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Bush wins big as China overplays
its hand
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - The apparent decision by
European leaders to delay the lifting of their
16-year-old arms embargo on China beyond June
marks a clear-cut foreign-policy victory for US
President George W Bush, who made the issue a
major priority in his visit to Europe last month.
China itself may have inadvertently made
Bush's victory possible. Its enactment last week
of an Anti-Secession Law that lays the foundation
for a possible military attack on Taiwan if, in
Beijing's judgment, it were to move toward formal
independence, gave the administration powerful new
ammunition against ending the ban - as well as
political cover to those European governments that
were wary about confronting Bush on the issue.
Europe's decision also marks the latest in
a series of Bush administration moves to try to
keep rising tensions between China and Taiwan from
getting out of control as part of a larger
strategy to "contain" Beijing militarily, despite
China's fast-growing economic and political
influence in Asia.
Particularly
significant in that regard was the issuance last
month of a joint Washington-Tokyo statement in
which both countries declared a peaceful Taiwan
Strait as among their "common strategic
objectives" - the first time that Japan, which has
long enjoyed close but awkward ties with Taiwan,
had mentioned the area as a matter of strategic
importance.
The European Union, which had
committed itself in December to lifting the
embargo no later than July, has yet to make a
formal announcement, and negotiations are expected
to continue with Washington regarding the terms on
which it will be eventually lifted, led by the
EU's foreign-policy representative, Javier Solana.
But reports out of European capitals this
week made it virtually certain that the final date
for ending the embargo, which was imposed in the
aftermath of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy
demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in
June 1989, will indeed be put off, possibly until
next year.
Germany and France, the
strongest champions of lifting the embargo, had
tried to reassure the US that they did not intend
to sell the kinds of sophisticated military or
dual-use equipment that Washington fears could be
used by Beijing, which has relied primarily on
Russia and, until recently, Israel for arms sales,
for an assault on Taiwan or for attacking US naval
forces that could be deployed to defend the
island.
They also stressed that ending the
embargo was designed mainly to upgrade general
commercial relations with Beijing, which had
suggested that big European companies, such as
Airbus, might be treated more favorably if the
arms ban were lifted.
But these assurances
were not sufficient to diminish the Bush
administration's opposition, which was given
momentum by a 411-3 vote last month in the US
House of Representatives on a resolution that
deplored the possible lifting of the embargo and
warned that doing so would be "inherently
inconsistent" with US policy and "necessitate
limitations and constraints" on US-European
relations.
The vote was followed by the
circulation among Republican senators of a policy
paper that lifting the embargo would force the US
"to redouble its efforts to build ad hoc
coalitions of the willing on key tests and issues
in the US national interest [and] ... reduce its
reliance on collective institutions such as the
EU".
For the administration, which has
appeared divided over precisely how to treat China
- whether as a "strategic competitor" or as a
"strategic partner" - since it first came to
office, its most immediate concern, particularly
in light of its current military commitments in
Iraq and Afghanistan, is to avoid conflict over
Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway
province.
The Bush administration has
generally adhered to the line of previous
administrations: while it recognizes that Taiwan
is part of "one China", it opposes any unilateral
or military action by either side to resolve the
island's eventual status.
Although at one
point Bush promised to do "whatever it takes" to
defend Taiwan if China attacked it, his
administration has also left ambiguous whether and
under what circumstances the US would intervene.
As a result, Washington has tried to keep
the two sides from provoking each other into what
could become a hot war in which the US would have
to decide what to do.
In December 2003,
when Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian insisted
that he would hold a referendum on a new
constitution that China interpreted as a major
step toward independence, Bush forcefully
intervened, harshly assailing the plan during a
White House photo opportunity with visiting
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Chastened, Chen soon
backed down.
Fifteen months later,
however, it appears that the Chinese may have
overplayed their hand. Shocked by Chen's
unexpected re-election last March and convinced
that Chen's independence-minded Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) was poised to win
legislative elections in December, Beijing
announced its intent to enact a law forbidding the
secession of any region of the country.
Despite the DPP's defeat at the December
polls, as well as more conciliatory moves by Chen
toward the mainland, China's National People's
Congress approved a watered-down version of the
Anti-Secession Law on March 14. Although senior
Beijing officials strenuously denied that its
enactment would enhance the chances of military
action, Washington called the new law
"unfortunate" and "unhelpful".
At the same
time, however, it proved clearly helpful to the
Bush administration's efforts to persuade the
Europeans not to lift the embargo. As British
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who had previously
favored ending the ban, noted this week, China's
Anti-Secession Law had "created quite a difficult
political environment".
Some European
governments had already been under pressure,
notably from human-rights activists, to keep the
embargo in place. Some also reportedly argued that
the issue was not so important or urgent to
justify the risk of further alienating Washington,
particularly in the immediate wake of Bush's
agreement to support ongoing negotiations by
Britain, France and Germany (EU-3) with Iran about
its nuclear program, when trans-Atlantic ties were
already so fraught.
Whether the
Anti-Secession Law was actually the straw the
broke the camel's back or simply a convenient
pretext for defusing tensions with Washington
remains unclear, but it marks both an important
political victory for Bush and a boost for
neo-conservative and nationalist hawks in and out
of the administration who favor a more aggressive
containment policy against China in ever-closer
collaboration with both Japan and Taiwan.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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