By any standard, the last week of September was quite an extraordinary one for China. The week began with the announcement by the plenum of the Central Committee to accept the resignation of former President Jiang Zemin as chairman of the military committee and replace him with President Hu Jintao, a move that completed the peaceful transfer of power to the younger generation giving Mr. Hu authority as both party and government leader. Then came a flurry of other news reflecting the “new,” more open China.
Shanghai hosted the first-ever Formula One Grand Prix, won by team Ferrari. At the same time, Serena Williams was on her way to win China’s first tennis open championship, also in Shanghai. Both pop star Elton John and the Back Street Boys made first trips to China, singing to standing-room-only audiences in Beijing. At the Para Olympics for thehandicappedin Athens Chinese athletes ran away with the medals. And China also opened one of the largest semiconductor plants in the world, establishing it as a leading producer of those items so crucial to the information age.
Given these promising signs, in my recent discussions there with several of China’s most senior government officials, it was surprising that the usual invectives against Taiwan and dire warnings of what would follow should it declare independence from the mainland were so shrill. To those who have not been through this procedure before, Chinese interlocutors routinely harangue outsiders over Taiwan. But, during this visit, the threats were less veiled and from senior military officers that this columnist has known well. There was a new intensity to their warnings about using force to unify the nation in the event Taiwan declared independence.
That Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian has threatened to declare independence is not news. Last spring, the Bush administration intervened to convince Mr. Chen to dampen his rhetoric. Since his re-election, independence has surfaced again. Last week, Mr. Chen’s national security advisor appeared in page-long advertisements in the New York Times and The Washington Post bringing attention to Taiwan and the need for the United States to honor its obligation to defend a fellow democracy against Communist China’s incursions. So, what is going on?
No doubt, the Taiwanese government understands that the United States is deeply engaged in Iraq and the war on terror. Mr. Chen may be exploring how much that preoccupation provides an opportunity for Taiwan to push its independence line against the mainland. That China is neuralgic in the extreme to any mention of independence can be counterbalanced by the reality of what China could really achieve by force. Under the current agreements, particularly the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is obligated to protect the island if China were to attack first.
Some in the West believe that China is bluffing. How China would go about the forceful unification of Taiwan is an interesting question. One hundred twenty miles of ocean is a formidable barrier to cross, especially if the U.S. Seventh Fleet stood in the way. A blockade by the relatively weak Chinese Navy would likewise be impractical and missile attacks against Taiwan would no doubt cast China as the bully in the eyes of the international community. Nuclear weapons do not appear to be an option. However, the Chinese leadership gives no sign that a military option is a bluff.
Taiwan of course is not the only flash point. North Korea still blusters to turn Japan into a sea of nuclear fire and has not yielded in ending its nuclear aspirations. As Iran exercises missile diplomacy, the underground drums in the Middle East signal that Israel might strike first against Iranian nuclear facilities as it did more than 20 years ago in destroying Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak. While none of these scenarios is new, given American involvement in Iraq, a second major crisis is the last thing that is needed.
There are preventative actions. Innovative diplomacy in which Chinese influence was brought to bear more strongly on North Korea to demand denuclearization, along with bilateral U.S.-North Korean discussions which Beijing has supported, could be followed by a formal restatement of U.S. policy on Taiwan. That statement would reaffirm the policy of “one China-two systems” and further declare that should China attack Taiwan on an unprovoked basis, the United States would stand by the island democracy. However, should Taiwan declare independence without cause or provocation, all bets are off.
Some Asian hands will shudder at this, arguing that any such a declaration would force Japan to go nuclear, fearing America would likewise abandon it. The extreme wings of the Republican and Democratic parties will assail this approach on diametrically opposite ideological grounds. But, as we are already overextended in this global war on terror, innovative and bold policy to pre-empt crises before they occur seems the best medicine to consider.
Harlan Ullman is a columnist for The Washington Times.
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