Tracking Number: 135621
Title: "China-Taiwan Relations Develop Cautiously."
Paper by Chong-Pin Lin, Associate director of the China Studies Program at the American Enterprise Institute, at the National Defense University symposium. (900411)
Date: 19900411
Text:
*PXF304
04/11/90 *
CHINA-TAIWAN RELATIONS DEVELOP CAUTIOUSLY
(Text: Chong-Pin Lin paper at NDU Symposium) (6830)
Washington -- The June 1989 Tiananmen Square incident in Beijing has not hampered the cautious but, ever- deepening relationship between China and Taiwan, according to Dr. Chong-Pin Lin, associate director of the China Studies Program at the American Enterprise Institute.
In a paper presented at the National Defense University's Pacific Symposium March 2, Lin says the interaction between China and Taiwan since 1989 contains "a mixture of unexpected movements towards cooperation and integration as well as both lingering and emerging signs of contention."
Economic exchanges continue to flourish, but militarily "the probability of Beijing using force over the Taiwan Straits has increased after the 1989 Tiananmen incident," Lin writes.
Following is the prepared text of Lin's presentation:
(begin text)
The brutality of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown by Beijing instantly chilled the hitherto spreading "mainland fever" among the inhabitants of the Republic of China, or Taiwan. It seemed that, with their aspiration to reunify with the People's Republic of China, or China, shattered forever, their expanding -- albeit non- governmental -- interactions with the mainland would cease indefinitely. Yet, only seven months later, Taiwanese pop singers Lin Chung and Huang Lei celebrated the incoming Year of the Horse on stage in Beijing. Earlier, on December 16, 1989, an unofficial Taiwan delegation led by legislator Chang Pingchau and an obviously semi-official mainland group led by former Minister of Commerce Zhen Hongye, signed an agreement in Hong Kong to establish an organization -- the Association for Coordination of Trading and Commercial Affairs Across the Strait (ACTCA) -- for promoting and mediating economic and technological exchanges between the two sides. Such interactions promising good will and integration unfolded, however, alongside events portending conflict and entrenched disintegration.
In mid-November 1989, glaring headlines of at least one leading Taiwanese newspaper referred to a Hong Kong report that China's then Chairman of the Central Military Commission Deng Xiaoping had spoken to the high command of the People's Liberation Army in late August or early September, relaying the message:
"Do not always resort to a smiling face in dealing with Taiwan....On this issue, we cannot exclude the use of force....The purpose of building up the Army is to fight wars. These days, one possible war...is that with Taiwan.
GE 2 pxf304 Incorporate the Taiwan issue on our timetable contingent upon: when Taiwan claims independence; when Taipei treats us with a "discourteous face"; and when Taiwan's "black hand" continuously interferes in our domestic affairs."
Expectedly, whether China would invade Taiwan, now a hot topic among Taipei's private circles, also evoked intense debates at its public forums such as the December 23-27, 1989 Civilian Conference on National Issues (minjian guojian hui) participated in by 250 Taiwanese elites and blessed by President Lee Tenghui's personal attention.
These complicating and surprising developments render more pertinent than ever the question whether relations between Taiwan and China will be characterized as an evolution towards a rapprochement, maintenance of the status quo, or even gravitation to an armed confrontation. Addressing this issue requires examining the trends -- political, economic, socio-cultural, and strategic -- in Taiwan-China interactions, of which the first major shift occurred a decade before the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.
POLITICAL TRENDS
On January 1, 1979, the rigidly scheduled but practically harmless bombardment of Taiwan's offshore islands, Jinmen and Mazu (Quemoy and Matsu) stopped, as Beijing's National Peoples' Congress Standing Committee sent a message to Taipei calling for peaceful reunification of China. A series of similar proposals from Beijing followed in the next seven years, while Taipei adhered to its policy of "Three No's" -- No Contact, No Negotiation, No Compromise. On October 14, 1987, Taiwan's first official initiative in its mainland policy came from the ailing yet anxious President Chiang Ching-kuo who lifted the ban on ROC citizen's visiting their mainland relatives. His death on January 13, 1988 occasioned Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang to send condolences to Taipei the next day.
The year 1988 saw an acceleration of peaceful interactions between Taiwan and China especially after July 9, when Zhao Ziyang congratulated Lee Tenghui, acting chairman since January, on becoming the official KMT chairman at its 13th party congress. One highlight occurred on July 14 when KMT senior statesman, Chen Lifts, leading 34 colleagues, put forward the proposal of reunifying China through traditional culture; on July 15, Zhao Ziyang reciprocated by stressing that both sides share a foundation in politics, economics, and cultural tradition. Two months later, Beijing discontinued the policy established in 1962 for offering monetary reward to Taiwanese defecting with military ships or aircraft. Three days later on September 14, Taipei reduced the reward delivered since 1959 to mainland pilots defecting with warplanes not of the most advanced models.
