GlobalSecurity.org In the News

Wall Street Journal
April 18, 2001

By Neil King Jr., Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- President Bush faces what looks like an all-around loser when he decides in coming days how big an arms package to sell Taiwan.

But there may be ways the president can parcel out the grumbling so that neither Republican business supporters nor fierce China critics feel too left out in the cold.

The Heritage Foundation, a center of conservative thought and no fan of Beijing, is already touting a middle path. Its solution: Mr. Bush should punish Beijing with a host of tough diplomatic moves, including stronger controls over high-tech trade and opposing its bid to host the 2008 Olympics, while fudging this year's arms-sales question.

Larry Wortzel, head of Asian studies at Heritage, is urging the president to defer a decision on Taipei's most sensitive request, for Aegis radar-equipped guided-missile destroyers. Instead, Mr. Bush would order the Navy to start building the ships now, and then decide later whether they will be sent to Taiwan or added to the U.S. inventory.

While that approach may not be the solution (the Navy is especially loath to add $4.8 billion to its already stretched acquisition budget), it suggests that Mr. Bush may still have room to maneuver, even this year when China politics are so hot.

"If any of the many actors here is completely happy, you fail," says Kurt Campbell, who handled Asian issues at the Pentagon under President Clinton. "You want everyone complaining publicly, but also be able to sell the solution privately as the best deal possible under the circumstances."

The administration is expected to make up its mind on the arms package in time for a meeting with a Taiwanese military delegation next week. Mr. Bush's top foreign-policy advisers met Tuesday to discuss China, among other topics.

The core of the GOP leadership in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Whip Tom DeLay, is urging the president to sell Taiwan most of the arms it wants, with the ultimate test being the four $1.2 billion destroyers equipped with the Aegis radar system. Then there is the old-line Republican establishment, including the president's own father and his former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who favor stable relations and profitable business ties with China.

But even within congressional ranks, there is still room for compromise, especially for a new Republican president.

The Heritage Foundation's approach could be especially appealing to Mr. Lott, since it would mean more work for a Northrop Grumman Corp. shipbuilding yard in the Mississippi senator's own port city of Pascagoula. Some of the work would also go to General Dynamics Corp.'s Bath Iron Works in Maine. That state's two centrist GOP senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have also come out strongly for the Aegis sale.

Another possible compromise would be for Mr. Bush to sell Taiwan earlier-generation Kidd-class destroyers, which have a clear advantage in that they could be refitted within two to three years, compared with about eight years to build the new Aegis ships. Senior officials in Taipei have hinted in recent days that they might be satisfied with such a decision -- either out of fear of further angering Beijing, or resignation that the Aegis likely won't be theirs this year.

Other analysts are floating a third scenario: that the U.S. could defer a decision on Aegis, while pledging to sell Taiwan one or two of its own Aegis-equipped ships if China hasn't improved its behavior by next year. That would speed up delivery for Taiwan, while the U.S. fleet, which currently has 58 Aegis-equipped cruisers and destroyers, would have to do with one or two fewer ships for a year or two.

Such a plan would save the Navy budget from having to take on the cost of four new Aegis ships, as called for in the Heritage plan, and it would also keep the shipyards running nonstop, and thus keep down the Navy's own costs.

True China hard-liners such as Mr. DeLay, of Texas, and about a dozen GOP senators led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina, will be much harder to satisfy. But they too might be mollified, if not completely satisfied, with different weapons-sales or other moves to punish Beijing.

For some of the toughest China critics, China isn't seen only as a threat to Taiwan or the region but also as a rival to the U.S. So selling arms to Taipei is also seen as a down payment on American security. Sen. Helms got 20 senators to sign a letter to President Bush two weeks ago urging him to approve the Aegis sale. Only one Democrat, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, signed. For many in this group, the Aegis has become a litmus test, and their disappointment will be vocal.

For others, Beijing's abuse of human rights has long been the driving issue and a key argument for denying China trade benefits. The collision with an American surveillance plane has added to those ranks in recent weeks. For this group, Taiwan arms sales are less important than a tougher line overall toward Beijing -- whether on the Olympics, high-tech sales or this week's vote on Beijing's human-rights record at a United Nations commission in Geneva, where the U.S. is sponsoring a toughly worded resolution.

Mr. Bush's decision on Taiwan was never going to be easy. Congressional Republicans regularly blasted President Clinton over what they saw as his coddling of Beijing, as well as his unwillingness to sell more sophisticated arms to Taiwan. Their anger toward China and their suspicion of the White House -- even with a Republican in the Oval Office -- has only deepened in recent weeks, following Mr. Bush's low-key resolution of the surveillance-plane standoff.

The White House did manage to defuse some of the tension last month when it briefed Congress on Taiwan's armaments wish list and sketched out its own possible response -- far more than Clinton-administration officials ever told the Hill. Congress made such consultations a matter of law last year when relations with Mr. Clinton were particularly foul.

China's own obsession with Aegis is another silver lining, possibly allowing the administration to still offer Taiwan a very hefty arms package, shy of the radar and guided-missile system. Taiwan's request list also covers items that would have made Beijing apoplectic in earlier years, including a new batch of diesel submarines and a number of P-3 submarine-hunting aircraft -- an earlier version of the U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane that made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island April 1.

With the White House keeping mum, many observers predict Mr. Bush will put off the Aegis sale for now. Instead, the real tossup could be the submarines, which until recently even the Pentagon considered offensive weapons.

A comparative snapshot of the Chinese and Taiwanese militaries

Combat ships: China -- 55, Taiwan - 28

Submarines: China - 66, Taiwan - 4

Combat Aircraft (Post-1970): China - 200, Taiwan - 334

Combat Aircraft (Pre-1970): China -- 3,800, Taiwan - 144

Tanks: China -- 11,000, Taiwan -- 1,600

Army Troops: China -- 1.8 million, Taiwan -- 220,000

Total Military Personnel: China -- 2.5 million, Taiwan -- 400,000