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Academics ponder China's next move on missile strategy

Academics remained split yesterday on whether Beijing's offer to cut back its missiles targeting Taiwan in exchange for reduced US arms sale to Taipei would be revived in the near future, with some dubbing it a dead-end proposal.

"I don't think we'll see any further developments," said Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), executive director of the Institute for National Policy Research.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新) confirmed on Friday reports that Washington had told Beijing to talk to Taipei directly regarding the offer.

The proposal was first raised by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) in his summit with US President George W. Bush last October, officials have said.

"Since the US is unwilling to talk to China over the proposal, neither is it possible for Taiwan to negotiate with China on the issue," Lo said. "It's basically a dead-end proposal as far as I can see."

Officials and analysts have interpreted the US response as Washington's attempt to de-link its arms sales to Taipei from Beijing's missile threat to Taiwan.

Washington sees its arms sales as being in its economic interests and as maintaining the military balance in the Taiwan Strait, and will not easily consider scaling back its weapons sales to Taiwan, Lo said.

"If the US agrees to negotiate with China over the issue, it may trigger a never-ending process that is not necessarily in the US interest," Lo said.

Joanne Chang (裘兆琳), research fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of European and American Studies, said Taipei should watch carefully whether Beijing pushes the proposal further.

Chang argued that Beijing's push for the proposal could serve China well.

"It can be utilized as international propaganda, a way to sell China as a peace-loving country to the US," Chang said.

Washington's perception that Beijing could play a role in pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program could give China the upper hand in selling the proposal to the US, Chang said.

"If China is willing to help the US with the issue of North Korea, it may enjoy a bit more bargaining power with the US," Chang said.

Although the proposal can been seen as China's partial response to Taipei's initiatives to urge Beijing to withdraw its missiles, the true trade-off Beijing desires is to negotiate with Washington over the US arms sale to Taiwan, Chang argued.

US arms sales to Taiwan must comply with the Taiwan Relations Act, which was enacted by the US Congress after Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched a campaign last summer to urge China to withdraw its missiles targeting Taiwan. Jiang's proposal last October was seen as a partial response to this campaign, Chang said.

Taiwan's representative to the US, Chen Chien-jen (程建人), was the first Taiwanese official to reveal that Jiang had discussed dropping the ballistic missile deployment in exchange for the US freezing arms sales when he met Bush in Texas last October.

The envoy has said that some US officials had privately told him that neither Washington nor Taipei would be so naive as to buy Jiang's proposal.
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