The continuing momentum of forward political interactions seemed to have culminated in the spring of
GE 3 pxf304 1989, one month before the Tiananmen tragedy. On May 1, not only did Taiwan's first official delegation since 1949 attend the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting in Beijing, but also the delegation led by Finance Minister Shirley Queue stood up for the playing of the PRC national anthem. However, the Tiananmen shock to Taipei appeared to dissipate sooner than expected. On December 16, 1989, ROC Foreign Minister Lien Chan announced that his government would abandon such appeals as "Han Chinese (Taipei) tolerate no coexistence with invading bandits (Beijing)." Exactly one month later, Taipei further relaxed its mainland travel policy by allowing low-level government officials to visit their relatives across the Straits.
The compromising and integrative trends in the post- Tiananmen political interactions between Taipei and Beijing have been accompanied by currents of contentious and disintegrative nature. At least five such currents have become prominent and not all were foreseeable in June 1989. First, Taipei has abandoned its inflexible, ideology-bound diplomacy and, aided by its accumulated wealth, between August and December 1989 gained recognition by Grenada, Liberia, and Belize. Within weeks of each event, Beijing withdrew its embassy from the respective country. Taiwan's unexpected application on January 1, 1990 to join GATT under the name "the customs territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" instead of the title ROC demonstrated the same new strategy of flexibility.
Second, Taipei surprisingly reversed its attitude toward the Tianamen-originated pro-democracy movement from ambiguous timidity in June to assertive support by December 1989. At the year's end, more than one hundred pro- democracy leaders in exile arrived in Taipei and were greeted with honoring receptions and offers of financial backing. Third, advocacy for "Taiwan independence" became more salient in the ROC political arena. For example, in the December 1989 election, 8 of 32 candidates from the pro-Taiwan independence faction -- the "new nation alliance" -- of the Democratic Progressive Party won the vacated seats of the Legislative Yuan and 12 of them became "provincial legislators." Fourth, Beijing has continued to announce, at a seemingly quickened pace, the arrests of "spies" commissioned by Taiwan for the purpose of social sabotage and intelligence gathering. Three of the five such announcements made since June 1989 came forth in January and one in February 1990.9 Fifth, Taipei appeared to have adopted a policy by mid-January 1990 to continue its support for the political liberalization of Hong Kong even after 1997.
Beijing reacted to these currents with strong condemnations. PRC leaders argued, first, Taipei's "flexible foreign policy" aided by a "silver bullet diplomacy" is "really dangerous" as it cultivates internationally the deplorable status quo of "two China's" or "one China one Taiwan." Second, the KMT was responsible for the recent escalation of the Taiwanese independence movement which resulted largely from the KMT's "appeasing
GE 4 pxf304 and indulgent" attitude and probably even tacit encouragement. Three, Taipei's effort to foment social unrest in the mainland through supporting the exiled dissidents and sending secret agents to the provinces increased tension between the two sides across the Straits.
On January 16, 1980, Deng Xiaoping said in his "Speech to the 10,000 Cadres" that "the return of Taiwan to the motherland" was one of the CCP's three major tasks. More than a decade has now elapsed, during which "opposing hegemony" and "economic construction" -- the other two major tasks -- had borne impressive results. However, reunification of China remained remote if not more so after June 4, 1989. Even before then, Beijing had demonstrated an increased sense of urgency on this issue by adding to its State Council on Taiwan Affairs Office two similar departments specializing in socio-cultural and economic affairs respectively. However, since the 1989 Tiananmen incident, the PRC government's hitherto utter eagerness for expansive bilateral interaction became mixed with suspicion and circumspection. For example, despite the July 1989 announcement that its policy on Taiwan remained unchanged, Beijing began restricting the activities of Taiwanese journalists on the mainland, according to the PRC Foreign Minister Qian Qishen on September 15, 1989.
In contrast to Beijing's active attitude regarding the political interaction across the Straits, Taipei has been passive. While the Beijing government initiated the political interactions and led PRC economic and social sectors in the exchanges with Taiwan, Taipei's government merely reacted to Beijing's advances and followed the lead of Taiwan's nongovernment forces in the exchanges. With extreme caution, however, Taipei gingerly edged toward an increasingly more flexible and forward-looking mainland policy based on the separation of affairs between the government and the civilian -- the economic, the academic, the cultural, and the athletic. The five principles reiterated by Taiwan's Government Information Bureau Director Shaw Yu-ming on October 13, 1988 were"security, nongovernmental contacts, no direct contacts, contact limited to civilian affairs, and gradual progress," which were characterized by Beijing as "peace but no talks, communication but no unification, contention but no war, and division but no separation." In such a process, Taiwan's nonofficial political elites often functioned as the vanguard in first breaking the restrictions decreed by Taipei's government on the contact with the mainland, as did National Assembly Deputy Wu Chelang in July 1988 and Legislator Hu Chiuyuan in October the same year. Even university professor Li Chinghua, the son of Premier Li Huan, had suggested in May 1988 the need to revise the ossified "Three No's" policy.
