In April, the US Council on Foreign Relations published a 117-page Independent Task Force report titled US-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course, which extols the merits of US-China engagement.
The 30 task force members are prominent academics from academia and think tanks, former government officials and business leaders. The report is purported to be a consensus of the mainstream US policy elite.
Before addressing the main topic of US-China relations, the report presents a comprehensive and well documented analysis of US goals in dealing with China, China's economic and social transformation since the opening up of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1978, China's approach to the world and China's military modernization. The report then discusses a comprehensive list of recommendations on how to steer the PRC towards the role of a responsible stakeholder in the international system.
In conclusion, the task force states that while China's future remains uncertain, US national power — military, political, economic and moral — can be sustained, "giving the United States ample time and means to evaluate and adjust policies towards China in the event that proves necessary."
While the findings, analyses and recommendations of the report appear generally sound, a number of academics wrote perceptive dissenting opinions which significantly enhance the completeness and balance of this report. The University of Pennsylvania's Professor Arthur Waldron, however, was the only dissenter who touched on the Taiwan issue and his views are summarized below.
The report does not address the illegitimacy and weakness of the Chinese regime and does not give sufficient weight to China's military buildup. The economic analysis is overly positive and misleading.
"Taiwan will continue to exist as an independent state and ... Washington, China, and the rest of the world should start thinking about how we will accommodate it," the report says.
If the [Chinese Communist] Party "attempts (as now) to hold on to absolute power at all costs, the danger of instability and conflict in China and the region will become serious," it adds.
The task force report gives the impression that the US government has recognized the PRC's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. Waldron refutes this interpretation by citing various documents including then-US president Ronald Reagan's April 1982 "Six Assurances" to Taipei, promising that the US would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.
Aside from the dissenting views, the report makes statements and implicit assumptions which are debatable. The Task Force, for example, finds that "on balance, US trade relations with China benefit both the people of the United States as well as China."
No doubt the infusion of foreign direct investment and access to the US market have contributed to China's rapid economic development. Yet income disparities are growing and some 400 million Chinese still live on less than US$2 a day. China's GDP growth is based on massive exploitation of workers and farmers. Laborers work long hours at low wages under unsafe conditions. Some 160 million farmers have moved to cities in search of jobs. A typical rural family has the father working in construction in a remote city, the mother working in a factory in a coastal province, leaving a school age child with grandparents at home. If someone gets sick the family gets into heavy debt since the government provides no social safety net. In the US, while people enjoy the cheap Chinese goods, both the national debt and personal debt keep growing. Savings rate is very low and the twin trade deficit and budget deficit cast a dark shadow on the US economy.
The report concludes that "China's leaders require and desire peace and stability at home and abroad (particularly on China's periphery) ... to address the nation's domestic challenges." This statement is overly complacent. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been building up the capability to overwhelm Taiwan's defenses with a multi-pronged blitzkrieg while denying timely US access to the war theater. The PLA has successfully tested an anti-satellite missile and reportedly is building five nuclear ballistic missile submarines which can be equipped with 400 or more MIRVed nuclear warheads.
Military exchanges and dialogues may help in easing tensions but these could also lead to a false sense of detente. The Chinese leadership puts a high premium on Suntzu's military doctrines, one of which is that deception and surprise are essential in defeating an adversary. The report did mention China's desire to redress 150 years of humiliation by the West. But the depth of this aggrieved nationalism is little understood by non-Chinese. Every Chinese is indoctrinated since childhood to believe that China must seek retribution against the barbarians. China must reclaim its position as the Central Kingdom, the predominant power in the world. No PLA officer or government official can go against this primordial instinct without jeopardizing his career. It is not prudent to blithely assume that if the US treats China as a friend, it will become a friend.
It is in dealing with the issue of Taiwan where the Task Force report is weakest, at times contradictory or misleading and essentially a roadmap for disaster.
The report appears to favor eventual peaceful annexation of Taiwan by the PRC, so as to avoid a conflict between the US and China. Thus the report is silent on the right of the Taiwanese to determine their own future, even though both the Clinton and Bush administrations have said any future settlement of Taiwan's status must have the assent of the 23 million Taiwanese. The report also does not mention Taiwan's value as an example of democracy for the PRC even though the Task Force professes China's political liberalization as a goal.
To maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait, the Task Force advocates the policies of "dual restraint" and "dual assurance," "deterring Chinese aggression and opposing Taiwan's steps toward independence while...assuring China that the United States does not seek to perpetuate Taiwan's separation from the mainland and assuring Taiwan that the United States does not seek to pressure it into negotiating a final solution."
The Task Force recommends that the US "makes its stance on Taiwan more explicit. China should understand clearly that the United States does not rule out (italics added) using force to thwart any Chinese attempt to compel unification through force. Similarly, the United States should make clear...that Taiwan cannot count on US military intervention if it provokes a crisis." Instead of clarity, these statements add more troublesome ambiguity. "Does not rule out" is not an explicit commitment to help defend Taiwan. The definition of provocation is not clear. By whose definition? To Beijing the mere existence of democratic Taiwan is a provocation since it highlights the PRC's lack of legitimacy. Taiwan badly needs to amend its obsolete Republic of China constitution to improve efficacy of governance. Will this be a provocation in the US view? What about changing the country's name to Taiwan, the name used in the Taiwan Relations Act?
The report does not mention the growing dangers of Taiwan's fall through internal subversion by the combined forces of the pro-China opposition, now pledged to collaborate with Beijing to facilitate unification, the pro-Chinese and anti-American media now infiltrated by Chinese capital, Taiwanese businessmen with investments in China, and PLA operatives already deployed on the island. Whether Taiwan is absorbed by China through military coercion or internal upheaval, the consequences are harmful to US strategic interests. China will feel that its policy of military aggrandizement has been vindicated, boosting its ambitions for further territorial expansion. Japan's vital sea lanes on both sides of Taiwan will become vulnerable to PLA harassment. The US-Japan military alliance could become a hollow shell as Japan loses faith in America's credibility as the guarantor of peace in Asia. Japan will face the unpalatable choice of either going nuclear or becoming a vassal state of China.
Colin Powell once said how China treats Taiwan will indicate how China will treat the US. The handwriting is on the wall. Note what the sage late Congressman Gerald Solomon once said "Taiwan's security is ultimately America's security."
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