DATE=8/28/1999 TYPE=ON THE LINE TITLE=ON THE LINE: THE TAIWAN DILEMMA NUMBER=1-00771 EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY - 619-0037 CONTENT= THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE Anncr: On the Line - a discussion of United States policy and contemporary issues. This week, "The Taiwan Dilemma." Here is your host, Robert Reilly. Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line. In July, Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui declared that bilateral relations between China and Taiwan should be on a "special state-to-state" basis. China took this remark as a challenge to the "one China" policy that has been followed by both China and Taiwan, as well as the United States since 1972. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has threatened to invade if Taiwan declares independence. During Taiwan's presidential campaign in 1996, China conducted military exercises in the Taiwan Strait that included the firing of missiles near Taiwan. The United States responded by sending two aircraft carrier battle groups to nearby waters. Observers wonder whether the latest war of words is a prelude to some kind of military confrontation. Joining me today to discuss the Taiwan question are three experts. David Lampton is director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Robert Manning is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. And Stephen Yates is China policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. Welcome to the program. David Lampton, what prompted President Lee to make this most provocative remark last July and has the reaction to it been apposite, overdone, or how would you characterize it? Lampton: I think there are many reason that Lee Teng-hui probably made these remarks and some are known best to him. But there are several obvious factors. One is certainly the domestic politics in Taiwan. They are coming up on a presidential election, and I think he thought this would put his preferred candidate in position and, more to the point, lock in a policy with which he personally agrees for the future, irrespective of the electoral outcome. So certainly domestic politics was a consideration. Host: However, he chose the occasion to express this new term, "state-to-state," to a German magazine. Lampton: I think that he is in sympathy with the general proposition that, prior to reunification in Germany, there were two separate and equal states. So I think the symbolism was not lost on him, nor indeed on the Chinese. The P-R-C [People's Republic of China] disagrees with that. I think that there were a couple of other considerations, though. I think President Lee was looking at the state of U.S.-China relations. It was at a low ebb. He was looking at the fact that he has a Congress in the United States, so to speak, that is sympathetic to the kind of viewpoint that he was putting forth. And I think he thought it was a politically expedient time to move in terms of his major, big power backer, so to speak. And finally, I think he is looking ahead to his role in history and how history is going to view him after he leaves the presidency. And I think he is very deeply committed to the viewpoint that he expressed there. Host: Robert Manning, do you think that President Lee miscalculated in terms of China's reaction to his new policy? Manning: That's not clear. There is another dimension to this, and that is the role of the Clinton administration in creating a context in which he felt compelled to do this. If you go back to the President's trip in 1998, a nine-day tour of China, when in Shanghai, they planted a question that was supposed to look cute and unofficial. The president for the first time in public, a president of the United States in China, iterated the three no's: no independence, no organizations that require statehood for membership, no one-China-one-Taiwan. That had never been publicly stated before, certainly by a president. The whole process that led to Lee Teng- hui's statement began after that. He organized a commission to review the status. And then you had the declaration that we [the United States] are going to have a strategic partnership [with China]. If you are Lee Teng-hui and the U.S. says we are having a strategic partnership with China, where does that leave you? Host: So he saw support for him eroding in the United States? Manning: That's just the beginning. Then the administration began talking in very amorphous terms about an interim solution. Nobody could figure out what it was. Every time I asked I could never get an answer as to what they had in mind. But the notion was there should be some political agreement. Against that background, you had Chinese negotiator Wang Daohan coming in October, and I think it is probable, who knows what's in Lee Teng-hui's mind, he may have felt that he was going to be put in a box by the US. And that he was going to find a clever way to get out of it which, whatever else he achieved, he certainly did that. Host: Do you agree with that, Stephen Yates? Yates: I met with President Lee about a week and a half ago, and -- although I agree with a lot of what has been said -- he insists that his only consideration in this was the relationship between Taipei and Beijing. He said that he had received word that the P-R-C was prepared to make a statement on national day on October first, as they celebrate the 50th anniversary, to make a statement on Taiwan that would be extremely unfavorable to Taipei's view of future relations with China. He saw Wang Daohan coming shortly after that, basically hand delivering that message to Taiwan and putting them in a very difficult position. So before that process go too far down the road, he felt the need to reassert Taipei's status, that they are not just another local government, and that the relations with Beijing are not father to son, but brother to brother. That is the analogy he likes to try to make. So that is the explanation he gives. I agree very much with the notion, though, that they felt like they had been put on a slope. And that slope was tilted against them, and that, unless they found some way to wake up the United States, wake up China, and