After the summer of 2002, two apparently conflicting trends emerged in US policy toward the Taiwan Strait. Experts at home and abroad take what they need from them and come up with contradictory interpretations. In fact, each side is half-correct. Let's review some of the salient events in the two groups.
One, no Taiwan independence. In August last year, Taipei mentioned "one country on each side." Afterwards, the US expressed hope that the two sides should strengthen the practice of "prior consultations." During their meeting last October, US President George W. Bush told his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin (
ILLUSTATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Two, no use of military force by China. On Dec. 11, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice told General Xiong Guangkai (熊光楷), the People's Liberation Army deputy chief of staff, that the US could not accept his 1995 threat to launch a nuclear attack on Los Angeles. She also told him that the Chinese government should not miscalculate by thinking that it could coerce Taiwan into unification by means of military force because the US has the capability and will to carry out its commitments to defend Taiwan. The White House even fed this message to the Washington Times in an exclusive report. The importance attached to it was obvious.
On Dec. 20, Vice Chief of the General Staff Chu Kai-sheng (
In early November last year, an associate of US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly told me in Hawaii that Washington's Taiwan Strait policy was already set -- namely "double clarity." In mid-November, a delegation led by former defense secretary William Perry visited Taipei en route to Beijing. A key member in the delegation said that Washington had concluded its policy debate on the Strait and that "both have been sharpened" as a result. One is the US "one China policy," the other is a "peaceful resolution of the cross-strait issue."
In plain language, the first is an embellished form of "no Taiwan independence," the second, that of "no use of military force by China." He also added that when the US stresses either of those two positions at one point of time in order to prevent misunderstandings in Taipei or Beijing, such policy gestures or enunciations do not mean that the US has acquiesced on the other position.
The above developments carry four layers of implications.
First, the rise of the Vulcans has pushed aside the Red and Blue Teams:
In Rice's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, a statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, stands at the main entrance of a steel factory. Those who think as Rice have therefore dubbed themselves "the Vulcans." Most of them tend to be of the realist persuasion, Kissingerian in world view and are not China specialists. In July 2000, when Bush was still campaigning for the presidency, the Vulcans had already met to outline a foreign policy blueprint. Those present at the meeting included Richard Armitage, now deputy secretary of state and former president George Bush's national security adviser Brent Scowcroft.
Regarding cross-strait relations, the gist of their conclusions was that the US should "establish productive relations with China, America's major potential strategic adversary in East Asia" and "peace should be maintained in the Taiwan Strait". In fact, these guidelines already contained the policy directions of "no Taiwan independence and no use of military force by China."
In America's China studies circles are those on the self-proclaimed "Blue Team" and those who have been labeled part of the "Red Team." The terms originated from the PLA military exercises in which the enemy army is called the Blue Team and the Chinese side is called the Red Team. The Blue Team in the US has cautioned against the China threat and was highly critical of the Clinton administration's policy of seeking to establish a "constructive partnership" with Beijing. The Red Team believes that the peaceful evolution of China is likely, and advocates active engagement and cooperation with China to facilitate that process.
When George W. Bush first took office, there were two opposing views on China policy within his administration. One side saw China basically as a competitor of the US but recognized that the two countries have common interests.
Therefore, they argued that the US should emphasize the peaceful solution of the Strait issues. This was similar to the views of the Blue Team and tended to favor Taipei. The other side saw China potentially as a friend of the US, but recognized that there are fundamental differences between the two. Thus they argued the US should emphasize the "one-China policy." This was similar to the views of the Red Team and tended to favor Beijing.
Last summer, the dust finally settled in the debate between the two sides.
The result was that both the Red and Blue teams stepped aside, and the Vulcan Team placed itself between and above them. The policy of "double clarity" came to the fore.
Second, strategic clarity and tactical ambiguity:
During the Clinton administration, US policy toward the Strait was characterized by "deterrence through ambiguity," or simply "strategic ambiguity." Washington at the time made no promises about if and how it would react if China were to attack Taiwan. The US felt that its ambiguous attitude would make China feel uncertain what the outcome of an attack would be and therefore deter Beijing from taking such a risky action.
However, ambiguity on one side led to probing by the other side to find where the limits were really drawn, and probing precipitated a crisis. The March 1996 crisis in the Strait seriously challenged the logic of "strategic ambiguity."
After George W. Bush came into office, he adopted the approach of speaking clearly, which to some extent resulted from Rice's influence. In academia, Rice had studied international politics and Soviet military affairs. One of the important lessons she learned was that leaders must explain foreign policy very clearly so that the general public can understand.
In order to speak clearly, the Bush administration has used a dual approach -- the US tolerates no Chinese military actions on Taiwan and the US does not support and even is against "Taiwan independence." These two pillars constitute "strategic clarity." As for when, how, and with what to defend Taiwan from China's military threat, the US has retained ambiguity on the tactical level. This is "tactical ambiguity."
Third, Washington policy swings to maintain the long-term direction:
Washington's policy approaches toward China and Taiwan appears to swing left and right with time, but in fact the long-term policy orientation has remained the same. The policy adjustments that Washington has made have been attempts to simultaneously look after the three major areas of US national interests: democracy and human rights (politics), peace and security (military affairs), and trade and commerce (economics). Precisely because these three interests are not without innate contradictions, maintaining a long-term balance between them requires short-term policy shifts for the sake of preserving an unchanged overall policy direction.
