SHANGHAI - At first glance, the world was very surprised by the timing of the
announcement last Friday that Beijing was starting the legislative initiative
of an anti-secession law, as it came after Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian's
pro-independence party and its allies suffered a defeat in Taiwan's legislative
elections on December 11. This means Beijing is not so naive as to take it for
granted that the danger of Chen's so-called pan-greens (the governing
coalition) going for independence will disappear now that the opposition
pan-blues have won a small majority of seats in Taiwan's parliament. But lest
it influence the legislative election, Beijing waited and then kicked off the
long-awaited legislative initiate a week after the Taiwan polls.
That Beijing named the legislative initiative an anti-secession bill, not a
unification bill to be voted into law next year, also shows that China
understands that unification is not the main political attraction in Taiwan,
while maintaining the status quo is in the common interest of both Beijing and
Washington. China would be legally obliged to prevent Taiwan independence, but
would not necessarily push urgently for unification. In this regard, defensive
realism has been the main philosophy of China. In other words, Beijing has
changed its mind from preparing for the best outcome (the unification of Taiwan
and mainland China) to avoiding the worst scenario (Taiwan's independence).
In the past, China was just considering how to cope with the American
initiative, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, so this step sends
an important signal to the world that China will take the offensive path to
defending its national interests to serve its peaceful rise. So there is no
surprise that Taiwan authority argued that the legislative initiative would
further Beijing's possible pre-emptive strike against Taiwan's independence,
based on the new law.
In China, there has been a long-running dispute over whether to take
legislative action to deter Taiwan's pursuit of independence or exercise
political wisdom to deal with so sensitive an issue as Taiwan. Many worry that
the law, expected to be approved and go into effect next year, will limit
Beijing leaders' own room for maneuver and compromise on such an issue. But
facing the increasing danger of the legislative independence of Taiwan and
suffering from America's Taiwan Relations Act for 25 years, China has begun to
consider the legislative approach to express letter and the spirit of rule of
law in its paramount domestic issue. Moving from a political to a legislative
approach is also in keeping with China determination to improve the ruling
ability of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
For a long time, Beijing has offered carrots to Taiwan's people with what they
evidently believed to be the empty warning of war if Chen Shui-bian pursues
independence. But unfortunately, to the regret of Beijing, 70% of the Taiwanese
people do not believe that Beijing dares to use force if Taiwan declares
independence because Beijing is afraid of being involved in a confrontation
with Washington, or without the full assurance of winning the war. So, Chen
Shui-bian has gone to the extreme to test Beijing's tolerance again and again.
Beijing's deterrence has failed to keep the status quo across the Taiwan
Strait. Now Beijing is relying on the sticks of law rather than carrots to
regain the deterrence advantage, and it is trying to separate the swing or
middle ground and neutral Taiwanese to make a clear distinction with Chen
Shui-bian's radical independence. Otherwise, China is hard pressed to achieve
its peaceful rise and win the strategic period. Also, because of Taiwan's
worsening situation, Beijing has claimed peaceful development to take the place
of peaceful rise since April of this year.
The Taiwan issue is always a touchstone to identity friends and foes or close
friends and distant relations for China. Responding to a query about the
proposed Chinese anti-secession legislation that appears aimed at Taiwan,
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said, "The Russian
[side] supports the Chinese side's policies in questions concerning the defense
of the state unity and territorial integrity of the People's Republic of
China." By contrast, Japan responded by deciding to issuing a visa to former
Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui, making the Chinese government very angry.
Washington gave a chilly response to Beijing's plans. The US government exhorts
both sides of the Taiwan Strait to really focus on engaging in dialogue and to
refrain from hardening their positions or taking any unilateral actions to
change the status quo, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on
Friday. Contradicting Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement that US-China
relations have entered the best period since the establishment of diplomatic
relations, China considers that the mutual trust between both sides has reached
the lowest point since the end of Cold War. The chairman of the US House of
Representative, Congressman Henry Hyde, made a remark in Hong Kong on December
2, criticizing China. This reminds China that the administration of US
President George W Bush will do more to try to contain China's influence in
Asia in the next four years - not just let China achieve its strategic period
or span of time, making use of America's strategic sinking into Iraq.
Another dangerous signal is America's improving alliance with Japan and Taiwan.
In a reversal of its long-standing policy, the United States will post military
officers to its mission in Taipei for the first time since 1979, according to
the leading defense journal Jane's Defense Weekly.
How to build up strategic mutual trust between China and the US and change the
philosophy from the last resort to the best preparation has been China's
challenge in dealing with the United States. Two misperceptions are key to
understand this.