Since the Tianamen incident, Taipei surprisingly has not discontinued the relaxation of its mainland policy notwithstanding the intermittent nature and the glacial pace of the moves. The previously mentioned Dec 16, 1989 announcement by Foreign Minister Lian Zhan -- personally
GE 5 pxf304 appointed and much trusted by President Li Tenghui -- even suggests that Li, if elected on his own merit in March 1990, will push toward more active political interactions with the mainland, thereby to reducing Beijing's incentives to ever resort a forceful resolution of the Taiwan issue.
In sum, the post-Tianamen interactions across the Straits have contained a mixture of unexpected movements towards cooperation and integration as well as both lingering and emerging signs of contention portending conflict and disintegration.
ECONOMIC TRENDS
In early February 1990, both Taipei and Beijing announced that the 1989 indirect trade between Taiwan and China amounted to 3,700 million dollars, up from 2,600 million dollars in 1988 (All figures in this paper will be in U.S. dollars). This record 1,100 million dollar increase invalidated an assessment that "the peak of the indirect trade across the Taiwan Straits over" made only one month earlier by a respected U.S. China watcher, who simply shared the general expectation of a Tiananmen- shocked Western public. The growth rate of Taiwan-mainland indirect trade between 1988 and 1989 is a respectable 42 percent, though less, but not by much, than the 49 percent average annual growth rate between 47 million dollars in 1978 and 2,600 million dollars in 1988. Rather unexpectedly, the total of Taiwan-mainland indirect trade and mainland-bound Taiwanese investment in the latter half of 1989 as handled by Chase Manhattan Bank's China branch more than doubled in that amount of the first six months. And, most of the 1989 Taiwanese investment in the mainland was made after June, according to one Hong Kong report. As of February 1990, the accumulated total of the Taiwan- mainland indirect trade was 10,000 million dollars; Taiwanese businessmen had initiated at least 500-600 investment projects on the mainland with a total capital investment over 1,000 million dollars, an increase of more than 100 percent over 1988; and Taiwanese entrepreneurs had applied for some 2,000 trademarks and 500 patents. In Fujan Province alone, which faces Taiwan across the Straits, 1989 saw the establishment of more than 200 new Taiwanese enterprises with investment totaling over 400 million dollars which represented as more than 200 percent annual growth.
Contrary to prevailing views that the June 4 Tiananmen carnage had a long-lasting effect in choking off the flaw of Taiwan merchants across the Straits, the influence was transient. Immediately following the Beijing incident, ROC investors did hesitate, but not for long.
On July 1, 1989, seventy-six Taiwanese businessman attended an export commodities fair in Dalian where one Taiwan visitor made an investment of 5 million dollars. From August to October 1989, Taiwan manufacturers transferred to the mainland more than 50 production lines for making shoes, umbrellas, and furniture. At a Guangzhou
GE 6 pxf304 export commodities fair in the fall of 1989, over 500 Taiwan businessman attended, more than ever before. One and a half months after the formation of ACTCA in Hong Kong, Wang Yung-ching -- head of Taiwan's largest conglomerate Formosa Plastics, and the 15th wealthiest man in the world -- made an investment reconnaissance trip to the mainland on January 11, 1990.
Why the economic interaction across the Straits manifested such resilience and momentum may be attributed to the following factors. First, the economic compatibility of the two sides remains strong and may in fact have increased, in the post-Tianamen period. Taiwan's abundant capital and advanced technology match well with China's ample resources and low cost of labor and land -- respectively 5-10 percent and .5 percent that in Taiwan according to Wang Yung-Ching after his mainland trip.
Second, the declining investment environment in Taiwan compelled its entrepreneurs to look for opportunities outside. In 1989, the number of Taiwan's emigration applicants -- more than 90 percent being wealthy businessmen capable of investing 20-40 million dollars abroad -- grew three times from 1988 to about 10,000 families. Fifty to seventy percent of them cited as their main concern insecurity under a rapidly deteriorating social order where kidnapping and murder were in the news almost daily and "contagious" self-help movements brought about endless traffic-disrupting street demonstrations. Another common complaint was the corrosion of labor's previously admirable work ethics by the widespread gambling fever and the rising stockmarket mania. The 45.5 percent appreciation of the Taiwanese currency against the U.S. dollar from 1984 through 1989 also added increasing pressure for Taiwan businessmen to divest at home and invest abroad.
Third, both China's widely recognized market potentials and its easily underestimated productivity potentials were attractive to Taiwan investors. During the Tiananmen aftermath, China's productivity in light industry proved to be more vigorous than expected. In 1989, China's textile export value exceeded 13,000 million dollars, replacing Taiwan as number three in the world in such a category; and China's export to the U.S., consisting largely of light industry products, amounted to 11,000 million dollars, growing at 44 percent from 1988.
Fourth, the Beijing government continued and even escalated its efforts to allure Taiwan investors after June 4, 1989. During July and August 1989, as approved by China's State Council, Fujian Province opened up a new special economic zone in Xianmen, Xinglin, and Haicang for Taiwan capital which began to arrive within two months. After PFC Premier Li Peng announced the lifting of the martial law on January 11, 1990, the mainland-bound flow of Taiwan merchants rose further. Despite its grave financial difficulties, Beijing decided in late January 1990 not to collect newly added taxes from enterprises with foreign,
GE 7 pxf304 including Taiwanese, investments in the coming year with the obvious aim to attract investors.
Fifth, Taipei's government, although officially still upholding the "Three No's" principle, demonstrated growing tolerance in practice toward the economic exchanges across the Straits. In mid-January 1989, the ROC National Trade Bureau director indicated that his government will no longer verify the final destination of exported goods so long as they are not immediately shipped to the mainland. Far from actively guiding export with vision, such a policy simply recognized the growing dependence of Taiwan's economy on the mainland market which had become the 4th largest of the island's exports in 1988 with a 80 percent growth to over 2,000 million dollars from 1987. At the same time, bilateral direct trade -- outlawed by Taipei -- expanded before and after the Tiananmen incident under the blessing of the deliberate ignorance of the ROC government. One captain of a Taiwan merchant ship anchored at Xiamen observed in September 1989 that the Nationalist patrol boats no longer interfered in his activities.
The examination of the economic interactions across the Straits points to several noteworthy trends. At the civilian level, the expanding Taiwanese investment on the mainland, which has become more prominent than the growing trade across the Straits, has exhibited the following traits: the amount of investment has increased, with the average of each Taiwan enterprise growing from 1 million dollars in 1988 to 2 million dollars in 1989; the term of investment has lengthened from two or three to ten or twenty years; its scope has widened from manufacture industry -- processing and assembly -- to also include architecture, agriculture, and the service industry -- finance, tourism, and real estate; increasing numbers of investors have exported new and full sets of equipment rather than used and incomplete ones to the mainland; the typical investor has evolved from individual businessmen to financial groups; and Taiwanese investments with little or no mainland participation have grown in number. In 1989, 74 percent of Taiwanese-funded enterprises in China consisted of independent investment; and, investment regions have been expanded from the coast to the inland.
At the level of government, Taipei has gradually but continuously relaxed restrictions on the bilateral economic interactions less in response toward Beijing's appeal for full-scale exchanges than in recognition of the fast evolving reality shaped largely by the economic incentives of Taiwan's civilians. By 1990, Taipei's racial policies of "Three No's" -- no direct shipping, no direct communication, and no direct trade -- existed in name only. In mid-January 1990, Taiwan Economics Minister Chen Lu-An had indicated that his government should not regulate economic relations -- trade and investment -- by means of restrictions and that his ministry would reconsider its current policy of banning direct investment on the mainland. It was reported later that month in Hong Kong
GE 8 pxf304 that Taipei planned to open direct trade with the mainland around mid-year.
Among the prevailing trends towards further cooperative interactions were minor signs foreshadowing conflicts. Concerns for Taipei include that Taiwanese investment in the mainland would eventually strengthen its overall commercial competitiveness to the detriment of Taiwan's economy, and that the mainland-bound Taiwan investors would form an interest group susceptible to the manipulation of Beijing. Concerns for Beijing include the fear that greater presence of Taiwanese economic power in the mainland may weaken people's confidence in their government in comparison to Taipei's success in development, and that a collection of Taiwan investors may defy Beijing's control.
In sum, the post-Tiananmen economic interactions across the Straits have manifested unexpected momentum, and trends toward cooperation and integration seem more numerous and significant than those auguring conflict and disintegration.
SOCIAL TRENDS
In 1988, 450,000 Taiwanese visited mainland China; in 1989 -- the year stained by the Tiananmen bloodshed -- the annual figure had grown to 500,000, or even 550,000 according to PRC Vice Premier Wu Xueqian on February 19, 1990. In 1988, Fujian residents made 130,000 telephone calls to Taiwan; in 1989, the number increased three and a half times to 450,000. In 1989, letters crossing the Taiwan Straits in both directions totaled 30 million, a 350 percent jump from the 1988 amount. The adverse effect of June 4, 1989 on Taiwan-mainland social interactions -- at least in categories of westward visitations and bilateral communications -- was unnoticeable if not simply inconsequential. To verify whether the same observation applies to social interactions across the Straits in general requires further inquiry into the trends in four broad areas: entertainment and sports, culture, religion, and law in cooperative handling of civil and criminal issues.
Entertainment. In April 1989, Taiwanese gymnasts competed with Asian athletes in China for the first time in four decades. As of February 1990, twelve Taiwan sports teams have followed suit despite the distaste left by the Tiananmen incident. To prepare for the coming Eleventh Asian Olympics in September 1990, the Taiwan ping-pong team even invited mainland coaches for training in Hong Kong. In late January 1990, at the same time as the performance of Taiwanese pop singers Lin and Huang in Beijing, crews from all three Taiwan television stations shot footage of the celebration of the Spring Festival, or the Chinese New Year, in Beijing. In early February 1990, it was confirmed that both representatives from China and Taiwan would compete for the title of "Miss Model Universe" in Taipei.
GE 9 pxf304 Similar integrative trends continued in still other avenues of social exchanges.
Culture. Half a year after the Tiananmen incident, arrested academic exchanges moved forward again. In early February 1990, one hundred some scholars from both sides of the Straits exchanged views on their common cultural heritage at the "Conference on Novels from Ming and Qing Dynasties." Meanwhile, two groups of Taiwan scholars from the "Mainland Research Association" and the "National Taiwan University Professor Association" visited major universities on the mainland. During the same period, Chen Chenan, a KMT legislator in Taiwan, at the risk of being disciplined by his party, met with mainland representatives in Hong Kong to initiate the establishment of 30 "sister schools" across the Straits. The momentum of cultural exchanges was also manifested in publications. For example, in May 1990, a volume entitled "Zhonqquo wenhua yanjiu nianjian" (Chinese Cultural Research Chronology) compiled by mainland scholars was scheduled to be published in Taiwan around May 1990 with jointly compiled sequels to follow.
Religion. Mainland-bound religious activities from Taiwan have proceeded with disregard to governmental restrictions and seem little affected by the Tiananmen effect. In April 1989, PRC President Yang Shangkun even indicated his willingness to consider the release of the renowned dissident Wei Jingsheng, an effect the pressure from Washington had failed to achieve, only if Taiwan Buddhist leader Xing Yun were to press the point once more during his visit in Beijing. In the following month, 19 Taiwanese fishing boats carrying pilgrim worshippers of the Goddess Matsu sailed directly to her birthplace in Meizhou, Fujian defying Taipei's ban on direct visitation across the Straits. All through 1989, streams of Taiwan pilgrims ensued. In late February 1990, a record size religious excursion of some 300 believers opened the season of celebration for the Goddess's 1030th anniversary in April with more Straits-crossing activity to follow.
Law. Accompanying the expanding social interactions across the Straits, the need for cooperation rose in dealing with marital and inheritance disputes and criminal extradition. Bound by the "Three No's" policy, Taipei in most cases reacted with reservation to Beijing's appeal for joint actions. In February 1989, Beijing unprecedentedly extradited Yang Min-Chung, charged for murder in Taiwan, via Singapore to Taipei. A year later, mainline public security arrested 17 gun smugglers from Taiwan along with 25 from the mainland and one from Hong Kong, all members of a network that allegedly flooded Taiwan society with 1,600 pistols and 40,000 bullets made in the PRC. While Beijing suggested on February 4, 1990 that the 17 be extradited to Taiwan in exchange for Wu Dapeng, wanted by the PRC and arrested in the ROC, Taipei requested on February 5, through the Paris-based International Criminal Police Commission, that the 17 be returned to Taiwan without mentioning Wu.
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The strong momentum of cooperative social interactions across the Straits which continued despite the distaste of the Tiananmen trauma nonetheless coexisted with certain conflict-foreboding developments. In 1989, the illegal firearms confiscated by the Taiwan police amounted to about 10,000 -- mostly made in the PFC and bearing consecutive serial numbers -- up from 2,400 in 1988. In late December 1989, Taipei government spokesman Shaw Yu-Ming attributed the recent drastic deterioration of public security in Taiwan to the gun smuggling across the Straits, facilitated by a "conniving" Beijing government. Furthermore, another form of smuggling originated in the mainland and also troubled Taiwan's society. The Institute for National Security Policy Research -- a non-governmental think tank in Taipei -- reported in November 1989 that at least 5,000 to 6,000 mainland drifters had illegally arrived in Taiwan by infiltrating the coastline on fishing boats under night cover and among those "guestworkers" and "imported prostitutes" were commissioned agents engaging in sabotage and espionage.
On balance, the social interaction between the two countries exhibited greater integrative than disintegrative trends, and the mainland-bound movements far exceeded the reverse. At least three factors may account for such developments. First, Beijing's efforts at fostering goodwill among Taiwanese people never slackened. On February 4, 1990, the PRC government dispatched People's Liberations Army vehicles to rescue 17 Taiwanese tourists from a snowstorm in Zhangjiajie, Hunan while leaving some Hong Kong tourists still stranded at the location.
