For instance, there is a view that China, having made remarkable and unprecedented economic progress, will become more muscular and assertive in the context of redressing perceived historical wrongs or seeking geopolitical primacy at the cost of India.

At the other extreme there could be the image, or an expectation, that a China that has followed liberal economic policies to achieve rapid economic growth would become a benign force supporting the developing world in reversing the trend towards the dominance of the international system by single powers after the Cold War. Both categories of images are at best vague psycho-cultural generalisations, which mislead, not contribute to rational and autonomous Indian judgements.

Looked from the perspective of India’s experience of relations with China over the last fifty years, I would make a plea that we break out of a historical pattern in which both Chinese and Indians have unilaterally projected either their best hopes or their worst fears upon the complex and mixed realities of both countries. As an Indian I would urge that we do not project in our external relations, particularly with regard to China, a sense of frustration borne out of an Indo-pessimism. A great degree of political maturity and self-confidence is necessary if we eire to face certain challenges that we have inherited in our relationships with China, while moving towards realising the inherent potential in that relationship. It would thus be more productive for India in the pursuit of its national interest to focus on the content of desirable policies to be pursued in various issues-areas vis-A-vis China-rather than using iconic and in some cases potentially infllmmatory labels that some strategists feel would exhaustively describe the nature of Sino-Indian relations. Only such an approach would befit the management of relations between the two oldest civilisational states in Asia, geographical neighbours and the world’s two largest populated complexes. The two countries share more similarities and even internal transitional problems than any other two neighbouring countries, as they learn to cope with globalisation in the new millennium.

A quick look at events this year in Sino-Indian interactions presents a backdrop to the subject. The visit of President Narayanan to China between 28 May to 3 June 2000 can be taken as a point of departure. Coming as it did to commemrrate the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China, the visit was not merely symbllic. It could mark the beginning of fresh perspectives on approaching solutions to old and hardy differences while providing a fresh impetus to the achievement of a constructive, mutually beneficial and cooperative partnership between India and China, which is the proclaimed objective of both sides.

The visit of the president to China was followed by the Chinese foreign minister, Tang Jiaxuan, coming to India and there have been other exchanges at ministerial levels. Exchanges at the official and armed forces levels have also been brisk in the current year. The visit of the Chinese foreign minister has put on the agenda of inter-governmental dialogue and actions some of the points raised during the president’s discussions with high-level Chinese leaders.

Among the long-standing challenges to the ingenuity of decision makers in India and China is the one over disputed territory, where each side claims expanses the other either controls or possesses and administers. India is in full administrative and military control over the state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims. China is in possession of north-eastern Ladakh (Aksai Chin), which India claims. In the collective subconscious of the people’s of both countries, more particularly amongst political leaders, and the armed forces, the boundary dispute plays a large role, inhibiting the creation of trust and confidence. The elements of trust and confidence are necessary if the two countries are to move from a situation of non-advrrsarial but thinly substantive relations to those where significant vested interests are built up in both countries, which would propel the overall relationship forward.

With the perspective that distance from unpleasant events brings, it should be possible for a more objective look at the past. Neither India nor China can claim to have made cast-iron cases to the territories claimed and shown on their official maps (in the case of India on the official maps released from the mid-fifties). Neither the leaders of India nor of China in the early fifties were completely candid with each other when there was sufficient evidence to show that the borders as depicted on the other’s maps revealed disputes. This was particularly surprising given the bonhomie and mutual support given to each other over a host of international issues of the times. Neither side consulted or informed the other over actions taken by one in the other’s claimed territory, which affected the latter’s interests. The assumptions by the then leaders of the two countries that understanding and cooperation over the wider issues of the emergence of a new Afro-Asian order following the retreat of colonialism, and that each one’s national experience of overcoming centuries of political humiliation would provide the building blocks of Sino-Indian solidarity were belied by events surrounding Tibet and the differences on the boundary question. On the Indian side the nature of our parliamentary democracy led to fractious debates when Chinese communist forces entered Tibet in 1949. Much of the debate hinged on factually erroneous arguments based on the status of Tibet and the ideological aversion to the rise of a big neighbouring country that was led by a communist party. The same spirit of acrimonious debates in the Indian parliament were to continue from 1959 to 1962, when the situation in Tibet deteriorated and when border clashes erupted. On the Chinese side, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, at least from the late fifties, the relationship between China and India was increasingly viewed through the prism of the widening ideological and inter-state disputes between China and the former Soviet Union. The discovery by Indian patrols of the road through Aksai Chin in Ladakh, the expression of the wide differences over the boundary in correspondence between the foreign ministries of India and China and in the letters exchanged between Nehru and Zhou Enlai, the flight of the Dalai Lama and his followers to India, and bloody incidents along the boundary involving the loss of lives cumulatively led in 1959 to a worsening of relations. Unfortunately, the opportunity provided for high-level negotiations to stem the adverse tide in 1960, when Premier Zhou Enlai visited India, W3S not availed by Nehru because of opposition within his cabinet and in parliament.₁