China threat vs America threat
After the end of the Cold War, the "China threat" has a huge market in American
official and academic circles, and this view is criticized by the Chinese
government as the old Cold War mentality. In the White House and Pentagon, the
hawks treat China as the long-term strategic adversary; at the same time,
because of the worsening of the Taiwan problem and America's continuous selling
of advanced weapons to Taiwan, mainland China considers these developments to
encourage Taiwan's independence. In the eyes of Chinese strategists, "the
America Opportunity Theory" has been replaced by "the America Threat Theory".
Strident voices frequently can be heard concerning the serious situation of
"Taiwan's independence", saying that China will not scruple to have a strategic
showdown with the US.
Considering that China and the US are both nuclear powers and considering their
basic disputes over the Taiwan issue, people begin to worry about the
possibility of nuclear confrontation between the two great powers. Mutual
assured destruction (MAD), which disappeared from the minds of people with the
end of the Cold War, becomes topical once again. The recent military exercises
of mainland China, America and Taiwan confirm and strengthen such worries. Both
sides across the strait are saying "you can win the peace only if you can win
the war". This seems to return to the logic of thousands of years ago: if you
want peace, please prepare for war.
How to transcend the Cold War's logic, changing the Sino-US relations from the
path of preparing for the last resort to pursuit of the best possible outcome?
We must build up the strategic mutual trust between China and the US,
especially on the Taiwan issue.
Balance and power vs preponderance of power
Besides Chen Shui-bian's intentional offending (history has witnessed many
examples of small powers drawing great powers into conflicts, such as Britain
and France during the Fashoda Crisis in 1898 - when a disputed village on the
upper Nile threatened to escalate into a larger conflict), the deep reasons
behind Sino-US relations changing from strategic partner to strategic
competitor lie in the soft conflict initiated by the different strategic
thinking between China and the US on the Taiwan issue.
China advocates the policy of "peaceful reunification" and "one country, two
systems", while at the same time, Beijing says it "cannot promise to give up
use of military force". China's way of thinking is the logic of "subduing the
enemy without any fighting", ie, only when mainland China is strong enough can
it defeat any independence impulse of Taiwan and maintain peace and stability
across the strait. On the contrary, Chen Shui-bian's logic is achieving the de
facto independence of Taiwan before an overwhelming strategic shift in the
mainland's favor. In his inaugural speech on May 20 he stated clearly that
China's next 20-year "strategic opportunity period" is the strategic
opportunity period for Taiwan's democracy and prospects; in other words,
Taiwan's strategic opportunity period toward independence. This brings about
great distrust across the Taiwan Strait. America, which due to the limit of
legal texts and promises, has no choice but to involve itself on the Taiwan
side to help the island in a possible confrontation with the mainland.
So, the strategic distrust between China and the US has been enhanced. On the
Taiwan issue, America's logic is that "peace comes from balance of power". But
former Chinese president Jiang Zemin suggested reducing America's weapons sales
to Taiwan by decreasing China's missiles' deployment in Fujian when he met
President Bush in Crawford, Texas. Bush denied resolutely his suggestion, which
disappointed Jiang greatly. This reminds Chinese that America's excuse of
keeping the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait is quite hypocritical.
China also is disappointed and feels it is hypocritical for the US to sell
advanced weapons to Taiwan and enhance the military alliance among America,
Japan and Taiwan, while at the same time insisting on the so-called "one China
policy" in order to comfort the mainland with the empty commitment of "no
support of Taiwan's independence". Actually, besides the "one China policy"
(indeed, the US "one China policy" is totally different from China's "one China
principle"), the US has another policy - "one Taiwan policy".
America's "one China" statement is weak while the "one Taiwan" policy is solid.
In the eyes of Chinese, America's position of not supporting Taiwan's
independence is tactical and insincere, while supporting Taiwan's peaceful
separation from the mainland is strategic and essential. More and more facts
show that the US, due to the restraint of provisions and systems, has involved
itself deeper and deeper in the soft conflict with China. Whether we can govern
and manage the Sino-US relations well or not concerns world peace and regional
stability, which cannot rely on Chen Shui-bian's clear-headed approach, but
should depend on the wisdom and farsightedness of people of both sides.
