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Taiwan shoots itself in the
foot
By Stanley Chan
Recent
comments by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian warning
that Taiwan will follow "its own Taiwanese road" and
recommending an islandwide referendum on independence
will undoubtedly add to the tensions across the Taiwan
Strait. Naturally the more alarmist voices in Beijing
and elsewhere will argue that Chen's comments are part
of a movement toward Taiwan independence. But the real
worry for Taipei is not Beijing. It is Washington.
Chen's real motivations are probably not quite
as nefarious as Beijing fears. Chen's comments are most
likely bargaining tactics. Though they are in a weak
position, Chen and the ruling Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) may believe they can force Beijing to
moderate its conditions for direct talks by taking an
ultra-hard line.
What is more important,
however, is how Chen's comments could affect
Washington's policies toward Taipei. Taiwan's political
elite is ignorant of how rash rhetoric by its leadership
may undermine its own base of support in the United
States, even among the most ardent Taiwan supporters.
Washington's assumptions
The George W
Bush administration's positions on Taiwan are largely
based on three assumptions. The first is that Taiwan
declaring independence is less likely than mainland
China using brute force to coerce Taipei into
unification. The likelihood that China will hold the
advantage militarily within five to 10 years, as well as
Taiwan's growing reliance on trade and investment ties
with the mainland, are seen as huge obstacles that
Taipei cannot overcome. Thus, Taiwan is seen as being
boxed in. Taiwanese leaders may talk about independence,
but they cannot actually declare independence, at
least not without a massive loss of life and property
that would give pause to even the most diehard
independence advocates.
The second assumption
regarding Taiwan has been that pressuring Taipei to
negotiate with Beijing will backfire, leading to Taipei
saying and doing things to raise tensions among all
parties. For example, it is now recognized that comments
by former Taiwan president Lee Teng-Hui that China and
Taiwan should deal with each other on a "state-to-state"
basis were both a signal to the US administration of
Bill Clinton not to pressure Taipei to negotiate on
Beijing's terms and a provocation intended to bait
Beijing into behaving aggressively, thereby undermining
the administration's attempts to reduce cross-Strait
tensions at Taiwan's expense.
The third and most
important assumption has been that Taiwanese leaders
recognize and understand that the United States will not
support a formal declaration of independence by Taipei.
US officials have for decades told Taiwanese political
leaders privately that the United States will only
defend Taiwan against unprovoked aggression by mainland
China. Taiwanese leaders subject to these discussions
have acknowledged this, and recognize this limitation.
Unfortunately, the Taiwanese leaders who have
been on the receiving end of these discussions have also
tended to be officials from the Kuomintang (KMT) - a
political party that is not only out of power but at
risk of extinction.
The risks of
misinterpretations
The rise of the DPP and the
entry of pro-independence advocates into the Taiwanese
government changed the calculus of how Taipei will react
to US policies. The KMT officials who have dealt
directly with the US government bureaucracy for decades,
and who both understand and accept Washington's
conditions for support, are gone.
Elements of
the DPP either do not recognize, or do not want to
accept, the long-standing restrictions on US support.
There is an assumption that Washington will not only
defend Taiwan militarily, but also tolerate some of
their more outlandish tactics to hard-bargain Beijing.
Even worse, the more diehard pro-independence
elements have presumed wrongly that a
pro-Taiwan/anti-China bias in the current US
administration equals tacit support for Taiwan
independence. Pro-independence advocates have
misinterpreted pro-Taiwan comments by Bush
administration officials, seeing pro-independence
sympathies where they do not exist, and hoping to
convince a skeptical Taiwanese public that Washington
would support a push for independence.
The risk
for Taipei is that both Chen and the DPP will abuse the
goodwill of the Bush administration. Recent comments by
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (an
ultra-hawk who is well known for taking a hard line
toward Beijing) stating Washington's outright opposition
to Taiwan independence was a warning to independence
advocates that the Bush administration's support is
limited to preserving the status quo.
An even
greater risk for Taipei is that support within the rest
of the US political establishment for Taiwan will erode
as a result of Chen's tactics. Support and sympathy for
Taiwan within the United States is a product of
Beijing's own bellicose rhetoric and heavy-handed
attempts to intimidate Taipei. Rash and clumsy actions
by Taipei will only feed into arguments by China
advocates that US political and military support for
Taiwan is destabilizing and encourages Taiwanese
independence.
Finally, Taiwan's public and
political leadership needs to recognize that US support
not only has strings attached but is concentrated within
the political elite. Numerous public opinion polls on
US-China relations have revealed that while a majority
of the US public disapproves of mainland China using
force to unify with Taiwan, only a minority supports the
United States intervening militarily.
It should
be noted that initial public opinion polls during the
early stages of conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo
and the Persian Gulf showed little public support for US
military intervention. The clumsy brutality of the
Iraqis and the Serbs, combined with an active
public-relations effort by the White House and US
Congress, eventually generated enough support for
military action. An unprovoked Chinese attack on Taiwan
would give pro-Taiwan political leaders in Washington
the ammunition needed eventually to get public approval
for military intervention.
If, however, a crisis
developed as a result of the incompetence of Taiwan's
leadership, it is doubtful that pro-Taiwan leaders in
Washington can (or would be willing to) rally the
necessary public support for defending Taiwan. This is
especially the case while the US is in the midst of a
war on terrorism and faces potential hostilities with
Iraq. While there is little love for China in Washington
these days, there is little desire to pick a fight with
Beijing while there other more pressing
national-security threats to be resolved.
Alliance is a two-way street
The
evolution of Taiwan from an authoritarian state run by
the losers of the Chinese Civil War to a vibrant
democracy that represents the popular will of Taiwan's
population is largely due to its close ties with the US.
It would be immoral for the United States to allow a
democratic Taiwan to be forcibly reunified with an
authoritarian Chinese state.
This does not,
however, mean that Taipei gets a blank check to do
whatever it wants.
Taiwan's current leadership
cannot ask for, and should not expect, US protection and
support without making compromises of its own. Recent
actions and comments by Taipei's political leadership
will only make it harder for Taiwan's friends in
Washington to continue supporting the island in the face
of opposition from a US business community seeking to
protect its financial interests in mainland China,
pro-Beijing China scholars, and less-than-cooperative US
allies in both Asia and Europe.
In the end,
Taiwan's leadership must help the United States to help
Taiwan. (©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
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