Wed, Jan 07, 2004 page8

• The status quo's true foe is China

  • By Michael J. Fonte
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  The frog in increasingly hot water is an apt metaphor for where Taiwan sits today vis-a-vis China and its military buildup.

  Slowly, slowly the water is being heated: 496 missiles lined up on the coast of Fujian all aimed at Taiwan, with 75 more added yearly; heavy weapons systems regularly procured from Russia -- in the form of advanced aircraft and blue-water capable ships armed with sophisticated weaponry; and intense development of asymmetrical warfare possibilities designed to attack Taiwan's nerve centers.

  President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has offered olive branch after olive branch to Chinese leaders engaged in this scenario of intimidation. Caught up in their own internal jockeying for power, none of the old or current leaders seems either willing or able to make any serious response.

  Instead, after every statement by officials like Qian Qichen (錢其琛) that seem to open a door ever so slightly, there is a qualification by others that the only negotiating stance China is willing to accept from Taiwan is one of surrender -- or else.

  What is the democratically elected leader of Taiwan to do in the face of such intimidation? Sit back and watch as his country is boiled alive and eaten?

  Chen is not a passive person. He and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) did not beat back 40 years of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) martial law by meekly turning the other cheek.

  They demonstrated in the streets and pushed the envelope for change until the KMT could no longer resist. They are doing the same thing now that they are faced with the Chinese Communist Party's threats.

  Chen and the DPP are the peacemakers in the region and have dared Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to back off his threats. With no response forthcoming from the Chinese leaders, Chen wants to hold a referendum on the Chinese threat to show how deep Taiwanese antipathy toward China runs.

  For this, Chen was publicly rebuked by President George W. Bush.

  "We oppose any unilateral decision, by either China or Taiwan, to change the status quo," Bush said on Dec. 10, as he sat next to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶).

  "And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally that change the status quo, which we oppose," he said.

  Hu Jintao expressed his gratitude to Bush in a Dec. 20 telephone call for opposing any "words and actions" by Taiwan to alter its status quo, and again warned that China would not tolerate independence.

  Chen has been roundly condemned as a troublemaker by US analysts as disparate as Ross Munro and Ralph Cossa.

  Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum, wrote in the Japan Times on Dec. 19: "When the Bush administration looks at the cross-strait situation today, it is Taiwan, not the mainland, that seems most intent on rocking the boat ? While Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's recent talk of referendums and constitutional revisions may serve his domestic political agenda -- Chen is in the middle of a hotly contested re-election campaign -- his efforts to disrupt the status quo do not serve US national security interests."

  Munro, director of Asian studies at the conservative Center for Security Studies, is even more blunt.

  In the Dec. 18 issue of the National Review, Munro declares: "President Chen ? betrayed the United States. He did so by recklessly yet quite consciously promoting his own political fortunes at the expense of the vital national interests of the US."

  How do the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and US interests intersect? US policy is quite clear and consistent: the status quo today is that there are two entities on either side of the Strait and any resolution of their differences must result in a peacefully and mutually agreed-upon "one China."

  If this resolution produces the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the "one China" with Taiwan as a separate, independent nation, fine by the US.

  If it means some confederated entity that unites Taiwan and the PRC, fine as well. US administrations are committed by law -- the Taiwan Relations Act -- to seeing this peaceful resolution through to its completion.

  The act also clearly connects US interests in the peace and security of East Asia to this peaceful resolution.

  The Congress "finds the enactment of this Act is necessary ? (4) to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States; [and] ? (6) to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people of Taiwan. ? The preservation and enhancement of the human rights of all the people of Taiwan are hereby affirmed as objectives of the United States."

  So the gnawing question remains, which side is jeopardizing the status quo across the Taiwan Strait -- democratic Taiwan, with its constant calls for dialogue based on mutual respect, or autocratic China, with its military buildup aimed at intimidation, at best, and eventual subjugation of Taiwan?

  Clearly, China's leaders do not accept this status quo, continuing to insist Taiwan is already an integral part of their "one China," a wayward province to be integrated with the "motherland" by force if necessary. Their military modernization program is designed to change the status quo, by intimidation if possible, or force.

  It is the Chinese leadership, and not the leader of Taiwan, that "betrayed" US trust and US interests.

  As the Pentagon's July 30 report on Chinese military power notes: "While seeing opportunity and benefit in interactions with the United States -- primarily in terms of trade and technology -- Beijing apparently believes that the United States poses a significant long-term challenge ? China has embarked upon a force modernization program intended to diversify its options for use of force against potential United States intervention in a Taiwan Strait conflict ? In response to external intervention in a regional conflict involving China, the PLA would attempt to weaken [the] US or other third party's resolve by demonstrating the capability to hold at risk -- or actually striking -- high value assets."

  At this point in history, the Bush administration rightly wants a candid, constructive and cooperative relationship with China.

  Taiwan has no quarrel with such a relationship for it wants the very same thing.

  But the Taiwanese people, staring across the strait at those 496 missiles, would like to see more emphasis on the "candid" side of the equation.

  Bush should have turned to Wen on Dec. 10 and told him that the US opposes the decisions the leaders of China are making to change the status quo. China is the culprit in upsetting the balanced US position regarding the Taiwan Strait, not Taiwan.

  Michael J. Fonte is the Washington liaison for the Democratic Progressive Party.
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