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Dire straits: Taiwan-US crisis worst in
20 years
By Robert
Sutter
(Used by permission of Pacific Forum CSIS)
Taipei's insistence on pursuing a referendum on
China's menacing missile deployment, plus initiatives on
broad constitutional and other changes affecting its
relationship with Mainland China, not only has soured
cross-Strait relations. Its effect on United States
policy toward Taiwan has been profound, arguably
resulting in the most serious crisis in mutual trust in
US-Taiwan relations since gangsters, secretly supported
by Taiwan officials, gunned down prominent dissident
Henry Liu in California 20 years ago.
Once upon
a time, Taiwan's friends in Congress would have rushed
to the rescue. Not any more.
Taiwan supporters
in Washington are mobilizing to appeal to the US
Congress, which recently began its 2004 session, and
will get down to related legislative business in early
March. Taiwan's friends will be seeking strong
congressional support to pressure and offset the stand
taken by President George W Bush, who publicly
reprimanded Taiwan over a planned referendum on Chinese
missiles aimed at the island; the US argued the popular
vote would disrupt the cross-Strait status quo.
The referendum would ask voters not about
independence, but whether China should be asked to point
about 500 missiles away from the island it considers a
renegade province.
In the past, Taiwan's
supporters have been successful in getting Congress to
pass resolutions at odds with administration policy,
notably in the wake of president Bill Clinton's
accommodation of China in supporting the "Three Nos"
during a visit to China in 1998. This time Congress is
likely to be more reserved in its support for Taiwan for
a number of reasons.
The Three Nos policy
enunciated by Clinton:
1. No support for an
independent Taiwan
2. No recognition of "two Chinas"
or one China and a separate Taiwan
3. No support for
Taiwan's admission to any international organization
that requires statehood as a condition for membership.
Now, the five reasons why this time Congress may
well leave Taiwan out in the cold:
First,
because of checks and balances in the US constitution,
Congress has a hard time initiating foreign policy. More
often than not, the best it can do is to try to undo or
undermine administration actions. To be effective in
this regard generally requires broad bipartisan efforts,
such as those seen in amending the Taiwan Relations Act
(TRA) in 1979. The Bush administration has done a pretty
good job in keeping Republicans and conservative
Democrat members in Congress together, even in the face
of big disasters like Iraq. One could assume the
administration could handle any congressional dissent on
Taiwan more easily than opposition to US Iraq policy.
Second, during national security crises,
Congress is reluctant to challenge the president on
national security issues. Congress went along with
president Richard Nixon's downgrading of Taiwan's
diplomatic status after 1972, in part because the
opening to China was seen as a way out of the Vietnam
crisis. There was no similar crisis perceived by
Congress when president Jimmy Carter normalized Sino-US
relations in late 1978, adding further reasons why
members of Congress were prone at that time to
second-guess the president and amend the TRA.
The TRA defined unofficial US-Taiwan relations
after the US switched full diplomatic recognition from
Taiwan to the People's Republic of China on January 1,
1979. It affirmed a range of cultural, trade, business
and other ties, support for human rights and
self-determination for Taiwan and permitted US sales of
defensive arms to the island. China has always been
furious with the unofficial recognition, especially arms
sales.
There was no sense of national security
crisis at all when Congress pushed Clinton to grant a
visa to president Lee Teng-hui in 1995. After the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and given the
protracted war in Iraq and the major dangers in North
Korea, there is now a clear sense of a national security
crisis in the US. Lawmakers are reluctant to
second-guess the president on important national
security issues in ways that they think would put US
troops, already in harm's way, in potentially greater
danger.
Third, the issues for Congress at
the time of the TRA involved Taiwan's survival. There
was a real sense that if Congress didn't act, Taiwan's
future was in jeopardy. When Congress pushed for
president Lee's visa and later pushed against Clinton's
Three Nos, the issues were less serious from a US
national security stand point. Few on Capitol Hill
thought Taiwan was in jeopardy, but many felt a need for
partisan, particular and other more narrow reasons to
take a stand against the administration.
Moreover, supporting Taiwan was in many respects
a "free ride". The Clinton administration was unlikely
to punish a member for voting for Taiwan, the PRC was as
likely as not to invite the member of Congress on a VIP
trip to China, and the US media would likely give
positive coverage to the lawmaker's anti-China,
pro-Taiwan position.
This year, however,
lawmakers are dealing with the first US president in
many decades who gives top priority to punishing his
enemies; important segments of the US media, including
conservative media, have come out against the Taiwan
referendum, and China now has a proven record of
resorting to military action over Taiwan - such as
military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and the aiming
of almost 500 missiles at the island from the Chinese
coast. Further, China repeatedly asserts it will never
rule out the use of force if efforts at peaceful
reunification fail.
Fourth, the situation
has undergone a major change because members of Congress
cannot be sure what Taipei will do. During the 1970s and
1980s, the credibility of the Taiwan government was high
in Congress. Taiwan leaders worked very hard to show how
Taiwan's interests were very much in line with US
national and international interests, and that Taiwan
had no intention of causing the US unnecessary
difficulty. Taiwan was a "friend" of the US, and friends
don't hurt each other, Taiwan officials said repeatedly.
The situation became more complicated with the
rise of Taiwan-American interest groups and Taiwan
political parties lobbying in Washington, but there
still seemed to be a clear chain of command on the
Taiwan side. President Chen Shui-bian's maneuvers on the
referendum and related issues have seen Taiwan officials
repeatedly scramble to explain his new positions. This
has meant a big loss of Taiwan's credibility in
Washington, including in Congress.
Fifth,
president Lee Teng-hui in his later years also surprised
his government's officers in Washington and Taipei by
what was considered his cautious accommodations with
Beijing, but he was seen on Capitol Hill as partly
provoked by pressure from the pro-China Clinton
administration. By contrast, President Chen today is
seen, even by some of Taiwan's strongest US supporters,
as engaging in provocative and dangerous maneuvers with
potentially very negative consequences for the US - for
the sake of political expediency - his election. Members
of Congress know political expediency when they see it.
Over the next several weeks, lawmakers will be
listening attentively to arguments about democracy and
rights made by Taiwan advocates and lobbyists in
Washington. But those arguments will be offset by the
recognition of the political leader in Taiwan seeking
reelection by taking advantage of his US "friend".
Robert Sutter is a professor in the
School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He
was the senior official dealing with Taiwan issues at
the Congressional Research Service, 1977-1999. He can be
reached at sutterr@georgetown.edu .
(Used by
permission of Pacific Forum CSIS)
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