U.S. sees election as ?fresh opportunity? to resolve tensions
Chen?s presidency mostly reflects key domestic issues, officials say
By Steven Mufson
WASHINGTON POST
March 19 ? No issue in U.S.-China relations has required more finesse than how to deal with Taiwan. Now U.S. policymakers are hoping that the delicate balancing act they have tried to maintain for 25 years can survive the political earthquake that occurred yesterday when Taiwanese voters ousted the party that had ruled the island for half a century.
?This election demonstrates clearly the strength and vitality of Taiwan?s democracy. I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides to reach out and resolve their differences peacefully through dialogue.?
? PRESIDENT CLINTON
THE CHALLENGE is this: The Taiwan election brings to power Chen Shui-bian, whose Democratic Progressive Party officially rejects the U.S. and Chinese formulation that Taiwan and the mainland are part of ?one China.? Many of Chen?s closest allies have pressed for independence and asked the United States to provide the type of military cooperation and support that would wreck U.S. relations with China. Because of their fight for democracy on Taiwan, Chen and his followers have the ears of many members of Congress who equate the defense of Taiwan with the defense of U.S. principles and values.
Yet senior Clinton administration officials were pointing to early indications yesterday that the election of Chen could actually help break the deadlock that has plagued Taiwan?s relations with Beijing and eventually defuse an explosive point in U.S. relations with China.
Taiwanese elect opposition leader
A senior Defense Department official said he hoped that Chen, with a base that includes Taiwanese opposed to unifying with China, might have the political ability to make an overture to China much the way President Richard M. Nixon was able to overcome Republican Party opposition to reestablishing relations with Beijing in 1972.
A DOMESTIC REFERENDUM
Clinton administration officials were encouraged by Chen?s announcement that as president he would not declare independence from China and by his vow to look for ways to build bridges with the mainland. They also interpreted Chen?s victory as a referendum on corruption and domestic Taiwanese issues more than a declaration of independence by Taiwan voters. And they noted restraint yesterday in Beijing, which said it would talk to any Taiwanese leader committed to ?one China.? One administration official called Beijing?s response ?quite polite? and said ?the doors are open.?
As a result ? despite the Chinese Communist Party leaders? recent threats of military action against Taiwan, China?s cancellation of leaves of absence for troops in Fujian Province across from Taiwan and yesterday?s defiance by Taiwan?s electorate ? the Clinton administration plans no change in its policy.
?This election demonstrates clearly the strength and vitality of Taiwan?s democracy,? President Clinton said in a statement yesterday. ?I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides to reach out and resolve their differences peacefully through dialogue.?
Clinton reiterated the fundamentals of U.S. policy on the issue of Taiwan. He said the United States would maintain ?unofficial ties? with Taiwan through the quasi-official American Institute in Taiwan. The institute has handled ties since the United States downgraded relations with Taiwan at the same time it normalized relations with Beijing. Clinton also reaffirmed U.S. support for ?one China? and for the peaceful resolution of differences between Beijing and Taipei.
?The fundamentals of U.S. policy will remain consistent,? said a senior White House official. ?It does, in fact, provide a framework that keeps this issue from moving in the wrong direction. I think it creates the right incentives.?
A FAST-CHANGING SCENE
While U.S. policy has not changed, virtually every aspect of the situation regarding Taiwan has changed since Nixon and then-Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger built the framework for that policy. In 1972, Taiwan was a long-standing U.S. ally but essentially an economically backward dictatorship under the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who had lost a civil war on the mainland to the Chinese Communists. Today, Taiwan is a thriving example of capitalism and democracy, and its new leader has his roots on the island of Taiwan, not in mainland China.
The election yesterday ends 77 years in which the Chinese Nationalist Party ruled some part of China or Taiwan. U.S. ties to the party run deep, from its founder Sun Yat-sen to Chiang Kai-shek.
Until the 1970s, Taiwan commanded support in Congress because of that history and because of its links to the U.S. military. It was known as America?s ?unsinkable aircraft carrier,? and the U.S. Navy had come to its defense in the 1950s, in the early years of communist rule in China. The United States and Taiwan had a mutual defense treaty, which was abrogated after the United States reestablished ties with Beijing in the 1970s.
Since the 1970s, the United States has maintained a policy often known as ?strategic ambiguity,? in which the United States has no formal commitment to defend Taiwan but has asserted that the ?peaceful resolution? of differences between Beijing and Taipei is of ?grave concern.? Washington has also committed itself to supplying Taiwan with the weapons it needs to defend itself, but to refrain from supplying the island with offensive weapons.
?STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY?
The weapons issue has become a perennial irritant in U.S.-China relations. Beijing wants the United States to reduce weapons sales because it believes that if Taiwan feels insecure, it will be more pliable at a bargaining table on reunification. But U.S. administrations, while open about the contents of a reconciliation between China and Taiwan, do not want Taiwan to be forced into any particular settlement out of a sense of insecurity.
Many policy experts and members of Congress have questioned the assumptions of U.S. policy. Some have called for an end to ?strategic ambiguity? and demanded an unequivocal statement of U.S. support for Taiwan independence.
?In my view, whatever utility the ?one China? diplomatic fiction might have had 25 years ago has been erased by the new reality,? said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in a speech last week. ?There are, in fact, two Chinese states. One, the Republic of China on Taiwan, is free, democratic and a welcome member of the family of nations. The other, the People?s Republic of China, is not free, not democratic and a threat to the security of us all.?
?The mainland may not trust Chen?s past, but it will have to deal with Chen in the future,? said David Shambaugh, director of George Washington University?s Sigur Center for Asian studies. He said, ?There is an unprecedented window of opportunity which has not existed since 1996.? That was the year Taiwan last held a presidential election amid threatening missiles fired by China into the waters off Taiwan.
?We don?t want to be in the middle, but we want to encourage dialogue,? said a Clinton administration official.
Yet the United States has frequently found itself in the middle when it comes to Taiwan.
?We have found it very hard to stay aloof from this problem,? former Clinton defense secretary William J. Perry said yesterday. Perry, who as defense secretary sent an armada of 16 warships to Taiwan?s coast during China?s threatening missile firings in 1996, said, ?We have a big interest in stability and security in that area, yet [the Taiwan issue] is a major factor that can contribute to instability. At the same time, we?re not in a position to settle the issues. To the extent we get in the middle of those issues, we?re likely to do more harm than good.? |
