China's rhetoric about Taiwan has sharpened a fair bit. The re-election of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has jolted its leadership. It's not that Chen has said anything to upset China (indeed, his inaugural address was rather tame), but because China's leadership believes that his moderation is not real. He is still committed to an independent and sovereign Taiwan, as Beijing sees it.
According to Wu Nengyuan (
The question then is: Has Chen done that? Apparently not. What then is making Beijing up the ante? There are a number of explanations.
First, it could have something to do with an ongoing power struggle between President Hu Jintao (
Another reason is a sense of overwhelming frustration. Bei-jing was hoping to create a substantial pro-China constituency within Taiwan. That hasn't happened. Indeed, Chen polled more votes in this year's election than in 2000. And among his political opponents, most hedged or opposed unification with China. As Wu has said, "There's no longer any politician in Taiwan they can rely on for unification because there's no one that stands for unification."
The sense of frustration is further compounded because Beijing is unable to effectively use its new leverage with the US (from Iraq and North Korea) on Taiwan. Bei-jing was obviously encouraged by US President George W. Bush's gentle rebuke, some months ago, cautioning Chen against changing the status quo. But since then the US has maintained its old position of encouraging dialogue across the Taiwan Strait.
During her recent China visit, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice came under intense pressure on Taiwan. She reportedly rebuffed Chinese demands to curb arms sales to Taiwan. Ever since Sino-US relations were resumed in the 1970s, Beijing has sought to use its US connection to facilitate the unification of Taiwan with China. The curbing of US arms sales would be an important step in that direction.
A recent news conference in Washington called by a Chinese embassy spokesman would suggest a new (rather unusual) effort to highlight the Taiwan issue in the Sino-US equation. According to the embassy spokesman, US actions on Taiwan had undermined the "one China" policy underpinning US-China relations. A failure to rectify the situation would harm bilateral relations, including Chinese cooperation on North Korea's nuclear policy.
According to The Washington Post, Rice was told when in China that Beijing would "not sit idly by" if arms sales to Taiwan went ahead. Taiwan is thus said to be "an obstacle" to US-China relations. Indeed, according to the Post report, "Chinese officials appear to believe the [Bush] administration's policies on human rights, democracy and Hong Kong `added up to a policy aimed at regime change in Beijing.'"
In other words, China's communist leadership is becoming even more paranoid than usual. But there is a method to their madness. Their renewed political offensive is part of their push to become and be regarded as the world's second superpower. To achieve this they badly need US acknowledgement. Not only that, they even seek US facilitation to make it happen.
There is a sense in China that the world somehow owes it the restoration of its old glory as the Middle Kingdom. But instead of helping this global project, the US is seen as impeding it by encouraging the "renegade" province of Taiwan from staying apart. Communist China, therefore, suffers from the self-righteous anger of not being accorded its supposedly rightful central place in the global hierarchy. Such frustration occasionally finds expression in a mighty display of military power (just short of using it) against the small nation of Taiwan.
Under the circumstances, any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would not only require utmost secrecy to surprise and overwhelm the enemy, but also execution in the shortest possible time. But Beijing is going all over town to announce that it "will absolutely not tolerate Taiwan's independence." Which, in any case, is not the issue currently because Chen is not pushing the independence agenda.
As Chen said in his inaugural speech, "[Taiwan and China] must work together to guarantee that there will be no unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait."
Therefore, Beijing's constant refrain that it doesn't trust Chen is a red herring, being used to put maximum pressure on the US at a time when it is over-stretched. Its timing is also important in the context of the US presidential election. Beijing is testing the political waters in Washington. The US establishment across the political spectrum is being told loudly that Taiwan is an obstacle to the development of US-Chinese relations and needs sorting out. If not, China might see fit to withdraw its cooperation on North Korea and elsewhere.
As for the specifics of the Taiwan situation, China would like Washington to start with curbing its arms sales to Taiwan. Will the US fall for it? It seems unlikely, considering it has always resisted giving China a blank check to annex Taiwan. Washington will continue to favor peaceful dialogue across the Taiwan Strait, as Rice told the Beijing authorities during her recent China visit.
Sushil Seth is a freelance writer based in Sydney.
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