Second, the Taipei government has maintained since 1988 its relaxation, however limited, of restrictions on non-governmental contact and communication across the Straits. In April 1988, letter correspondences between the two sides began passing through a transfer station in Hong Kong administered by the International Red Cross. As described by Tao Paichuan, Taipei's advisor on National Policy, in October 1988, the emerging but tacit stance taken by his government was "communication by letter but no postal exchanges...interflow but no contact...." Third, nationalistic sentiments rooted in cultural and familial bonds proved to be an unstoppable driving force for social interactions between the two sides. Even Chen Yinchen, a Taiwanese author with no relations on the mainland, publicly described his sense of urgency for reunification based on the "warmth towards compatriots and profound concerns for the bones and flesh of his mainland brothers and sisters" when the Taiwan civilian delegation "China Reunification Alliance" led by him landed in Beijing on February 15, 1990.
STRATEGIC TRENDS
In public perception, the three crucial issues that govern the strategic interactions between Taiwan and mainland China are:
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-- Is the PRC capable of invading the ROC?
-- Does the PRC intend to invade the ROC?
-- How does the PRC invade the ROC?
Examinations of these issues respectively on capabilities, intention, and a conflict scenario follow.
Capabilities. In recent years, the ROC made impressive progress in defense build-up with emphasis on quality improvement over quantity expansion. Such efforts continued if not accelerated after the 1989 Tiananmen incident. In February 1989, the Taipei government seemed to exude national confidence when its sponsored Institute of International Relations reported that the 1989 spending for the ROC armed forces, about 1/10th the size of the People's Liberation Army, would be 6,840 million dollars which exceeded the 5,820 million dollars of the 1988 PLA spending. Two months later, Taiwan Defense Minister Chen Weiyuan indicated that ROC military capabilities were sufficient to resist a PLA offensive of 2,000 fighters, 200 warships, and 20 divisions of soldiers; and that his country prepared seven layers of defense "to block the enemy at his coast, attack him during crossing the Straits, and annihilate him at our beaches." By spring 1989, Taiwan had constructed a network of underground air force bases east of the Central Mountains under the "Chia Shan" Project in addition to upgrading its military hardware such as the acquisition of two Dutch-made attack submarines -- "Sea Dragon" (Hai Lung) and "Sea Tiger" (Hai Hu) -- to break the PLA Navy's monopoly of control in the depths of the Taiwan Straits.
One month after the June 4 incident, Taipei for the first time publicly displayed its newly developed M41RC1, a remote-control battle tank. In early August, the ROC Navy held the "Sword Fighting" (Chien Wu) exercise in which the submarine Hailung made its premier media appearance. In late September, Taipei announced that 900 domestically developed surface-to-air Sky Bow (Tien Kung) missiles to be produced at 2,400 million dollars, would replace the Nike- Hercules and Hawk missiles in the ROC army during the next eight years. At the end of October, Taiwan's first indigenously developed jet fighter (IDF), which is comparable to the U.S. F-16, made a public debut. In January 1990, Taipei announced a series of weaponry procurement plans including the production of the IDF beginning in 1991, despite a tire-blowing accident during the October debut. The production of a long-range anti- ship missile "Heroic Wind II" (Hsung Feng) and the development of an air-to-air missile "Sky Sword" (Tien Chien) were also under way. Meanwhile, Taipei actively sought a foreign producer for its second generation warships and reportedly almost reached final agreement with France to build 16 Lafayette class frigates at 5,000-13,000 million dollars before Paris withdrew the offer under pressure from Beijing. Nonetheless, Taiwan's state-run China shipbuilding corporation began in January 1990 to build 8 U.S. designed Perry frigates.
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On the part of the PRC, a persevering defense buildup has continued since 1979 with much greater success than commonly perceived. Chief factors accounting for the discrepancy between outside perception and actual performance include the PLA's application of the ancient Chinese strategic art of manipulating ambiguity to conceal defense budget expenditures such as those for research and development, hardware improvement such as those in nuclear weaponry, and the size of troops such as the exclusion of the People's Armed Police whose combat training and heavy equipments far exceed the requirement of a police force. Most prominent features of China's defense modernization are "pockets of excellence," the multidimensional defense and projection force, and more assertive doctrine and training.
First, China, though still a developing country, became the world's third largest nuclear power since the late 1970s. Closely connected with its nuclear arms program, China's space program -- another "pocket of excellence" -- seemed to accelerate in its progress in the second half of the 1980s. The PRC has launched satellites at greater frequency and with increasingly powerful rockets such as the Long March 3 which is interchangeable after modifications with an extended range intercontinental ballistic missile -- East Wind 6 or 7 as yet unnamed -- under scientific, commercial and therefore less threatening terms. Having acquired in 1980 East Wind 5 ICBM capable of reaching Kansas City with a 5 megaton warhead and by the late 1980s a survival second strike nuclear force complete with multiple-warhead, solid-fuel, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, China can credibly deter any superpowers from militarily intervening in a regional conflict around the PRC's peripheries. In these places, Beijing's increasingly sophisticated conventional forces can then play a decisive role.