With the efflux of decades from the 1962 armed conflict, a greater measure of pragmatism has marked relations between India and China. The first step in the direction was a gradual shift away from the unproductive Indian stand that negotiations on the boundary could not take place unless Chinese occupation of territory in Ladakh was vacated, or that since borders depicted on Indian maps were well known, having firm basis in earlier historical treaties, there was no need for comprehensive negotiations. This happened when A.B.Vajpayee visited China in 1979 in his former capacity of minister of external affairs. By the eighties the leaders of both governments wisely came to the conclusion that all-round bilateral relations between the two countries should be encouraged, pending the solution of the boundary dispute. The visit of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988 proved to be a landmark in this context and it has set the norms for recent improvement in relations. Successive coalition governments in India have broadly adhered to the understanding reached during that visit.

A status quo whereby India and China are in control and administer areas seen as vital to them in Arunachal Pradesh and in Ladakh respectively has been in place over the last few decades. Neither side has mounted serious armed challenges to the prevalence of this status quo, with a few exceptions as in the mid-eighties over pockets in Arunachal Pradesh. There is a broad agreement between the two governments on the general principles that should govern an eventual boundary agreement. These are that the settlement of the boundary question should be through peaceful and friendly consultations, and that both sides should crcste favourable conditions for a fair and reasonable solution. They are also agreed that the development of relations in all fields would be a contribution to the creation of such favourable conditions. Since force is ruled out in solving the boundary dispute, both sides have repeatedly stressed the maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control (LOAC), which has emerged from 1962, pending an eventual agreement. Last, both sides are agreed that a solution to the boundary question should be acceptable to both. Above all, not a shot has been fired in anger along the boundary for more than two decades.

On the Indian side no attempt has been made by any ruling party or political leader to try and achieve a domsstic inter-party consensus on the possible contours of a boundary settlement with China. There is widespread recognition in intellectual circles in India that there can be no solution without compromises by both sides on their formal positions, nor can there be agree-menits without alienation of territory that each side feels belongs to it. Negotiations further would have to be on the basis of political give-and-take and not based on legal arguments since the dispute cannot be settled in any court of law. In the absence of instructions on the political parameters acceptable to India, so far substantive negotiations for a boundary settlement have not taken place. Given the plural demorratic system in India, any territorial agreement would have to pass the test of detailed public and constitutional scrutiny. The task of attempting to forge a domsstic inter-party consensus has not been undertaken, given the exaggerated perceptions by political parties of the likely electoral impact on their fortunes of compromise solutions. Even in situations where political parties enjoyed large majorities, the task of achieving a domestic consensus on this issue has not been undertaken. Given this situation, talk in India of seeking early solutions to the boundary question is premature unless parliamentary and public opinion are consciously prepared in good time.

If I have referred to the boundary dispute in some detail, it is not because of any immediacy, which I feel should be attached to its final solution, but to emphssise that no attempt has been made in political circles to define the territorial concessions that we need to make to achieve such a solution. Perhaps the same lack of definition also applies to the Indian concept of security in a rapidly changing world.

Fortunately, the maturity that has marked Sino-Indian relations since the exchange of visits by the premiers of both countries and the presidents since 1988 have paved the way for arrangements by which an interim status quo along the LOAC in the three sectors of the boundary can be stabilised to each country’s satisfaction.

The Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas, signed in 1993 when Prime Minister Rao visited China, and the Agreement on Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field Along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas, signed in 1996 when President Jiang Zemin visited India, together commit the two sides to implement a series of measures that would ensure military stability in all sectors of the India-China border. There 3xc some sections where perceptions on where the LOAC runs differ between the two sides. Hence, it is necessary to have a mutually agreed definition of the line in these areas.

Exchange of maps on large scales on each side’s perception of where the LOAC lies using of data based on ne^v scientific surveys from satellite imagery and remote sensing would go a long way in helping mutual agreement on the line. A realistic rather than exaggerated perspectives on pockets vital to each side’s defence should inform negotiations on this matter. Since both agreements clearly lay down that the implementation is without prejudice to the position of each side on the boundary dispute, a constructive and imaginative interpretation of all the provisions in the two agreements would greatly contribute to the formal military stabilisation of the situation along the border areas. The recent exchange of maps on the Middle Sector, where the mutual perception is that it is the area of least dispute on the LOAC, is a good beginning. One does see reports in Indian newspapers of Chinese movements and strengthening of logistic capacities along the boundary. To a certain extent such actions can be anticipated prior to the process of serious negotiations on the LOAC, which have apparently begun. However these would be more worrying if they take place in those areas where there are no differences between the two sides on the LOAC. Early agreement on the Middle Sector would lead to the build-up of trust and confidence in each other with respect to the other two sectors. The end product of agreements in all sectors of the LOAC would have a beneficial spin-off in political terms on the conduct of the overall relationship and the build-up of trust and confidence in intentions with those sectors of strategic establishments, where this is most needed.

It is a very welcome sign that exchanges between the armed forces of both sides have resumed after the pause in 1998-99. Indian naval ships have been received in China, military personnel exchanges at various levels are taking place or are planned. Such exchanges will go a long way in creating the confidence in mutual intentions, understanding of military doctrines, transparency and exchange of technical experience amongst the armed forces, who have lacked direct contact over the decades.

The overall relations between China and Pakistan, and the former’s support for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and missile capability are matters of concern to India. This is understandable since in their origin the rationale for the development of these relations was India centred. The conduct of the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in May 1998 gave an extra difficult dimension to the triangular relationship.

Chinese spokesmen, both official and nonoffiicial, have in recent times often referred to readjustments in Sino-Pakistan relations subsequent to the end of the Cold War, the dimunition of India’s links with the erstwhile Soviet Union and China’s collaboration with the USA in containing the former Soviet Union. A practical manifestation of this readjustment can be seen in China’s acknowledgement of India’s predominance in South Asia since the late eighties. China’s strong verbal support to the success of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and its evolving attitude to the Kashmir dispute are other signs of this readjustment. In the way things have developed with the Talibanisation of Afghanistan and its spread to Pakistan, the Chinese face a complex situation that has an impact on China’s sensitive western region of Xinjiang, which has borders with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Afghanistan. Chinese interests would thus need to take into account a variety of factors in maintaining an overall balance in the conduct of relations with both Pakistan and India.

China would not like to see a situation of permanent armed hostility between India and Pakistan, worse still actual conflicts such as the one over Kargil, where it is called upon to take sides. An internationalisation of the Kashmir dispute affects China and promotes, as it fears, Western and particularly American intervention on its periphery. (Its experience as a Permanent Member of the Security Council over Iraq and Kosovo has left it very uncomfortable). The events in Kargil further showed a big accretion of American pressure on Pakistan, which is bound to continue in the light of the nuclearisation of the subcontinent. China is also acutely of the threats posed to the Muslim majority in Xinjiang Province by the spread of armed terrorism, narcotics and religious fundamentalism to the sensitive social and political fabric there. Its serious concern with such problems is manifested by the successive declarations on cooperation to prevent terrorism and fundamentalist militancy between China, Russia and some Central Asian states. These have been followed up by a series of meetings between the security, military and diplomatic experts of these countries. There are obviously shared concerns between India and China in this regard. China’s support to the Indian proposal to move the United Nations for a Resolution on Terrorism, a subject raised by the president of India during his visit to China, is a pointer in this direction.

In the light of the above factors, China’s present position on the Kashmir dispute has imperceptibly moved closer to the position adopted by the major powers. China sees it as a dispute ’left over by history’, which cannot be resolved by quick-fix solutions. The Chinese view is that only India and Pakistan can settle it through bilateral dialogue peacefully and not through the use of force. Pending the solution of the dispute, China advises India and Pakistan to respect the Line of Control. To leave differences aside and to seek mutually beneficial relations in all fields was advice given openly in the Pakistan Senate by President Jiang Zemin in 1996 and repeated on subsequent occasions.

China’s assistance to Pakistan to develop capabilities in the nuclear and missile fields in addition to its being the biggest supplier in conventional military armaments would continue to detract from the build-up of trust in Chinese intentions vis-A-vis India. Chinese statements on helping Pakistan in the non-conventional fields have been ambivalent and of a generalised nature. In an interview to ’The Hindu’ on 22 July 2000 Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, when asked whether China would reconsider support to Pakistan in the non-conventional areas, replied, ’China and Pakistan enjoy normal relations between sovereign countries including relations of military trade, which conform to international law and norms. Their relations are just like the relations India enjoys with some other countries.’ The reference to ’international law and norms’ is to China’s adherence to the Non Proliferation Treaty from 1992 and very recently to the Msssile Control Regimes.

In the only Joint Statement issued by China and the USA on South Asia, when President Clinton visited China in June 1998, a month after the two sets of nuclear tests, both called upon India and Pakistan not to develop and deploy further nuclear weapons, and to put a cap on producing fissile materials. In addition, both reaffirmed that ’their respective policies are to prevent the export of equipment, materials or technology that could in any way assist programmes in India or Pakistan for nuclear weapons or for ballistic missiles capable of delivering such weapons’, and significantly ’to this end, we will strengthen our national export control systems’. Since both the USA and China have, together with the other three Permanent Members of the Security Couniil, taken on the mantle of enforcers of the NPT regime, it becomes incumbent on the two to strictly supervise mutual adherence to the terms of the Joint Statement in the interests of achieving better Indo-USA and India-China relations. The peace, security and stability, which the Chinese say they seek in South Asia, would be jeopardised if China’s assistance to Pakistan is intensified in the non-conventional and conventional military fields.

The triangular relationships between India-China-Pakistan is interestingly poised and opportunities have been opened up for the management of this delicate triangle to the benefit of all three. The Chinese need to establish credibility in various Indian circles regarding readjustment in its relations with India’s neighbours has been marked by a realistic restraint and responsibility such as would be appropriate for a great power. Pakistan needs to avail constructively of the trend towards comprehensive dialogue that has been opened up by Indian initiatives on Kashmir and contribute towards the creation of a peaceful environment that would facilitate the dialogue. India needs to press forward with the initiatives without being discouraged by setbacks and must avoid single-issue linkages in the pursuit of a better relationship with China, which is in its best interests. We must seek to absorb in practice that neither is China going to dilute the political relationship with Pakistan for the sake of Sino-Indian friendship nor that all Chinese actions vis-A-vis Pakistan are to the detriment of the conduct of Sino-Indian relations.

Looking beyond the question of nuclear weapons proliferation in the Subcontinent and elsewhere, there is much that is common in Indian and Chinese views on the existence of weapons of mass destruction. In 1996 China put forward proposals at the United Nations calling for drastic reductions of stockpiles on the part of the largest holders of nuclear weapons, ’no first use’ commitment by all states, unconditional commitment of no use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states, no deployment outside one’s own country and negotiations for complete destruction of nuclear weapons. India could agree with all these propositions. If the moral ground is to be captured by both India and China on questions related to nuclear weapons then they should work together in all international fora to attain these objectives. In addition, India and China are the only two states with nuclear capability to commit themselves to respecting the Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in South-East Asia promoted by the Association for South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is hoped that the setting up of the security dialogue forum that was agreed to when India’s external affairs minister, Jaswant Singh, visited China in 1999 would take up such issues to build up mutual assurance that the nuclearisation of the subcontinent would not be a factor of added tension in this vastly populated region.

