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Anti-secession bill ups
cross-strait tension
By Alan D
Romberg
(Used by permission of Pacific Forum CSIS)
While United States policymakers and the
US public are focused on incipient nuclear-weapons
programs in Iran and North Korea, a far more
subtle challenge to US national-security
interests, involving an established nuclear power,
looms elsewhere. The People's Republic of China
(PRC) and Taiwan are apparently determined to
measure up to Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban's
famous quip about Palestinians: they never miss an
opportunity to miss an opportunity. While both
China and Taiwan claim to embrace creative and
flexible approaches to their relations with each
other, in fact each insists on rigid, mutually
incompatible demands that promise not only to
squander chances to improve cross-strait ties, but
also actually to blunder into an escalation of
tensions. Such an escalation would also threaten
vital US national-security interests.
The
immediate problem arises because China's
legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC),
will convene this weekend and is expected to pass
an "anti-secession" act designed to lay down the
law - literally - against any move by Taiwan
toward de jure independence. Talked about since
the late 1990s, this bill was activated over the
past year when the island's president, Chen
Shui-bian, was seen by Beijing as embarking on a
single-minded course to bring about formal
separate status for Taiwan before he leaves office
in 2008. China seems determined not only to codify
the "one China" principles that have long guided
its policy toward Taiwan but also to bind the
hands of any present or future PRC leaders,
requiring that they block separatism with force if
necessary.
Setting aside questions about
whether China is really a nation guided by the
rule of law, the problem is that this effort is
seriously out of sync with recent political
developments in Taiwan and could trigger an
action-reaction cycle that spirals out of control.
During his campaign for re-election a year
ago, President Chen proposed to write a
"brand-new" constitution underscoring Taiwan's
"sovereign, independent" status, discarding the
"fiction" that Taiwan is part of China, and to
approve it through a referendum bypassing existing
constitutional norms. He also introduced
referendums on the March 2004 ballot, alongside
the presidential contest, that seemed to preview a
process placing ultimate decisions about Taiwan's
future status in the hands of the island's 23
million "sovereign" people, regardless of PRC
views - or the consequences.
But after the
people of Taiwan re-elected him by the slimmest of
margins in peculiar circumstances (an apparent
assassination attempt on election eve), and after
they exercised extreme restraint by refusing to
support the referendums, President Chen pulled
back from the most radical of these proposals,
pledging in his May 20 inaugural address to amend
rather than "rewrite" the constitution and to
follow existing amendment procedures. Crucially,
he pledged that any amendments would avoid the
sensitive issue of territory, sovereignty and
independence. And, despite pressure from some
independence fundamentalists in his political
alliance, he also renewed an earlier pledge to
avoid certain other provocative steps, including
changing the formal name of the Republic of China
(ROC), with its implicit - if largely theoretical
- link to the mainland.
This retreat came
at least in part in response to openly expressed
US unhappiness over Chen's proposals that
threatened to upset cross-strait stability. The
most prominent instance was President George W
Bush's Oval Office public rebuke of Chen - in the
presence of the PRC premier - in December 2003.
But this was not the only example, and Washington
has signaled its willingness to speak out publicly
again, if necessary.
Indeed, when Chen
once again introduced separatist-leaning rhetoric
into the legislative election campaign in late
2004, prompt and public US criticism is credited
by many in Taiwan for undercutting his political
position among the independence-oriented but
risk-averse Taiwan public. As a result, not only
did his political alliance fail to win the
majority in those elections that most people had
expected, but there also was a palpable mood shift
in Taiwan. Even some of Chen's most ardent
supporters made known privately that they were
tired of the constant harangue on cross-strait
issues. They wanted Chen to focus on solving
Taiwan's pressing day-to-day economic and social
problems while making sincere - not merely
rhetorical - efforts to establish a modus
vivendi with the mainland.
Against
this background, with it now being virtually
impossible to pass the kinds of radical
constitutional amendments whose prospects
originally drove the anti-secession law, the
mainland's passage of such a law threatens to
snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Instead of building on the favorable
political situation on the island, Beijing's
insistence on the new law will likely thwart these
trends in Taiwan and trigger a new round of
resentment and fear, strengthening support for
some sort of counterproductive retaliatory
measure. Chen has already hinted that he might
respond to the anti-secession law by pushing
forward an anti-annexation law or referendum,
contributing to a spiraling cycle of
action-reaction that could only raise tensions,
rather than promote reconciliation.
Many
on the mainland recognize the law's potential to
drive cross-strait dynamics in the wrong
direction. Beijing's agreement to cross-strait
charter flights during the recent Spring Festival
period, and its dispatch of two senior
representatives to the memorial service for a
respected Taiwanese figure who had been at the
center of modestly successful efforts to ease
cross-strait relations in the 1990s, were designed
at least in part to offset the negative reaction
the law was generating in Taiwan.