Between Washington and the two countries separated by the Strait, the compatibility differs according to these US national interests, and may vary with time. In terms of democracy and human rights, Taiwan is most compatible with the US. In terms of trade and commerce, the US is attracted to the potential of China's huge market and therefore considers that nation more valuable.
In terms of peace and security, the situation has been a mix in flux. In the last stage of the Cold War, the US valued China as a counter-weight against the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War, the US became increasingly concerned about the rising China threat to US interests in the western Pacific and therefore considered Taiwan increasingly as strategically important. Then after Sept. 11, Osama bin Laden replaced China as America's foremost security headache.
In order to fight terrorism, the US needs to establish good relations with China. But Washington has not been oblivious to the fact that China, although currently facing no military threat from anyone, has continued -- if not sped up -- its military modernization, which signifies a long-term security problem to the US. Thus Taiwan remains geo-politically crucial to Washington.
The highlights of Washington's oscillating policy toward China and Taiwan in the last decade are as follows:
In May 1994, former president Lee Teng-hui (
In June 1998, then US president Bill Clinton stated the "Three No's" in Shanghai (no support for two Chinas, or one China and one Taiwan; no support for Taiwan independence and no support for Taiwan's participation in international organizations which require statehood for membership) -- once again very unfriendly toward Taipei.
In April 2001, Bush approved a comprehensive package of arms sales to Taiwan -- once again remarkably friendly toward Taipei.
These major events came at intervals of 13 months, 36 months and 34 months respectively, or an average of 28 months apart.
Every time the US policy swings to one extreme or the other, there are always those in Taiwan who over-interpret the news and become excessively worried, or unrealistically hopeful. They don't realize that the pendulum in time will swing back. The current US policy of "double clarity" should represent a swing to the middle or an equilibrium point.
Fourth, Beijing's two-pronged campaign and Washington's two-faced policy:
Actually, there is another important reason for settling on "double clarity." Beijing has softened its posture in dealing with Washington by emphasizing cooperation and de-emphasizing conflict. This has made it easier for Bush to tone down his original hard-line attitude toward Beijing and to stabilize the bilateral relationship.
In January 2001, Bush was about to enter the White House after having criticized Beijing in the course of his campaign. At that time, China's Vice Premier Qian Qichen (
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that Qian's suggestion obviously stopped short of winning consensus across the board within China's leadership and, in particular, from the military.
In mid-October of last year, the Study Times, a weekly published by the Chinese Communist Central Party School, printed an interview with Qian on the topic "The post-September 11 international outlook and China-US relations." It was probably a codified policy document based on internal consensus. In the interview, Qian said, "It is insufficient to have only the hand for struggles. The hand for developing cooperation is equally important. Cooperation itself is an important constraint on the anti-China forces in the US."
In late October, Jiang Zemin visited the US, and American officials noticed that certain Chinese diplomats who had formerly been perceived to be abrasively aggressive toward the US had become charmingly courteous. At the same time, PLA officers have become more accommodating toward Americans. In fact, just this month the Study Times published an interview with Xiong, apparently as the spokesman for the PLA. The article echoed Qian's idea of placing cooperation above conflict.
"We should continue to improve and develop relations with the prosperous countries," stressed Xiong as the first among six guidelines in Beijing's foreign policy.
Qian said in the above-mentioned interview that three things would remain unchanged in Sino-US relations: "One, the foundation for cooperation between China and the US remains unchanged; two, the fundamental contradictions between China and the US remain unchanged; three, the two-faced nature of Washington's China policy remains unchanged."
Two points are worth noting. One, it was quite a feat for Qian to win a consensus within the leadership to put "cooperation" before "conflict." Two, Qian's observation about the "two-faced nature" of US policy is not entirely unrelated to the "double clarity" mentioned previously. Qian understood that it was impossible for Washington to lean all the way toward Beijing, but ironically there is no lack of those having such worries in Taiwan.
In fact, Beijing has taken a softer approach toward the US and Taiwan -- almost simultaneously -- in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US.
These include Beijing's low-key attitude toward Vice President Annette Lu's (呂秀蓮) lengthened transit in the US in January 2001. Its reaction was also somewhat subdued last March, when Minister of National Defense Tang Yau-ming (湯曜明) became the first ROC defense minister to visit the US since the two sides severed formal diplomatic relations, and last September, when Vice Minister of National Defense Kang Ning-hsiang (康寧祥) became the first holder of such an office to enter the Pentagon in 23 years.
Beijing's foreign policy moderation also was seen in its tempered reaction toward the June 2002 US decision to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and Beijing's November vote in support of a UN Security Council resolution on weapons inspections in Iraq.
However, Beijing has not totally forsaken the "struggle" approach toward the US. For example, the PLA has continued its training on the "three attacks" -- attacks on aircraft carriers, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles -- all trademarks of American military prowess. Beijing has continued to maintain good relations with countries that Bush termed "the axis of evil."
Nor has Beijing dropped the hard line against Taiwan. For example, the PLA has been strengthening its amphibious capabilities by expanding the acquisitions and deployment of "wings on the ground," an advanced hovercraft-like landing vehicle. Moreover, Beijing has not ceased to suppress Taipei in the international arena.
Washington has adopted the "double clarity" posture for the cross-strait issue. Beijing has adopted a two-pronged approach with an emphasis on a soft approach with both Taipei and Washington. What is our consensus for response, if we need one?
Lin Chong-Pin, former first vice chairman and spokesman for the Mainland Affairs Council, is an adjunct professor in the Graduate Institute of Mainland Studies at the National Sun Yat-sen University.
Translated by Ethan Harkness and Francis Huang
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry