sided communist fashion. It also outlined its policy for “one country, two systems” with regard to reunification with Taiwan. The whole paper was filled with meaningless facts and presented no clear position other that the government wants both Chinas to be one country again. In the words of the Chinese ambassador Yu Shuning, “the statement was intended to let the international community…know China’s principle issue on Taiwan” and that the paper will “make the United States government better understand the settlement of the issue.” At least the intention was there because the document made nothing clear other than any further retardation of the reunification by any party other than the PRC will result in an attack on Taiwan. The paper thus increased tensions between China and Taiwan and the U.S., as it was probably intended to. The paper was largely a response to the current political situation in Taiwan. There is a presidential election in the next couple of weeks and it seriously threatens China. China is threatened because independence has been an underlying issue of the campaigns. China fears that if the favorite, Mr. Chen, wins, Taiwan will certainly move toward independence. This is an imagined threat because Mr. Chen has the same view on reunification that the Taiwanese government has maintained since the split. But China has been known to use new “policy” to get what it wants from the rest of the world. China has had a history of releasing controversial reports at seemingly odd times with respect to the current political situation of the world. In July, China released a 36-page report that mentioned casually that it had the neutron bomb and various miniature nuclear weapons.2 This report was released directly after the Taiwan president, Lee Teng-hui, had visited the U.S., a visit that was viewed by the Chinese as a step toward independence. To add to that situation, it was right in the middle of the arms secret theft by two Chinese scientists in the U.S.; again it was a situation of China telling Taiwan and the U.S. that it had the power and could be willing to use it if things don’t go their way. China is flexing its muscles to intimidate Taiwan, but why does that mean that the U.S. is involved? Since the Chinese civil war, the U.S. has put its support behind Taiwan. It did this to gain another foothold (besides Japan) in East Asia against communism and to create another strong trade ally. The U.S. did many of the same things economically for Taiwan as they did for Japan in the cold war years; we provided a market for their Japanese-model export goods, financial support, and defense for the island against attack. The U.S. government did all of these things for Taiwan, but what they said about Taiwan was quite different. In 1978, the U.S. and Chinese governments issued the Joint Communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the PRC as the “sole legal government of China” and “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of China.”3 This Joint Communiqué by the U.S. government is one of the main Chinese arguments for reunification, but the Chinese don’t take into consideration that it was a diplomatic move more than a serious statement on the status of Taiwan. The statement enabled trade between the U.S. and China; that was its goal; we told them what they wanted to hear to get what we wanted from them. This was definitely the case because we retained the same relationship with Taiwan that we had before the statement was made; we dealt with them as if they were a separate country as we still do. If we had really meant what we said, we would have changed our relationship with Taiwan. If anything we have strengthened that relationship in the years since. We remain committed to the defense of Taiwan against any foreign attack. In the current situation, that means we will defend them against China. We have troops there and we sent our fleet to the straits to warn off the Chinese in 1996 when they held war games that resembled an attack on Taiwan. That position still stands and it is the main reason that war is imminent. Should China cross to Taiwan, you can bet that every warhead that we have will be pointed at Chinese targets (assuming that they are not already) and that our troops and ships will be mobilized to counter attack. The other side is that China wants Taiwan at any cost and is willing to risk military defeat to get it. They are not happy with the state of negotiations for reunification and it appears that they will not become happy, so they will attack; it is just a question of how soon. So why don’t we leave them alone and let them do it to avoid a costly war, and move in for a trade agreement? The answer to that question is that that would be grossly un-American. We go to bat for our allies; we restructured our army to save the French in World War I, and in World War II we went in to save Europe from the Germans. We went to Korea to protect Japan (among other things) and we helped the French again in Vietnam (again among other things) and we have stepped in many other conflicts to protect the interests of our allies. To not do so in this instance would be to go back on our history and would contradict everything we stand for in our international policy. This situation has not reached crisis level yet, but it seems impossible to avoid a crisis for too long. The stubbornness of China on the issue, and our stubbornness to accept their answer will lead into escalating tensions and war. The nuclear question still looms over our heads, this time with the addition of the neutron bomb technology that both countries possess, so, in all likelihood, it will be more of a cold war than an actual armed conflict. I don’t think that either country is stupid enough to start shooting nukes given the environmental implications of a nuclear war, so, if there are any battles, they will be conventional in nature. The cold war rules apply when it comes to our relationship with China, including Mutually Assured Destruction, but it will be very different than the last cold war with the USSR due to our relatively extensive contact with the Chinese government4. We are acting in much the same way as we did in Korea and Vietnam; we are opposing communist rule in Taiwan and we are willing to use military force to see that it doesn’t become communist. The difference between the situations is that we have been using much more foresight in the current situation. We are trying to prevent conflict through negotiation with the Chinese, but their human rights violations and their position on Taiwan are making us less willing to give on many issues. By releasing the white paper with its guarantee of military action they might have lost all of their bargaining chips. But is china really that eager to cross the straits or are they just posturing to try to get us to stay out of it? The current policy trusts that China will not take any real action, and that is a comforting thought. We can sit back and think how nice it will be when we have free trade with China and we will be told that it is the direct result of not going to bat for Taiwan. But that would all be false security; the trade deficit would increase from its already intolerable level and you wouldn’t be able to find an item at the store that wasn’t made in a Chinese sweatshop. Allowing China its way in this situation and believing the Clinton Administration’s lies that free trade at any cost will make our country stronger would be an economic disaster. The fact of the matter is if we don’t think of the worst-case scenario in this situation, we are going to lose big. It would be nice to see the American government get tough in this instance. I would go so far as to say we should beat them to the punch by sending our fleet and more troops to Taiwan now. This would increase our presence and could use their own scare tactics to get them to back off from Taiwan. It would put the good cards into our hands and it would make it very difficult for the Chinese to order the attack. I don’t think that it would be over-aggressive on our part because they have directly threatened a country that we are sworn to protect. The uproar such an action by the U.S. would cause in the U.N. would be trivial given the fact that we would be acting alone. The U.N. is virtually powerless without the U.S. anyway, so it is likely that they would back us up as they did in the Gulf War. If we really wanted to put China in its place we would attack China, put down the communist regime and make the government of Taiwan the government of all China and help them restructure the country successfully. We would eliminate communism, liberate the Chinese people, and give Taiwan more resources with which to become an even greater economic power. This would give us free trade with the good guys and they would probably gain entry into the WTO as well, it would be a win-win situation for everyone; hostilities would be gone, trade would be opened up, and Japan might even get a clue and let our products into their country. We would also gain a very strong ally much the same way we did in Japan and Germany. If we act now and get aggressive with China we do face the possibility of military defeat, and that would be a disaster. We would take on a seriously bad reputation and we would lose serious clout in the international arena. But China can’t take us because our military and allies are much stronger5. They will lose in a war and they are still provoking it. Taiwan still wants independence and they will get it eventually no matter what sort of statements China makes. Even considering the other side of the story, it is still in our best interest to take care of this situation using the necessary force before it gets out of hand. That is just one man’s opinion, but I think either option would work and the whole world would benefit. Neither of those scenarios is very likely to happen because the U.S. will probably take a more defensive stance on the situation, but I would like to see it go down like that. The facts of the matter are clear. If the China/U.S. relationship does not change soon, if China does not soften its policy (as outlined in the white paper) on Taiwan, there will be an armed conflict. Our hands are tied in this situation, we have to defend Taiwan and there is no alternative for us in this situation. We can only hope that the leaders of China and Taiwan see past their differences and find a reasonable solution with the help of the U.S. Bibliography: Bibliography 141 Questions and Answers About the Republic of China. Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China: Chung Hwa Information Service, 1978. The People’s Republic of China. The One China Principle and the Taiwan Issue. Coates, Ken, ed. China and the Bomb. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1986. Eckholm, Erik, and Steven Lee Myers. “Taiwan asks U.S. to Let it Obtain Top-Flight Arms.” New York Times 1 March 2000. Perlez, Jane. “Warning By China to Taiwan Poses Challenge to U.S.” New York Times 27 Feb. 2000. Schmitt, Eric. “U.S. Rejects China’s Taiwan Views.” New York Times 23 Feb. 2000. United States. National Research Council. Panel on Global Climate Change Sciences in China. China and Global Change: opportunities for Collaboration. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992.

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