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Chen ups the ante
By
Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - Taiwan President Chen
Shui-bian has thrown a wrench into Washington's careful
plans, furthered last week by Secretary of State Colin
Powell's visit to Brunei, to shore up Asian commitment
to its war against terrorism - ie, to make sure Asian
countries would support the coming attack on Iraq.
To the same end - ensuring peace in the Far East
so that the US can concentrate on the Middle East -
Powell reopened dialogue with North Korea after 20
months of icy relations between Pyongyang and the George
W Bush administration, and green-lighted Seoul's mission
of rapprochement with the North.
Then, last
Saturday, Chen dropped his bombshell about a referendum
on the formal independence of Taiwan from China,
reigniting the long-standing fight between Beijing and
its "renegade province".
Beijing's reaction was
moderate. It avoided the graphic and bellicose comments
it has previously levied against independence talk in
Taipei. But it did urge Chen to pull back from the brink
of disaster - a not-so-veiled reference to China's
threat to use military force if Taiwan were to declare
formal independence from the mainland.
On
Monday, Taiwan's businessmen voted on the issue with
their stocks: they fled the Taipei market, which plunged
almost 6 percent to an eight-month low. Their fears
reverberated in other Asian markets and contributed to
the return of the bear to markets around the globe.
After all, Taiwan businessmen had already taken
sides. Despite years of warning from Taipei's
governments, they had sunk about US$100 billion of
investment in the mainland. Moreover, they knew pretty
well that without exports to the mainland - last year
Beijing ran a trade deficit of $18 billion with the
island - Taiwan's economic performance would have been
even worse than the -2.5 percent growth scored in 2001.
Certainly Chen's initiative is a nuisance for
the Americans, concerned about their new phase of the
war on terrorism, and a delegation from Taipei took off
to explain their president's action to Washington.
However, it is the war on terrorism itself that makes
Chen's initiative urgent. For, as the United States' war
in Afghanistan did, a future war with Iraq would put the
Taiwan issue on the American back burner.
Such a
war would give Beijing new leverage with Washington,
which would be forced to come to terms with China in the
United Nations and other international forums to ensure
China's support. Taiwan knows this from direct
experience. The war on terrorism last year and the
attack on Afghanistan muted Taipei's protests when
Beijing blocked its participation in the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation summit in Shanghai.
The
coming war in Iraq could well be more complicated than
the war in Afghanistan. America's commitment to it could
be larger, and for a longer period of time. Maintaining
the political balance among Iraq's Muslim neighbors
would add to the complication. A solution to the Kurdish
issue would be fuzzier; sensitivities in Israel, where
suicide bombings have become a daily routine, could be
ignited ever further. In sum, once it is in Iraq, Taiwan
will be much lower on Washington's list of priorities
than it was last year. And so, with the United States
preoccupied with Iraq, the Taiwan economy would become
even more dependent on mainland China, and Chen
Shui-bian's leverage with Beijing would be further
whittled away.
So the moment was right for Chen
to act - a pre-emptive move to put the Taiwan issue back
on Washington's agenda at the very time it is trying to
shift its priorities to the Middle East. This raises two
issues, one for Washington and one for Beijing.
Can Washington afford to have its war against
terrorism derailed by the Taiwan issue? The war against
terrorism is a response to a real attack, one that
brought war to New York City for the first time in two
centuries. The Taiwan issue is about a specter, that of
an emerging China that might, one day, threaten the
global power the United States achieved after its
victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
At the beginning of the Bush administration's
term in office, the China "threat" was a top priority.
That changed on September 11. While concerns about China
are not completely off the table, it would be difficult
for the administration to explain to the US public that
war on Iraq should be postponed because Chen Shui-bian
decided to provoke Beijing. So the fact that Chen has
caused trouble for the Bush administration at this
moment could backfire on Taiwan - but it could also
complicate Washington's handling of Beijing.
And
that is the only card Taipei has to play. Beijing is
adamant that Taipei must accept the "one China"
principle before anything can be discussed across the
Taiwan Strait. That principle is unacceptable to the
Chen administration, but its economy is increasingly
tied to the mainland's and its diplomatic clout, never
strong, is dwindling even more - as proved by tiny
Nauru, which shunned Taipei and shook hands with
Beijing. The direct links, one of the few strong
bargaining chips Taiwan has with the mainland, are
taking shape without any political bargaining with
Beijing. On top of all this, the war on terrorism and
problems with the Middle East and Central Asia,
entailing sensitive energy issues, have led the US to
cooperate with China in the short term.
The fact
that the pyramid of Chinese boxes piled up by the Taiwan
issue could trip the US up as it marches toward war with
Iraq surely makes Washington very nervous. The American
public, accustomed to figuring things in black and
white, without colors or even many gray areas, could get
even more agitated. And so Beijing finds itself with a
riddle to solve, just when it thought it already had its
hands full with the thorny issue of the succession to
President Jiang Zemin.
(©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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