On Dec. 31, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) made six proposals on cross-strait relations. Hu kept firmly to Beijing’s “one China” policy, but for the first time raised the prospect of security and military talks with Taiwan.
Hu stressed that China would pursue a “peaceful development” policy.
“The two sides can pick the right time to engage in exchanges on military issues and explore setting up a military and security mechanism to build mutual trust,” which would help “improve the situation in the Taiwan Strait and lessen military and security concerns,” Hu said.
At first glance, Hu’s idea of a cross-strait military confidence-building mechanisms as a goodwill gesture seems encouraging, but before we jump to conclusions, a careful examination of China’s calculations, perceptions and misperceptions behind the proposal is necessary.
In the past, China appeared to be obsessed with the idea that any proposal for unification with Taiwan could bear fruit only when there was fear of war. In other words, keeping Taiwan exceedingly insecure serves China’s interests and stops Taiwan going down the path of independence; therefore, Beijing would never renounce the use of force or set up any form of confidence-building mechanisms to coerce Taiwan “back into its fold.”
However, China’s misperception that the more Taiwan feels insecure and vulnerable, the less likely it would be to move toward de jure independence and/or the more likely Taipei would be to come to the negotiation table has backfired and has decreased rather than increased the prospects for cross-strait unification.
For example, during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, Beijing suspended all talks between the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait after then-president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) visit to the US in 1995. With the presidential election approaching, China launched a series of missile exercises in the Taiwan Strait with the aim of intimidating Taiwan away from the path toward independence.
Tensions reached a peak in March 1996 when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fired four missiles close to Taiwan’s two major harbors, Keelung and Kaohsiung, sparking a serious crisis that resulted in the deployment of two US aircraft-carrier battle groups to the region. The following year, Washington approved the sale of a package of several Patriot missile batteries to Taiwan to counter the PLA’s capabilities.
Beijing should have learned a lesson — that building a greater credible threat of force to intimidate Taiwan only leads to negative consequences for China. This is because internationally, the US is then more likely to give the green light to arms sale to Taiwan and domestically, Taiwan is more likely to pass budgets for purchasing more arms in the interests of national defense.
Beijing therefore needed some new innovative strategies to de-link two critical realities — the US’ explicit commitment to defend Taiwan from aggression and Taiwan’s own capacity to blunt the military capabilities that the PLA may employ against it.
Based on the calculations above, China might try to recast its policy to emphasize winning support from the Taiwanese populace, for closer cross-strait relations and to undermine the US’ security commitment based on the Taiwan Relations Act by means of initiating a cross-strait military confidence-building mechanism, which could be started immediately by reducing the number of PLA missiles aimed at Taiwan.
Following this thinking, the US’ role in the Taiwan issue would likely be constrained and Washington could be excluded, especially when Taiwan’s reliance on the US’ security commitment and arms sales begins to diminish.
On the other hand, improving bilateral relations between Beijing and Taipei in turn may result in a deterioration, if not complete destruction of, the mutual trust between Washington and Taipei. The US would likely stop its arms sales of high-tech weapons systems to Taiwan because it would either be afraid that they would eventually fall into China’s hands or because it would no longer be in the interest of the US to provide Taiwan with arms because they were not being used to deter China.
Of course, it would be an act of strategic ignorance if Beijing failed to take advantage of opportunities for an improving cross-strait climate, which has never been better. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has promoted “three noes” (no unification, no independence and no use of force), a “diplomatic truce” (no mutual-denial) and the “small three links” (postal, transport and commercial links) policies since he was elected in March.
Hu’s six-point proposal is a response to Ma’s policies, which appear to be accepting China’s ultimate goal of eventual unification.
Therefore, Beijing is no longer worrying about Taiwanese independence, but instead how to prod Taiwan down the road to expediting unification.
However, issues such as military confidence-building mechanisms are very sensitive as they touch on Taiwan’s sovereignty and national security. Given the dissensions on “one China” within Taiwan and the possibly negative impact on bilateral relations between Taipei and Washington, Taiwan should be cautious and patient before responding.
To prevent possible reactions at home and aboard, Taiwan’s military interactions with China must be openly negotiated between China and Taiwan, between Taiwan and the US, and between China and the US. The existing US arms sale policy to Taiwan should not be affected by improving cross-strait military relations. Taiwan should work with the US in any trilateral military dialogues. In particular, Taipei should consult with Washington on how to construct aa durable confidence-building mechanism without impairing its national interests because, unlike Beijing, Taiwan doesn’t have much experience in negotiating military issues.
Taiwan should also establish measures to prevent divergent viewpoints from further polarizing and debilitating the nation. Confidence-building mechanisms can only reduce the risk of war — they cannot guarantee against war.
Taiwan should not disarm psychologically if China decreases the number of missiles targeting it. After all, China holds all the cards in terms of the missiles. Removing them would be purely symbolic as they could easily be redeployed overnight.
Yu Tsung-chi is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council of the US.
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