China’s relations with major advanced countries like the USA, those of Western Europe and Japan are stable, although by no means friction free. With the USA the biggest difference is over the future of Taiwan, which refuses to re-unify with the People’s Republic on the latter’s terms, and looks to the USA for political and military support in case China uses force. The Chinese will no doubt follow with great care whether the new president of the USA, George W Bush, will follow up on his very affirmative statements on China and Taiwan made during the run-up to the election. It is not a coincidence that the White Paper on defence issued by China in 2000 bears a strong contrast to the one issued in 1999 where adverse references to the USA outnumber the friendly ones. The difference could be explained primarily by the Taiwan, NMD, TMD and trade factors. American plans for a National Missile Defence system and the possible deployment of a Theatre Missile Defence system in the Pacific has drawn forth very strong responses from China (and from Russia), since the implementation of such plans would nullify China’s capabilities. President Clinton’s move to leave final decisions in the matter to his successor has been welcomed by China. But whether the issue would be revived once again as a very contentious one now remains to be seen. Its specific implication for our region needs to be carefully evaluated. Human rights, trade, the situation in Tibet and proliferation are other issues that the USA has on its agenda vis-A-vis China. Speaking in general terms, there is a complex mix of conflicting policy approaches in both China and the USA in the conduct of mutual relations. From the USA’s point of view the adjustment to the diffusion of power, which the rise of China implies for the USA’s global interests, is yet to be worked out. Wiile the USA’s primacy is keenly felt, its power to fashion a world order in its image is diminishing. From China’s point of view the USA’s unilateralist approaches or attempts at shaping multilateral institutions that affect China’s nationalist aspirations have to be balanced by its overwhelming interest in beneficial trade, investment and economic relations with the USA. Indeed, the challenge to the entire international community is how to evolve multilateral norms and arrangements or develop institutions that would better manage international relations in the very complex ’deregulated’ post-Cold War era. In addressing this challenge, Sino-USA relations play a very crucial role with potential implications for all.

With Russia a ’strategic partnership’ with China has emerged whose main concern is directed at containing the USA’s global reach. Arms transfers, trade in capital goods and raw materials, a flourishing border trade, and cooperation in energy, space and high-tech areas form the substantive parts of a relationship marked by warmth and frequent exchanges at all levels of government and experts. With Japan, China’s relationship is full of economic content and differences, and deep reservations of a political and strategic nature, such as Japan’s possible role in the defence guidelines of the US-Japan Security Treaty. China’s military and economic growth that cause concerns to its neighbours in South-East Asia are mediated through frequent dialogues with the ASEAN as a group. Attempts by ASEAN and China to evolve a code of conduct over the various rival claims in the South China Seas reflect an interest to deal with this complex issue peacefully. Amllioration of tensions in the Korean Peninsula through the summit-level dialogue between North and South Korea has been strongly encouraged by China. All in all, China has never before enjoyed as much security as it has done during the last decade and is well poised on the international stage. India’s own relations with major powers and with South-East, South and East Asian countries have prospered when India and China 3X6 not seen as adversaries.

It is with this China that India has to learn to deal with. Instead of seeking exclusivist alliances with any major power, India must strive for a substantive expansion of bilateral cooperation simultaneously with Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and the capitals of the countries comprising the European Union. There global issues that cross frontiers and India needs to build issue-based coalitions with major powers to advance its interests. There would be many issues on which India and China could agree. Both see globalisation as an inevitable process with the internationalisation of capital, technologies, investment and trade. But both would like to adapt globalisation to suit their respective national conditions. China has been more welcoming about its memeership in the World Trade Organisation than India, based on the self-confidence of a growing economy. Indeed, China is using the prospect of the WTO at home to restructure loss-making state-owned enterprises, reform financial institutions, gear up industry to face global compttition and open up sectors of economic activity that have been state monopolies. India has conducted successful negotiations with China on the conduct of bilateral trade after China’s entry to the WTO and has gained the promise of lowered tariffs and success to Chinese markets for Indian products. When fact and fiction are separated over the recent controversy on Chinese products ’invading’ Indian markets, it should be possible to strike a balance. The Chinese need to be sensitised through reasoned dialogue at business and government levels to the regulatory frameworks under WTO regulations and Indian small industries enabled to become competitive in a world where the consumer is the master of market forces. Both India and China are energy deficient and need a stable international order and affordable energy imports. Both need to cooperate more closely on lowering the costs of non-conventional forms of energy. In the process of development both have not shown enough awareness of the fragility of the environment and the depletion of natural resources. The agenda for cooperation as the world’s two most populated countries and as ancient civilisational states is truly vast.

It is, however, a fact that unlike in the case of China and its partners in the USA, West Europe, Japan, South-East Asia and Russia, where vested interests have been built up on both sides in the pursuit of dense bilateral relations, the India-China relationship is weak or deficient in the existence of similar vested interests. Bilateral trade between India and China may touch the US$ 2.5 billion mark in 2000 compared to US$ 1.9 in 1999, but this is still far below the potential as the rapid annual growth from the early nineties shows. It is a good sign that the pattern of trade shows an increasing exchange of machinery such as power plant and petrochemical plant equipment from China to India. In the reverse direction pharmaceuticals and agricultural commodities show a rise in India’s export basket.

The field of mutual investments is yet to take off in any significant manner. Indian investments in China are in the fields of pharmaceuticals, refractories and software. Chinese investments in India, which are more significant, are in the field of metallurgy and electronics. With the expansion of global Indian software exports and of auto componntts, the scope in China for Indian companies is wide. Intense exploration followed by exchanges of business delegations are called for and the growing field of information technologies offers opportunities for mutual investments on a large scale.

An initiative at the academic level to promote overland connectivity, trade and cultural interactions as part of an effort to bring about subregional cooperation between China, Myanmrr, Bangladesh and India provides an interesting item on the future agenda of Sino-Indian cooperation. In the second round of the academic dialogue on this subject, which was held in Delhi recently, there was a frank exchange on the possibilities as well as problems underlying the effort. The interesting aspect about the dialogue was the presentations made by the Myanmrrese and Chinese delegations from which one could conclude that both seek closer regional economic integration and that Chinese cooperation surrounding Myanmar and Bangladesh should be inclusive not exclusive. Apparent geographical disadvantages, remoteness and isolation from the continental centres of development that parts of this vast region face are sought to be bridged through land links. To that effect all four partners would develop the needed infrastructure, which in turn would promote mutual economic cooperation. With the recent welcome and programmatic improvements in India-Myanmarese relations covering many fields of concern, some of our strategists must give up a mindset that somehow Myanmar is a zone of exclusive Chinese interest.

Some years after the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962 there had been much criticism of Jawaharlal Nehru’s China policy. I would submit that this is only part of the story. With the wisdom of over four decades of hindsight and with the enormous changes the world has seen since the end of the Cold War, a sober view could be that Nehru was the proverbial prophet before his time, whose vision can be better understood today. Ideological militancy, religious fundamentalism and exclusiveness in developing India’s foreign relations had no place in Indian domsstic and foreign policy. Security built not purely on military muscle, but on economic and scientific development and social justice was his belief. He dedicated himself to the possibility of the evolution of an international system that would respect nationalism, pluralism and diversity of all the nations that composed it. The Five Principles that India and China evolved continue to provide the basis for mutually beneficial cooperation among nations.

Relations between India and China are sui generis-they stand on their own. They do not parallel relations that each of them has with others, nor are there applicable precedents or models for their conduct. It is therefore appropriate if India and China work together to bring about a new paradigm for the structuring of a comprehensive security based on their experience in dealing with each other over five decades and taking into account the changed circumstances of the world of the new millennium. The following elements are suggested as components of a structure for comprehensive security:

• Commitment that existing state limits either as de jure borders or as de facto arrangements will not be disturbed by force.
• Commitment to not being a party to military alliances directed against third states and non-use of the territory 01 one state to threaten, inter-fere or take aggressive actions against another.
• The undertaking of mutual responsibility not to exacerbate domsstic problems of neighbouring states, while recognising that such problems need to be solved by peaceful means.
• No first use of nuclear weapon against all states as a first step to universal nuclear disarmament.
• Commitment not to support militarism, terrorism and separatism. Greater transparency and information sharing on military preparedness. Cooperation in the fight against drugs, disease and environmental degradation, and for enhanced relationship in diverse fields such as trade, investments, exchanges in science and technology, and cultural fields.
• Dialogue leading to agreement on comprehensive security framework, including military and non-mllitary factors, that would enhance prospects of stable and beneficial developments in the Sino-Indian relationship in the new millennium.₂

Notes:

1. The domsstic and external circumstances in each country from the fifties to recent times, which impacted on Sino-Indian relations, is dealt with in C.V Ranganathan and VC. Khanna, India and China: The Way Ahead (New Delhi: Har Anand Publications, 2000).
2. For more details of commitments that India and China could make to achieve a framework of comprehensive security, see the two-part article by Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea and V Ranganathan in The Hindu, dated 8 and 9 May 2000.

By: C.V. Ranganathan

Author’s Address: Institute of Chinese Studies, 29 Rajur Road, Delhi 110 054.

(Source: China Report 2001; 37; 129)

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American efforts were also marred by strategic uncertainty. Some of the more sober analysts saw the growing strength of Mao Zedong’s CCP and recognized that Chiang’s regime was in trouble. At the same time, the existence of a new global strategic environment centered around the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union meant that a communist China would undesirably skew the balance of power in favor of communism, and increase the chances of a Soviet-Chinese alliance. The resulting U.S. strategy was to try to keep Chiang propped up by developing a coalition government in China. Washington tried to persuade the CCP that sharing power with the Nationalists was the best result the CCP could hope for, hinting that a total communist takeover would be unacceptable to the United States. This strategy was deeply flawed, because a coalition government was unsatisfactory to both sides. The CCP sensed its growing strength and refused to accept half-measures, and the Nationalists were de jure in power and clung desperately to the notion that the communist storm could be weathered.
The futility of U.S. diplomacy could be characterized by the visit of General George C. Marshall to China in December of 1945. By January of 1946, Marshall had brokered a cease-fire, developed plans for power-sharing, and persuaded the KMT to accept democratic elections in the future. Marshall returned to Washington in March, and by the time he went back to China in April he found that the cease-fire had been cast off and fighting had erupted again.⁴²

Although forced to accept the reality that U.S. diplomacy could not stave off civil war, the Truman administration continued to half-heartedly support Chiang. The enthusiasm for material support waned, however, as Chiang proceeded to lose both the military and political battles in China. Until the late-1940s, the military and political defeats the Nationalists suffered were alarming, but not decisive. As the CCP continued to gain political support by promising liberation to peasants in the countryside, though, the Nationalists suffered increasingly meaningful military defeats.

Autumn of 1949 would bring the final blows to Nationalist rule. In October, as the CCP took control of Manchuria and a large swath of the surrounding provinces, the Nationalists were forced to move their capital from Canton to Chungking. In November, Communist forces routed them from Chungking, and the KMT moved its operations to Chengtu. Finally, in December 1949, after roughly six million Chinese had perished in the struggle, Chiang Kai-shek and more than a million of his followers fled to Taiwan to regroup and plan their counterattack to retake the mainland. For its part, the CCP remained on the offensive, planning to finish off the KMT in Taiwan. Though Mao himself famously proclaimed in 1936 that he did not consider Taiwan to be a “lost territory” of China⁴³ insofar as the fight against the KMT now carried onto Taiwan, Taiwan became a strategic objective for the CCP. Additionally, once the Allies recognized Taiwan as part of China in the Cairo Declaration, the CCP adjusted its position. The CCP then held that control over all parts of China was its objective, and it accordingly included Taiwan.⁴⁴

NOTES:

42. Jansen, Japan and China, p. 442.

43. See Frank S. T. Hsiao and Lawrence R. Sullivan, “The Chinese Communist Party and the Status of Taiwan, 1928-1943,” Pacific Affairs 52, no. 3 (Autumn 1979): 446-467. The particular statement about Taiwan appears on pp. 453-454, and appeared originally in Edgar Snow’s Red Star over China (New York: Random House, 1948), pp. 88-89.