You actually don't understand my heart
There are strategic misunderstandings between China and the US. The strategic
mistrusts between China and the US are not limited to the Taiwan issue - take
the North Korean nuclear issue. China's thinking in dealing with this issue is
quite clear: to advance the establishment of a peaceful arrangement on the
Korean Peninsula through the six-party talks, ending the Cold War on the
peninsula and then promoting Asia's integration and its rise. The future solid
regional cooperation in northeast Asia will lay a foundation for China's
peaceful rise. But America can't believe in such a model. As many Americans
claim in the media or in conferences, China is playing the North Korean nuclear
card, hoping to make a deal with the US on the Taiwan issue. Even more, the
divergences within the Bush administration enhance China's misunderstanding:
those in the Pentagon and the White House, even inside the State Department
have different proposals so that the US missed the opportunities to reach
initial arrangements with North Korea - and objectively these missed
opportunities have given North Korea opportunities to speed up its own nuclear
program.
The internal disputes in the Bush administration not only damage US national
interests, but also send the wrong signals to the outside world. The disputes
within the American government result in the United States being seen as
ambiguous and damage the US image in the world.
Embodied in the judgment of China, the US also fails to grasp the essence of
China's objectives. China's peaceful rise strategy has positive meanings for
the United States and it sends two basic messages to the Americans: China will
not challenge US hegemony in the world and China hopes to keep the status quo
across the Taiwan Strait; China is not eager to quickly solve the Taiwan
problem - prohibiting Taiwan's independence, not achieving unification is
China's main task in the next 20 years.
All this information is positive, but US officials in power deeply distrust
China, and are inclined to think that China's strategy of peaceful rise and its
strategic need for a period of peaceful opportunity and development are just
means of speeding up China's rise when the US has been involved deeply in the
Middle East and its anti-terror campaign. They see China's anti-terrorism
efforts as being just a gesture to the US; China may achieve a peaceful rise,
but after that, China will not bring about peace, so goes the thinking of US
conservatives. So the US highlights the model of India's peaceful rise,
dismissing, even questioning the Chinese model of rising.
On the peaceful rise issue, the United States focuses on the result while China
emphasizes the process. This is the difference between China and the US. This
is the inevitable result of a lack of strategic mutual trust between China and
the US. More generally speaking, this is the result of the US habit of
preparing for the worst-case scenario. Remember that when Deng Xiaoping was
interviewed by an Italian reporter on "one country, two systems" policy in Hong
Kong, he said: "Why will China keep the system of Hong Kong for 50 years and
not any other period". Deng answered, "Fifty years is the transition period;
after that, there is no need to change [Hong Kong's system]". Therefore, if
China can grasp the next 20-year "strategic opportunity period" and achieve a
peaceful rise, then China will be on the complete, verifiable, irreversible
peaceful track after a peaceful rise.
Back to the future: Strategic mutual trust is the key
If both China and the US take actions based completely on their own logic,
caring little about the others, they will follow in the footsteps of "the
security dilemma" between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The
arms race and military exercise across the Taiwan Strait are the omen. US sales
of advanced weapons to Taiwan undoubtedly are pouring oil on the fire. For the
US itself, it will be drinking poison to quench its thirst. The United States
will know sooner or later that the arms race across the Taiwan Strait endangers
the stability of China-US strategic relations and even in the end draws the two
countries into a strategic showdown. The US is proud of its democratic
institutions, but at the same time ,the checks and balance within the US
government prohibited America from pulling its troops back from Vietnam. The
military-industrial complex, lobby politics and campaign politics have involved
the US more and more deeply in the Taiwan issue, without any sign of pulling
back.
On the Taiwan issue, China and the US both are driven by their domestic
politics. Chinese domestic politics, America's so-called nationalism and
anti-Americanism restrain the Chinese government from making a soft gesture on
the Taiwan issue. To some extent, we can say that China and America are all
falling into a strange dishonest circle because of the Taiwan issue: Beijing
just talks about the "one China principle" and the "Three Communiques", never
mentioning "the Taiwan Relations Act" and "Six Assurances"; the White House
speaks of the latter not the former to Taiwan and its Congress. The situation
across the Taiwan Strait today is totally different from the past. The US
policy of strategic ambiguity is either out of date or not working so well. It
is time for America to change its assurance from the original "does not urge
the Taiwan authority to go to the table for negotiation with the mainland" into
"not be responsible for the unilateral result cost by Taiwan's independence
impulse."
The strained situation across the Taiwan Strait in the future requires us to
handle the problem with great intelligence and wisdom, rather than in a small
and "smart" way, we should seek the farsighted result rather than short-term
benefits and build up the strategic mutual trust between China and America.
Hopefully, the American side can understand that China's anti-secession law
initiative is the important step in this direction.
Yiwei Wang is the Assistant to the Dean of the Institute of International
Studies, Fudan University.
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