wake up others, they felt that that slope was going to have them drift off into oblivion. And no one would pay attention to where these twenty-two million people were going. Host: Well, it certainly has provoked a lot of debate within the United States and a call for some greater clarity in U.S. policy toward Taiwan. Any number of people are under the impression that the Taiwan Relations Act from 1979 mandates that the United States has to come to Taiwan's defense if it is invaded. Some people think the U.S. should do that even if it is not required. What do you think of the debate this has kicked off within the United States? Lampton: First, I think it is wise to be clear about what the United States obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act are. I think the Taiwan Relations Act sort of mandates two things. One, it mandates that the United States view with "grave concern" any use of force and coercion against Taiwan. It does not specify exactly how that grave concern is going to be expressed, but it mandates that we see it as part of the larger issue of stability in Asia. So clearly, the Taiwan Relations Act says you will be concerned if force is used. Secondly, the Taiwan Relations Act mandates that we provide the people of Taiwan means adequate for their defense. How much is adequate and so forth is to be determined. So when people say we are committed to come legally to Taiwan's defense, including American armed forces, that is not exactly true in terms of the Taiwan Relations Act. It may be a correct, and I believe is a correct, description of what would probably happen in the worst extremity. So it is probably accurate in terms of predicting American reaction. But in terms of legal obligation is it fuzzier than many people realize. Host: Robert Manning, what might happen now? The reactions in the official organs of the Chinese Communist party are hysterical in the rhetoric they are using, calling President Lee a "deformed test-tube baby" and a "rat running in the street that everyone wants to swat." And China could not be more explicit about its threat to take military action if Taiwan declares independence. Now, is that threat as serious as it seems and, second of all, is it credible? Are there interim steps that China might take of a military or other nature to which the U.S. would have to respond? Manning: My sense is that the reason that they have not done anything yet is that they really do not have any viable military option, period. There are some things that might have some therapeutic value. They can take a little island just to show that they can do it, but then they would end up looking weak, because what is going on really is a psychological warfare campaign on both sides. From the Chinese side it is designed to walk Lee back to the status quo ante, before July 9th. And taking a small island would not do that. All it would do is make then look weak, so I do no think that they are going to do anything like that. Host: Why wouldn't their taking a small island make the United States look weak? Manning: It does not get them anything. They still end up with the same dilemma of the specter of Taiwan, in their perception, marching inexorably toward independence. And then the reaction of [the U.S.] Congress, the reaction of the rest of the world to a major power using force, the downside and benefit are not in any kind of equilibrium on this one. Host: Why make threats of this nature then? Manning: I think they are deadly serious. They seem to have drawn a red line at Taiwan changing its constitution, as that would be the irrevocable step that puts them on an absolute course toward independence. Host: You spoke with President Lee, Steve Yates. Is this declaration of state-to-state relations one step on the road to a declaration of independence? Yates: In his mind, no. Obviously there are people in Taiwan and in China and in the United States who disagree with his viewpoint. Host: Who think that it should be a step toward independence? Yates: Who think that it is. Some people and many Beijing have believed that Lee Teng-hui has wanted independence all along and he is just a conniving man who is just trying to find a back door way to declare independence, instead of calling for it outright. My personal view is that this really is the only path toward unification if it is going to be peaceful. Beijing's policy of pretending that a government does not exist in Taipei, that it does not represent the people of Taiwan, does not bring them any closer to any real solution. Perhaps Lee's statements don't either, but I think President Lee views this as the only way to position his government somewhat favorably in negotiations with the mainland. They feel like they are getting pushed into negotiation at a position of great disadvantage. Manning: I think you have to role the tape back quite a bit further. Starting in 1972 we created a framework to manage the Taiwan problem. It was based on a wonderful political fiction that there is but one China and that people on both sides of the strait believe this is the case. And the U.S. claimed to acknowledge that position, not support it, not accept it or deny it, but acknowledge it. This worked very well. Everybody has prospered over the last generation, remarkably. It does not work anymore. There is a new factor in the equation, and that is the democratization of Taiwan. That is what all the tension we have seen over the last four or five years stems from. And the problem is that both Beijing and Washington have their heads in the sand. They like it the old way. I can't blame them. It worked well, but it doesn't work anymore. And the whole framework has to be adjusted to take into account that Taiwan is a democratic society. They're tired of being kind of a ghost in the whole international system. They want some kind of political space. And I believe there are possibilities for them to achieve that within the framework of one China with a little bit of political imagination, which is unfortunately missing from all sides in this equation. But if you don't understand that, then the rest of this dos not make sense. And the other thing I would say is there is no possibility