There
could be more such steps, and that would help. But
prospects are mixed at best. Moreover, unless they
went beyond the narrow scope of the steps taken
thus far - for example, dropping opposition to
Taiwan's application for observer status in the
World Health Assembly, the executive arm of the
United Nations World Health Organization - they
would likely be overwhelmed by the negative
reaction in Taiwan to passage of the
anti-secession law.
Of course, the
intensity of the reaction will depend on the
specific provisions of the law, which have so far
been kept confidential - presumably to give
Beijing flexibility in fashioning a final text
that accounts for reactions from abroad and in
Taiwan. Labeling the bill an "anti-secession" law
and not, as originally conceived, a
"reunification" law is one such effort designed to
stress its "defensive" nature in support of
stability and to preempt criticism that the PRC is
seeking to impose anything new on Taiwan.
But certain basics are virtually certain
to be incorporated, including reiteration in law
that Beijing will resort to "non-peaceful means"
to block independence and that the PRC adheres to
a vision of reunification under the guidepost of
"one country, two systems" - a concept that is
strongly rejected in Taiwan - and these terms
alone will generate a negative response. Worse yet
would be provisions that "criminalize" any action
"in support of Taiwan independence", a vague but
potentially widely applicable tool to threaten
Taiwan business executives and others who act
contrary to an ill-defined standard.
Perhaps the most creative action the
National People's Congress could take would be to
refer the bill to committee for a detailed and
open-ended review. After all, this is very
important legislation meriting the most careful
scrutiny. But this seems unlikely, given the
momentum behind the bill and the fact that its
impending passage has been so widely advertised.
Moreover, Beijing's determination to take a
proactive rather than reactive stance on Taiwan
independence issues is seen in the PRC as a strong
justification for moving ahead, despite recent
positive developments on the island and despite
the risks.
Can the US blunt this potential
drift to heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait?
Taipei and Beijing both argue that the US should
"understand" their position and, if Washington
cannot be actively supportive, it should at least
avoid criticism. Beijing wants the US to avoid
condemning the law and to exercise restraint on
any Taiwanese reaction. Taipei wants the US to
speak out forcefully against the law both now and
once it is passed and to avoid censuring Taiwan
for any action taken in response. Both will likely
be disappointed. While the US will indeed seek to
restrain both sides, it will also openly criticize
steps by either that up the ante.
As much
as the US does not support Taiwan independence,
and as much as it opposes coercing Taiwan into a
relationship it does not want with the mainland,
the anti-secession law and any counteraction in
Taiwan would work against the fundamental US
strategic national interest in preserving peace
and stability in the Taiwan Strait and throughout
the East Asia region. In these circumstances, the
US cannot remain silent. As the State Department
spokesman recently said: "We don't think either
side should take unilateral steps that try to
define the situation further or push it in one
direction or another. And we've made that clear
... right from the beginning when this law was
discussed."
Whether the US reaction goes
beyond words will have to be determined in light
of what actually happens. But neither side should
take US interests lightly here. While the chance
of cross-strait conflict is not high, it is also
not zero, and the consequences would be enormous
for all parties, including the US.
The US
has tried to promote peace and stability between
the two sides of the strait, helping to create an
environment in which, if they could not truly
resolve their differences, at least they could
manage them responsibly and without confrontation.
Washington has occasionally taken extraordinary
steps to ensure that US views were taken seriously
by one side or the other. Bush's public rebuke of
Chen Shui-bian in December 2003 is one example;
former president Bill Clinton's dispatch of two
carrier battle groups to the Taiwan area in
response to PRC military exercises and missile
tests in spring 1996 is another. But US success in
convincing each side that its worst nightmare will
not occur - Taiwan independence for the mainland,
PRC use of force for Taiwan - has been greatest
when the parties have behaved reasonably.
Now we face a situation in which the
behavior of each party may unavoidably be seen by
the other as worse than unreasonable, but actually
threatening. Whether this is intended is not the
issue; perceptions are what will matter.
This is a moment when those in positions
of responsibility on both sides of the strait must
exercise leadership, rising above the sometimes
shrill arguments of those who advocate a more
assertive course. To do otherwise is to risk the
well-being of their own people - and their
relations with the United States.
Alan D Romberg is director of
the East Asia Program at the Henry L Stimson
Center, a non-partisan, non-profit think-tank in
Washington, DC. He is author of Rein In at the
Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward
Taiwan and US-PRC Relations (Henry L Stimson
Center, 2003). He can be reached at aromberg@earthlink.net.
This article is posted with permission of
Pacific Forum CSIS. |
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