China's Vice President Hu Jintao (
The strategy involves both patience and pressure. On the one hand, Beijing wants to maintain active contact with Washington, giving the moderate faction in President George W. Bush's administration and the US Con-gress time and space to come around.
On the other hand, initial approaches have been made in areas unrelated to the Taiwan issue. In particular, pressure has been applied on Washington in the places where the US is most sensitive. Thus, Beijing is dealing with the US obliquely and not by direct confrontation. Beijing is aware that Bush's invitation to President Jiang Zemin (
They show that the moderate faction in Bush's administration still has influence. That faction hopes to initiate even more high-level contacts with Beijing and hopes to establish some sort of relationship with the future Chinese leader as early as possible. That is why Beijing has allowed Hu's visit, showing that it doesn't want to overreact for fear of leaving no room to back down later.
At the same time, this decision also reflects Beijing's eagerness to prevent US-China relations from deteriorating further on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party's 16th National Congress. Restraint is being exercised for the sake of Jiang's visit to the US in the autumn and to preserve the flexibility to improve US-China relations in the future.
Hu's plan to visit the US was announced in February. At that time, the purpose of his visit was straightforward.
First, he wanted to establish friendly relations in the US. In the political, economic and financial worlds in particular he wanted to establish personal relations and mutual understanding.
Second, he wanted to tour large industrial and agricultural enterprises to explore future prospects for trade.
Third, he intended to explore Washington's bottom line regarding US-China relations and policy toward Taiwan prior to Jiang's trip in order to help prepare China's own bottom-line policy as quickly as possible. This was the most important strategic purpose of Hu's trip.
Now Hu is facing a completely different set of circumstances. He is confronted with a US that has already completed a comprehensive adjustment of policy by ele-vating US-Taiwan relations. Tak-ing former US president Ronald Reagan's "six guarantees" as a shield, the US is unwilling to discuss the Taiwan problem with Hu in any depth.
In Japan, Li Peng (
How will Hu respond to the US when the time comes? Jiang is pushing for Hu to make a firm demand that the US guarantee that it won't form a military alliance with Taiwan.
Three mutually conflicting forces and sets of demands have converged on Hu. In just a few short days of diplomatic visits, it would appear that he will have great difficulty accomplishing his mission. His maiden voyage to the US certainly presents him with a dilemma. He has been given a thankless task.
On the eve of Hu's visit to the US, China specialist David Shambaugh voiced the opinion that Bush's policies on China and Taiwan may be about to take yet another turn. This testing of the waters demands our attention. It may be a message from Bush to Beijing. Does it mean that Bush is reaching out to woo Hu, removing the obstacles for him on his visit to the US and, at the same time, sending some good news to Jiang?
As for the changes in the Bush administration's policies toward Beijing and Taipei, we had originally estimated that they would become clear when Jiang visited the US this fall. Now it appears that they will come a bit earlier. The fundamental reasons behind the changes are as follows.
First, the continuation of problems in the Middle East has trapped Bush in a passive role. This is the most important foreign policy issue for the US.
Second, the US lacks the strength to fight the war on terror while simultaneously playing rival to Beijing. To do so would violate the military taboo against dividing one's forces and risk losing the war on terror.
Third, the recovery of the US economy has been too slow. The US treasury doesn't have the resources to finance a war on many fronts. Fourth, Bush's team has already divided into two factions, and the moderate faction is prevailing on the Middle East.
The moderate faction will therefore seize the opportunity to press its advantage and influence policy toward China, expanding its influence and minimizing the possibility that Bush's policy toward Taiwan could redound to the detriment of the war on terror. Bush will therefore adjust his China policy, fostering friendly relations with Beijing and ensuring China's continued participation in the war on terror. This will necessarily require moderating the degree to which US policy has tilted toward Taiwan and exercising restraint.
We believe that, in the last two months, the tilt towards Taiwan has reached its limit. It has little further to go. It is now imperative that the US begin looking for a way to adjust its policies toward China and Taiwan.
On April 22, the US-based Chinese-language newspaper World Journal (世界日報) reported that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the US activated for the first time a "second channel" in the triangular relationship be-tween the US, China and Taiwan under the guidance of the American Foreign Policy Council, a US think tank. The delegation that comprised the "second channel" visited Beijing and Taipei. Its concern was how a breakthrough might be brought about in the political stalemate across the Taiwan Strait. The US is happy to see economic and trade relations across the Strait continue to expand, but it worries that political dialogue has stagnated.
We can see from this that under the "one-China" principle, Bush still hopes that Beijing and Taipei will undertake political negotiations to reduce the political burden that Taiwan represents to the US.
For these reasons, we think that Bush's policy of tilting toward Taiwan will temporarily be set aside to allow time for reflection and analysis. At the same time, a better atmosphere for Hu's visit to the US was created through Shambaugh's speech, made in his capacity as a scholar, and by activation of the "second channel."
Hu's visit to the US is a warm-up exercise. The Americans don't know much about him and won't discuss matters too deeply with him. Moreover, Hu has never been involved in foreign affairs, the military, or economics -- he is a specialist in ideology and party affairs. He will be in no position during this visit to discuss very much of practical value and we are unlikely to hear anything new from him.
We can expect the visit to accomplish little, but he must watch his tongue in the US, lest anything he says is used against him after he returns home.
For Jiang, dispatching Hu to the US is a means of testing whether he is capable of serving as the next general secretary of the Communist Party. His position as anointed heir could be lost to someone else the moment he says anything off-message. His visit will be short and sweet.
As for the US, it will listen more and speak less about the Taiwan problem while each side continues to view issues from its own perspective.
Hu will meet with Vice President Dick Cheney later today. The Taiwan issue is less urgent than the Middle East and is not a priority for the US. Hu's and Cheney's discussions will not result in breakthroughs on the Taiwan problem.
In the past, US policy toward China and Taiwan changed when-ever the US government changed hands. It has not departed from the "one China" framework, however. The Bush government's tilt toward Taiwan is already quite obvious. If this propensity continues, serious diplomatic and political conflicts are likely between China and the US. Even military saber-rattling cannot be ruled out. This in fact is a backlash against former US president Bill Clinton's "three nos" policy.
Of course, the world knows today that the "three nos" policy, revealed during a speech in Shanghai as a result of strong lobbying by Jiang, was a major diplomatic blunder. Once Clinton left office, the new administration, naturally regarding the policy as Clinton's personal view, dumped it.
No matter what the motivations behind Bush's bent, how-ever, he will absolutely not set aside or turn away from the Taiwan Relations Act. He will work to protect the security of Taiwan and the development of democracy in the nation.
We sincerely hope that, at a time when Sino-US relations are tense but not without cause for optimism, Hu's US visit will be successful. This is important not only for Hu himself, but for pro-reform forces within the Communist Party. The results of Hu's US visit will inevitably have an influence on personnel matters at the party's 16th congress.
Long-term friendship and cooperation between China and the US is not only essential to China's political and economic reforms, but also an important prerequisite for the long-term peaceful coexistence of, and equitable political and economic cooperation between, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Kam Yiu-yu is a former editor in chief of the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po. Chris Wu is editor in chief of China Spring and China Affairs magazines.
Translated by Ethan Harkness and Francis Huang
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS