No win for Beijing: analyst

The more Beijing tries to intimidate Taiwan, the more "likely the result would be to kill any desire among Taiwan's people for reunification," American China specialist Stephen Yates said Wednesday.

Yates, a senior policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation told the "Voice of America" radio station that China is making a mistake if it tries to take even limited military action against Taiwan, because every military scenario that Beijing might be contemplating is likely to be counterproductive. Yates added that he hopes China would instead focus on sending more favorable signals to Taiwan.

The VOA program quoted Hong Kong journalist, Willy Wo-Lap Lam as saying that China's top leaders had different opinions.

Lam says some military leaders in China are considering taking over some of Taiwan's outlaying island's as a means of forcing Taiwan to drop its "two-states" position.

"It would be along the lines of the 1979 so-called punitive expedition against Vietnam, which means that if they were to do it this time against Taiwan, they would just go in for a few days, take over one or two outlying islands -- for example Kinmen or Matsu -- with no long-term occupation. They would just be there for a few days. As a result, the Taiwan economy would collapse, they would teach Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) a lesson, and then afterwards withdraw," Lam said.

However, during the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis, China made similar threats which never came to pass.

Regardless of what options lie on the table, China is still trying to make up its mind which to take, Lam added.

China will wait until after Taiwan's presidential elections in March, when they will have a better sense of what policy the next Taiwan leader will adopt. If the new president distances himself from Lee's so-called "two-states" statement, the Chinese army may drop its plan for a punitive strike against Taiwan, Lam said.

Nevertheless, he pointed out, President Jiang Zemin (|蕞A民) has instructed military officials to continue their preparations for war and make sure that they are totally prepared and have total confidence in winning the war against Taiwan.

Lam did admit that in the wake of the recent devastating earthquake in Taiwan, authorities in Beijing have been given another reason to delay military action.

It would not look good for China to stage provocative war games when the world is seeing this natural disaster in Taiwan and the devastation that it brought, he said.