[Excerpt: On election day, voters will be asked not only to choose a
president but also, in a referendum backed by President Chen Shui-bian,
whether China should be requested to redeploy the approximately 500
missiles targeted at the island - and if China refuses, whether Taiwan
should invest in advanced defensive military technology. They also will
be asked whether Taiwan should resume a dialogue with Beijing on
improving relations.]
208.39.143.167
China-Taiwan: The cross-Strait tinderbox
By Craig Meer and Macabe Keliher
TAIPEI - And so Taipei will hold an election and a referendum March 20
on what many see as Taiwanese independence, even if it is not officially
described as such. Presidential candidates are saying, "Taiwan first"
and "No to China" - meaning no dominance by Beijing. Taipei buys more
weapons systems, and asks the United States for support.
And so Beijing repeatedly and ever more heatedly warns against Taiwan's
"separatist intentions", conducts aerial and beach invasion exercises on
its side of the Taiwan Strait, and announces increases in this year's
military budget of 11.6 percent.
The Taiwanese public too has a voice in military affairs at this time.
On election day, voters will be asked not only to choose a president but
also, in a referendum backed by President Chen Shui-bian, whether China
should be requested to redeploy the approximately 500 missiles targeted
at the island - and if China refuses, whether Taiwan should invest in
advanced defensive military technology. They also will be asked whether
Taiwan should resume a dialogue with Beijing on improving relations.
But war is not simply a game of strategic chess, in which belligerents
back their interests with military capability. It can very much be, as
the Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz said, politics by
other means. The reason for war is turned on its head to become a
question of the "opportunity cost of doing nothing". That is to say,
sometimes compliance with a foe's demand is worse than any conflict, no
matter what the odds of winning - remember the attack on Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, after the United States imposed an oil embargo on Japan.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan have long cultivated a
relationship in which they oblige each other to respond to statements
and events in an antagonistic or threatening manner. But the evolution
of the status quo into a non-binding version of diametrically opposed
positions - "one China" or Taiwanese independence - has pushed each side
into a corner from which a violent clawing out may be the only plausible
option. To do otherwise, and to acquiesce with the adversary across the
Strait, would necessitate putting up with a state of affairs (ie,
maintaining a version of the uneasy peace) that is ultimately
intolerable by each side's own respective standards of national success
and failure.
The view from Beijing
In the view from China, Beijing is holding steadfast to the idea that
Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory, of which all belongs
to the PRC. Perceivable differences between the presidencies of Hu
Jintao and his predecessors Jiang Zeming and Deng Xiaoping on the Taiwan
question are subsumed beneath an essential unity of purpose that is as
old as the PRC itself - dating from 1949.
This thinking is represented most vividly in Beijing's diplomatic and
military posture toward the island. Because of pressure from Beijing,
only 27 countries now have formal relations with Taiwan, and "Chinese
Taipei" is represented as a sovereign entity in a mere handful of
international institutions, and none of the major ones, such as the
United Nations and its agencies.
Furthermore, Beijing currently has an estimated 500 ballistic missiles -
496 according to intelligence estimates - deployed and targeted at
Taiwan, and about 75 are added each year in bases along China's
southeast coast.
As the Chinese population is beginning to think less along the lines
prescribed by the government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and more
for itself, any backing down by the party on the Taiwan question could
show signs of weak leadership.
Therefore, the cost to Beijing of not acting - as Taiwan moves closer to
independence - would be catastrophic. The CCP would face serious
internal challenges to its monopoly on power on the mainland, and such
opposition would in all likelihood be far less benign than the democracy
movement of the late 1980s. Furthermore, the People's Liberation Army
has not only been preparing itself for a showdown with Taiwan, but
derives its authority and bureaucratic power from the issue of
reunification. The PLA would be far from a willing spectator at the
birth of a Taiwanese republic.
More dramatically, however, an election and larger political loss to
Taiwan to independence forces could give momentum to other separatist
movements within China, perhaps encouraging the ultimate breakup of the
country along the lines of the former Soviet Union, or of China's own
feudal and not so distant past. Warlordism has a long history and recent
manifestations in China, and the loss of Taiwan could encourage
disaffected separatist groups in Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and
other provinces and regions. The center's grip on far-flung regional
China is increasingly tenuous, as demonstrated by last year's crisis
over severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), when inter-government
cooperation failed even when unquestionably beneficial to the nation as
a whole.
The view from Taipei
The view from Taipei is in stark contrast. After more than two decades
of democratization, the island is no longer home to a serious debate
about reunification with the mainland. Local politicians must now appeal
to a constituency that is extremely proud and protective of its de facto
independence. All major political parties on the island, including the
ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the aspiring former
governing Kuomintang (KMT), espouse views on cross-Strait relations that
are a variation on the independence theme, rather than an alternative to it.
While most Taiwanese people stop short of demanding formal, de jure
independence from mainland China, about 70 percent prefer a continuation
of the status quo, according to polling. This position is irrespective
of the widely held view in Taiwan and elsewhere that changing
geopolitical realities - the end of the Cold War, China's growing
economic power, and US preoccupation with the "war on terror" - will
probably make the status quo impossible to maintain forever.
In light of this political environment, a decision by the island's
elites not to defend Taiwan's current autonomy from Beijing's overtures
or machinations would have immediate and deleterious consequences. To
begin with, any acquiescent leadership in Taipei would almost certainly
suffer a sharp loss of popular support for what some describe as
"selling out" to Beijing. The only political party in Taiwan that still
openly declares its support for mainland reunification, for instance, is
the New Party, which holds but one seat in the Legislative Yuan, from a
peak of 14 in the mid-1990s.
In Taiwan's current presidential race, the "unification-leaning" ticket
of the KMT's Lien Chan and vice-presidential nominee James Soong of the
People First Party (PFP) is on the back foot when campaigning on the
cross-Strait issue. As demonstrated in recent televised debates, Lien
Chan has opted to dodge rather than challenge incumbent President Chen
of the DPP on his crusade for a referendum on cross-Strait ties and
defense, concurrent with the poll on March 20.
Furthermore, failing to safeguard Taiwan's current autonomy could tear
apart the delicate political compromise that underpins the island's
democracy - ie, that the local population should be the first, last and
constant concern of government policy. Any effort to undermine this
unspoken but widely acknowledged pact, deliberate or inadvertent, would
encounter stiff political and social resistance.
In the Taiwan Strait, the "opportunity cost of peace" - as von
Clausewitz put it - has become extraordinarily high for both China and
Taiwan. While armed conflict is still very much avoidable, the shrill
and uncompromising voices coming out of Beijing and Taipei are far from
politics as usual. On the contrary, they may truly indicate just how bad
things really are.
Craig Meer is a post-doctoral fellow at Academia Sinica. Macabe Keliher
is an independent historian and journalist, and a regular contributor to
Asia Times Online. His website is www.macabe.net.
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