Second, Beijing has built a multidimensional defense by filling the wide gap between a primitive infantry force subscribing people's war doctrine and the advanced strategic nuclear force. By the end of the 1980s, the infantry was outnumbered by other specialized branches of the land force and the PLA Navy, once a unitary force, became diversified to include surface ships, submarines, the naval aviation, the coastal defense, and the marines. Training was therefore aimed at combined forces operations. In June 1988, Beijing announced the formations of a 15,000- man rapid deployment force known as "Fist Platoon" which could land by parachute anywhere in Chinese territory -- as defined by Beijing -- within 20 hours. At the saw time, the PLA has begun selective improvement of its conventional force equipment. In August 1988, the Chinese Navy claimed to have become a "guided missile-based attack force" equipped with various missiles, surface-to-surface, surface-to-air, air-to-surface, and submarine-launched cruise and ballistic missiles. The Chinese air force has began to improve its fighters, helicopters both with quiet foreign assistance and efficient indigenous technology. In
* PAGE 13 PAGE 13 pxf304 late January 1990, the PLA Navy successfully tested a C-34 type of anti-ship and anti-submarine torpedo which was more powerful than the ordinary sonar-guided anti-submarine equivalents.
In fact, the PLA has developed a projection force signified by a naval strategic shift from a "coastal defense" to a "near-sea defense" as revealed by Admiral Zhang Xusan in March 1989. A series of recent incidents manifest the growing Chinese military assertiveness around the PRC borders. In March 1988, the PTA Navy sank two or three Vietnamese ships near the Chigua Reef of the Spratly Islands. In April 1989, during China's spring urban upheaval, the Navy took a seventh Paracel reef island which had been under Vietnamese occupation. By December 1989, Beijing had decided to build an air force base in the Paracels.
What enhances the PLA force projections is its recent efforts to improve its amphibious capabilities. The Marine Corps reestablished in May 1980, increased its training since early 1987 in the West Pacific and South China Sea. In 1989, the East Sea Fleet, responsible for the defense of the Taiwan Straits, stepped up its training: a major amphibious exercise for invading reef islands was conducted from early May to mid-September. A hundred-day militia training program where more than 800 fishing ships were summoned by the Nanjing Military Region ended around November. According to observers in Taipei, the unusual increase of mainland fishing boat activities ever since Taipei lifted the martial law in July 1987 was related to the PLA's efforts to gather oceanographic information on the Taiwan Straits in order to improve its plan for a landing campaign against the ROC.
In sum, although both the ROC and the PRC have improved their national defense in recent years, the progress gained in selective areas of the PLA capabilities made Beijing increasingly confident in asserting itself in regional conflicts around its peripheries.
Intentions. Despite the successive steps taken by Beijing to soften its stance regarding the Taiwan issue since 1979, the PFC has never renounced the use of force in the ultimate achievement of reunification because, according to Beijing, a promise not to use force would make such a task more difficult. However, what prompts Beijing to resort to applying force over the Taiwan Straits may be a combination of factors including, but not restricted to, the geriatric leadership's aspiration for a unified China. These factors fall in three categories pertaining respectively to the shifting international balance of power, the intractable domestic dilemmas, and the perceived provocation by Taiwan.
First, the Beijing-Moscow and Beijing-Hanoi rapprochements allowed the PLA to redeploy troops previously stationed on hostile borders to other areas with the potential for conflict such as the Spratly Islands and the Taiwan Straits. Moreover, the prospect of the United States reducing its military presence in East Asia would
* PAGE 14 PAGE 14 pxf304 also allow the PLA greater flexibility, in an operation over the Straits. The drastic decline of Communist powers around the world has exacerbated Beijing's sense of isolation. Isolation breeds desperation; desperation produces irrationality; and irrationality leads to aggression against high odds.
Second, China is facing almost in all major sectors deep-rooted and sometimes wide-spread problems which point to a social upheaval in the coming years probably triggered by a power struggle within the ruling hierarchy. An orderly political succession after Deng Xiaoping will be difficult due to the downfall of his two heirs apparent, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. The loyalty of the military, no longer monolithic as illustrated by its paralysis prior to the Tiananmen crackdown, has increasingly been questioned. China's economy now suffers from multiple predicaments such as the debt crisis, the conflict between the market and command economy, the imbalance between agriculture and industry, the chronic cycles of overheating and retrenchment, and the specter of hyperinflation. Among others, the potentially most destabilizing social malaise is the drifter population which grew uncontrollably from 50 million before the Tiananmen upheaval to 60-80 million in early 1990. Most civilian violence during the spring of 1989 unrest stemmed from the drifters, and three out of every four demonstrators in Beijing came from outside the city. When domestic situations deteriorate, dictatorial rulers are tempted to externalize internal conflict by waging war outside of the borders to unify domestic factions. If deciding to use force against Taiwan, Beijing may more likely feel compelled (by) rather than in perfect control of its domestic situation.
