Wed, Aug 29, 2001 page8

• Taiwan is standing in China's way

  • By Chuck DeVore
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  China intends to eclipse the US and become the world's superpower. Standing in the way of this ambition is a free and democratic Taiwan.

  The struggle for Taiwan is the core US foreign policy issue of the new century. If Taiwan remains free and democratic, the US has little to fear from China. If Taiwan is absorbed by a totalitarian China, then the 21st century will see the eclipse of American influence and the ideals of freedom, democracy and human rights -- nothing less is at stake.

  Make no mistake, the un-elected rulers in Beijing see the battle for Taiwan in terms no less stark. Viewing the collapse of the Soviet empire, they understand that they must expand or die -- and they intend to expand at freedom's expense.

  China's strategy to take Taiwan is double-edged: it has both political and military components.

  The political front focuses on two groups in Taiwan: businessmen as well as the still potent KMT and the New Party. The political strategy seeks to use divide-and-conquer tactics to rule Taiwan through surrogates.

  China has been cultivating Taiwan's tycoons in much the same manner as they successfully seduced those in Hong Kong. So far, China has netted some US$40 billion to US$60 billion of precious Taiwanese capital to build computer chip factories to the point that some 75 percent of China's computer products are made by firms owned wholly or in part by Taiwanese investors. This provides China with a huge amount of leverage to pressure Taiwan's rich and powerful to do its bidding.

  Most of these silicon million-aires have little concern for human rights -- in fact, the complete lack of unionization or basic employee rights in China is viewed as an excellent way to keep labor costs down and better compete with their peers who haven't yet moved production to China.

  Taiwan's middle class now finds itself increasingly squeezed in a stagnant job market (caused largely by capital flight to China). This in turn increases political unrest and contributes to a national malaise and a sense that things were better when the KMT was running the economy.

  Beijing's courtship of the KMT and New Party goes hand in hand with its effort to capture the hearts and minds of the wealthy industrialists. By shunning contacts with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the DPP, Beijing has been building contacts with the opposition. Beijing hopes to thoroughly discredit Chen and his party so that the nation becomes ungovernable -- and even more so after this December's pivotal legislative elections. By this method China seeks to drive Chen from office and establish a pro-Beijing, Quisling government.

  While many of Taiwan's rich and famous have been taken in, the average person in Taiwan seems more suspicious of Bei-jing's intent, and more appreciative of the democracy they've built. For them, accommodation with a totalitarian China is out of the question if it means a loss of freedom. China's military options have never been stronger and should continue to tilt in its favor until the US begins deploying effective missile defenses to shield itself and its allies in Asia. Unfortunately, there is a formidable axis of opinion among the policy elite that serves to preempt meaningful debate about China's growing arsenal and intentions.

  Pro-Beijing China experts on the one hand say China is a peace-loving, developing power with no territorial ambitions. Conventionally thinking military analysts, who never tire of reliving our last victories, on the other hand laugh off Chinese military capabilities, derisively referring to any Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan as a "million man swim."

  The truth of China's capabilities and intentions towards Taiwan is much more serious and urgent than most in the US or even in Taiwan realize.

  In early May I went to Taipei on a trip sponsored by the local publisher of the Chinese language translation of China Attacks, the novel about a sudden Chinese attack on Taiwan that I co-authored with Steven Mosher. After meeting with local national security experts and touring northern Taiwan I came away reinforced in my belief that Taiwan relies on two things for its immediate defense: adequate warning and its air force.

  That any Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan would be done with surprise and overwhelming force is a given (as opposed to squeezing Taiwan into submission through naval blockade or missile attack). Why Western military strategists dismiss this scenario is an interesting study in cultural arrogance and ignorance of historical precedent.

  A Chinese amphibious assault? Oh preposterous, the experts say, who contend that without air superiority and more amphibious assault ships, such an assault would be doomed.

  What the experts fail to note is China's burgeoning merchant marines (ranked by some analysts as the world's third largest) and their increasing practice of commandeering civilian vessels in support of military exercises in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait. Taking into account ferry boats, freighters, cruise ships and fishing boats, China has a very large lift capacity -- not the modest 20,000-40,000 troops per lift often cited by experts. Could such a thing happen quickly and with surprise? The Germans used civilian lift to get thousands of troops to Norway in April 1940 in the face of much stronger British and French naval forces.

  Similarly, the use of airlift is never mentioned by analysts as a way for China to move troops onto Taiwan (except for a recent Human Events piece), yet that is precisely how the Soviet Union began its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 -- an airlift directly into Kabul. It is also interesting to note that some two-thirds of US troops sent to fight Iraq in 1990-91 were lifted into the theater with civilian aircraft. China's civil air fleet is now very large and very capable of supporting China's military ambitions.

  It is instructive to note that Chiang Kai-shek International Airport is virtually unprotected. It is easy to envision a 400-man Chinese commando team flying into CKS on a commercial flight from Hong Kong, then seizing key portions of the airport as a prelude to a massive airlift of troops and supplies.

  Both methods for bringing troops into Taiwan presuppose Chinese air superiority over Taiwan. How can this be quickly achieved so as not to give away surprise or draw the US into the conflict? The answer is simple and strikes at the core of something Western militaries have shut away in denial: an electro-magnetic pulse attack using special nuclear warheads.

  Such an attack, using specifically tailored nuclear weapons, most likely exploded at very high altitude, would result in little to no direct casualties. What would be destroyed, however, is the very foundation of Taiwan's air defense: its advanced aircraft, its radars and its command, control, communications and computer systems. Damage could be kept localized as well -- allowing Beijing's propaganda machine to claim that minimum force was being applied to simply bring a rebellious province into line.

  As to those who believe nuclear weapons would not be used by China in the opening move of an assault on Taiwan, it is instructive to note that East German war plans uncovered by the West Germans after reunification called for, in one instance, some 40 tactical nuclear weapons to be used in the vicinity of Hamburg in the first day of the attack. Even so, Warsaw Pact military planners believed they had a shortage of tactical nuclear weapons up to the early 1980s.

  The point is this: the mere fact that we Americans think the use of nuclear weapons is unthinkable today (whether electro-magnetic pulse bombs, neutron bombs or battlefield nuclear weapons) doesn't mean that the Chinese think so (or the North Koreans, Pakistanis or others, for that matter).

  As serious as the threat to Taiwan is right now, the threat to the Chinese Communist Party and its leaders is worse. Endemic corruption with bribery consuming about 15 percent to 20 percent of the economy, bad loans totaling up to 40 percent of the annual domestic output, rising crime, 100 million unemployed migrant workers and the largest income gap between rich and poor in all of Asia, have caused a complete loss of faith in the party. Social unrest grows daily with the predictable reaction from Beijing -- more crackdowns on dissent, both political and religious.

  For this reason, Taiwan's successful experiment in Chinese democracy and freedom threatens the leadership in Beijing more than the entire global arsenal of nuclear weapons ever could. No longer can the communists claim that democracy and freedom are alien Western concepts. With their legitimacy undermined the last card they have to play -- and it's a potent one -- is the nationalist card. So, as countless failed dictatorships have before them, the leaders in Beijing may yet stoke the fires of nationalism in a quest to stay in power.

  If they succeed in taking Taiwan while on such a quest, the world will pay a greater price than it did to defeat Hitler and Japan. If they fail, the world will be a safer place for democracy and freedom.

  Chuck DeVore served in the Reagan-era Pentagon as a special assistant for foreign affairs.
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