anytime soon that I can see of a mutually acceptable resolution of the Taiwan question. That's at least fifteen or twenty years out there. So that's out. The status quo does not work, and my concern is that we could be headed toward a military conflict if there are not some new elements injected into this. Lampton: I would agree with that. And I would say that, as long as we are rolling the tape back, we can roll back a little further and I think it would be helpful. When Mao Zedong talked about resolving this, he would, of course put it "the Taiwan issue," he was speaking in terms of a hundred years. In the recently released Kissinger transcript, it is an interesting line: we can wait a hundred years, but in the end we will fight you for Taiwan. Deng Xiaoping shortened the time horizon. He began to talk about fifty years. But I think very recently, particularly about the beginning of the year, Jiang Zemin and Vice Premier Qichen Qian began to talk about this, saying it cannot remain unresolved indefinitely. And it seemed they had something more in mind of a five-year time frame. The fact of the matter, I think, is the P-R-C sees the trends that Bob is pointing to working against it. And I think Lee Teng-hui sees time working against him. And so what we have now is two regimes that are increasingly anxious to get their preferred position locked in, and that is a very dangerous situation, particularly when you have the situation of the identity of the people of Taiwan moving further and further away from a self- conception of unity. In fact, more and more people on Taiwan, all the public opinion polls show, when they are asked, "are you Chinese or are you Taiwanese?" the percentage that basically has a heavy Taiwanese identification is going up. So what makes this so dangerous is that, in fact, the people of Taiwan are going in one direction, and the governments of the two respective parties think they have less and less time to solve this problem. Host: Well, what does the United States do, because should a conflict break out we invariably are going to be involved in some way? And some people say that what the United States should do now is dispel any ambiguity about what we mean by "gave concern" and say, "we will come to their defense," and make that clear. Others say that is throwing gasoline on a fire. Manning: What I am concerned about is that, if you look since July 9th at all the public utterances of the administration, the one thing that I think it is imperative that they say, they have not said, and that is: "no unilateral change in the status quo." That to me is the bedrock of the U.S. position on this, that and a peaceful resolution. Host: But isn't that implied when they simply say we want a peaceful resolution and we would view anything other than that with "grave concern"? Doesn't that translate into what you just said? Manning: Not exactly. That sort of cuts on both sides. It sort of puts us into the position of putting everybody on notice rather than tilting one way or the other. Host: And your remark doesn't tilt both ways? Manning: It does, but equally. Yates: The problem that I have with that approach is that: who is going to define what is a change in the status quo? And what we have seen over the last year or so, or even longer really, but especially over the last year, is a constant campaign for Beijing to define everything that President Lee does as a move toward independence. And with every step toward independence, they feel that they have to ratchet things up a notch. And what we see from the administration is increased fear as Beijing beats its chest harder and harder: "Oh no, we have go to do something." And I just think that it is very, very difficult to try to say, what is the difference between what President Lee said and a move toward independence? Or was this, in fact, a move toward independence? Or was it simply a statement of what is the status quo from one particular point of view? It doesn't really get us out of the war of words. Host: Well, what should he U.S. do? Yates: I think the United States should be very clear that if force is used it will be met with force, and we do not consider any force used to resolve a political dispute legitimate. If we are going to use force to try to defend a million or so Kosovars, I think it is just ridiculous to think that we are just going to turn away from twenty-two million people on Taiwan. Lampton; But I do think that there is another part of the problem, and I think Steve has half of the problem. I am more sympathetic to what Bob was saying as a strategy. And that is, the long and short of it is Taiwan's leadership has the capacity to create a situation that could drag the United States into hot conflict. And the issue is not only do we have to deter Beijing from use of force, and I think they should be very clear that we will respond to force as needed, but Taipei needs to be sure that it understands that we have interests. And not only do we have interests but East Asia has an interest in stability. And they have obligations and they cannot write a check to be filled out in American blood. And they have to understand that too. Everyone has got some obligation to be responsible here. And I'm quite sympathetic with the administration. How do you deter Beijing at the same time, admittedly what is provocative is in the mind of the beholder, but in the end the irreducible reality is the United States could end up in conflict. And Taipei could precipitate it almost as easily as Beijing. Shot: I'm afraid that's all the time we have this week. I would like to thank our guests -David Lampton from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Robert Manning form the council on Foreign Relations; and Stephen Yates from the Heritage Foundation --- for joining me to discuss the Taiwan question. This is Robert Reilly for On the line. For On the Line, this is --------. Anncr: You've been listening to "On the Line" - a discussion of United States policies and contemporary issues. This is --------. 18 18 26-Aug-1999 16:39 PM EDT (26-Aug-1999 2039 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
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