Third, Taiwan with its progress in political liberalization and economic success has inspired envy among the mainland population which often has turned into discontent toward Beijing. Taipei's practice of flexible diplomacy and the recent escalation of Taiwanese independence movement on the island, as described previously, have constantly irritated Beijing. The expanding Taiwanese investment in and trade with the mainland will inevitably affect the PRC society with "bourgeois liberalization" and spiritual pollution" feared by Beijing. Despite Beijing's initial eagerness to welcome socio-economic and even political interaction with Taiwan, PRC leadership may later find the "soft offensives" launched by Taipei suspect and intolerable which will aggravate the Taiwan-mainland relations to a point of armed confrontation.
Both Taipei and Beijing have expressed intentions to cooperate militarily with the others in the defense of the Spratlys. But in strategic interactions between the two, trends carrying conflict potential far exceeds those of cooperation. The probability of Beijing using force over the Taiwan Straits has increased after the 1989 Tiananmen incident.
* PAGE 15 PAGE 15 pxf304
Scenario: If Beijing decides to "defend China's own territory on Taiwan and the offshore islands," the characteristics of the operations will be first, an emphasis on extramilitary means to minimize the damage to Taiwan and maximize the price for the victor, and second, gradual escalation to reap the greatest benefit of a psychological war, both in accordance with the PLA's strategic tradition. A tentative scenario in ascending order of violence and descending order of probability follows:
-- Sabotage of Taiwan's society by means such as flooding it with cheap illegal guns smuggled from the mainland;
-- harassment of Taiwan's ports with formations of "fishing" flotilla claimed by the militia;
-- show of force by PLA naval ships in areas bordering on waters claimed by Taiwan;
-- successive occupation of remote and minor offshore islands to effect mounting psychological pressure on Taiwan's population;
-- psychological shock of the Taiwanese people by "testing" ballistic missiles or tactical missiles on Taiwan's off shore islands or territorial waters;
-- verbal announcement of a blockade by Beijing to send shipping insurance skyrocketing;
-- blockade with surface ships, submarines and mining of Taiwan's ports;
-- airborne infiltration to land special forces in Taiwan's mountains;
-- air-battles; and
-- amphibious landings.
Although the PRC may never succeed in subjugating the ROC due to the strength of Taiwan's defense and the uncertainty of China's domestic order, damages on Taiwan and the cost for the mainland will both be high.
CONCLUSIONS
Examinations of the Post-Tiananmen trends in the political, economic, social, and strategic interactions between Taiwan and the mainland suggest the following observations:
1. Taiwan people's mainland-bound economic and social activities after the Tiananmen incident expanded at a rate at least equal to but probably greater than that before the incident except a transient wait-and-see period in June and July 1989. Such cooperative trends will continue premising eventual integration in the future.
2. The mainland's Taiwan-bound economic and social activities both before and after the Tiananmen incident have grown at a minimal rate limited by the Taipei government's caution and resistance regarding Beijing's persistent initiatives for communication, contact, and negotiation. However, despite the Tiananmen incident, such activities expectedly will grow as Taipei has begun and may
* PAGE 16 PAGE 16 pxf304 accelerate relaxation on restrictions of non-governmental exchanges.
3. It is not unlikely that Taipei will open direct political contacts with the mainland after the March 1990 presidential election. ROC leaders may have conceived a grand strategy of "soft-offensives" combining the economic, social, and even political movements toward the mainland to eventually change the nature of PRC state and society, and to encumber Beijing's use of force against Taiwan.
4. The post-Tiananmen era has seen the dialectical coexistence of two opposite sets of trends in Taiwan- mainland relations, both developing at a rate faster than anticipated in public perception. One is the cooperative and integrative set of trends mentioned above. The other is the conflict-portending set of trends foreshadowing war over the Taiwan Straits.
5. The dialectics in the future relations between Taiwan and mainland China may lead to a two-stage resolution: First, conflict in the mid-future of two to three years due to the uncontrollable momentum of the contentious factors pointing to rising enmity; and then, eventual integration following gradual but unstopable expansion of social, economic, and political interactions fostered by socio-economic compatibilities and cultural nationalism.
(end text)
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File Identification: 04/11/90, PX-304
Product Name: Wireless File
Product Code: WF
Keywords: NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY (NDU); CHONG-PIN LIN; CHINA-TAIWAN
RELATIONS; FOREIGN RELATIONS; ATROCITIES; CHINA, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF/Politics & Government; DENG XIAOPING; LEE TENG-HUI; TAIWAN/Politics & Government; CHINA, PEOP
Document Type: TXT
Thematic Codes: 1EA
Target Areas: EA
PDQ Text Link: 135621
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