44. Hsiao and Sullivan, “The Chinese Communist Party,” p. 446.

SOURCE: Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Though a great deal of planning had been given to the handover at the State Department and within the joint chiefs of staff, no officials had suspected the rough landing that Chiang’s regime would make on Taiwan. The Taiwanese people had by and large rejected Japanese culture, but they had come to embrace Japanese political and economic institutions. They enthusiastically greeted the reunification with China because they saw the Chinese people as their cultural brethren and believed that reunification would blend the best of both worlds: modern political and economic systems coupled with cultural identification with the parent country.³⁴

Accordingly, much of the strategizing had been based on the erroneous assumption that China would retake Taiwan as a normal province of the country. That did not happen. In the words of one U.S. official: “The [Taiwanese] people anticipated sincerely and enthusiastically deliverance from the Japanese yoke. However, [administrator] Chen Yi and his henchmen ruthlessly, corruptly, and avariciously imposed their regime upon a happy and amenable population. The Army conducted themselves as conquerors.”³⁵ Resentment toward the Chinese who retook Taiwan lasted for years. As late as 1964, many Taiwanese expressed the view that “[t]he dogs [the derogatory term used for the Japanese] treated us better than the pigs [the term for mainland Chinese].”³⁶

One reason that the Chinese reacted in such a way may have been simple surprise. When Taiwan was wrested from the Chinese in 1895, it was backward and provincial even by the standards used to judge China under dynastic rule. When the Chinese landed on Taiwan in September 1945, they found a relatively educated populace that was governed by some degree of law and had grown accustomed to stability and a relatively modern way of living. From the look of things in 1945, the fifty years apart had been much kinder to Taiwan than they had been to mainland China.

Chen Yi had been chosen as administrator of Taiwan in 1945 largely because of his expertise in dealing with Japan. Though most people expected the Japanese to leave without incident, the Chinese thought it wise to have an administrator who knew how to deal with the Japanese.³⁷ In addition, Chen was a close acquaintance of Chiang and was vested with full authority over Taiwan.

The Chinese under Chen went forward with a program not of integration but domination. They proceeded to nationalize the great majority of assets on Taiwan, reasoning that they were Japanese property and as such the rightful spoils of a war they had won. The indigenous people were treated not as Chinese welcomed back into the fold but as the inhabitants of conquered territory. Economic output shrank dramatically, and the expectation for political representation was quickly dispelled. It was this lack of economic and political opportunity, as well as Taiwan’s overall poor treatment by the Chinese government, that caused a popular uprising in 1947.

On February 27, a woman selling cigarettes was accosted by agents of the tobacco monopoly, who accused her of selling untaxed tobacco. The confrontation escalated and the woman was killed. Thousands of Taiwanese marched the next day on the tobacco monopoly headquarters to protest her death. Chen’s soldiers fired on the protestors, killing several of them. But Chen did not have adequate forces to put down an all-out insurrection, so he requested reinforcements from the mainland. Chiang granted the request and sent more troops while Chen employed strong-arm diplomacy to prevent an all-out rebellion in Taipei. Once the reinforcements, numbering nearly fifty thousand, arrived, they proceeded to slaughter thousands of indigenous Taiwanese and crush the protests.³⁸

In the wake of the riots on Taiwan, Chiang removed Chen from his post as governor-general on May 15, 1947. (Chen would later join with the Communists on the mainland.)³⁹ The attitude of Taiwanese toward reunification went from hopeful anticipation to disenchantment and despair in a remarkably short period of time, and the riots and barbarism that accompanied China’s regaining sovereignty over Taiwan contributed to the birth of the Taiwan independence movement. The riots in many ways also served as a wake-up call for the KMT, and its heavy-handed management of Taiwan gave way to more local control and more power vested in the hands of the Taiwanese themselves. These two factors would set the stage for the political and economic transformation that would occur in the subsequent decades.⁴⁰ But the overall animosity of Taiwanese toward the mainland authorities did not abate.

After Chen was deposed, conditions on Taiwan improved, but only marginally. It was not until 1948, when defeat became imminent for the KMT on the mainland, that Chiang started thinking seriously about the prospect of cultivating Taiwan as a base of operations for the Nationalist regime.⁴¹ By early 1949, Chiang had appointed a new governor of Taiwan, Chen Cheng, who started the process of seriously reforming KMT rule of Taiwan. By the time the Nationalists lost the mainland later in 1949, the situation on Taiwan had improved but the hostility to the government lingered.

NOTES:

32. For example, General Douglas MacArthur believed that legal clarification was necessary. See Jon W Huebner, “The Abortive Liberation of Taiwan,” China Quarterly, no. 110 (June 1987): 262. Additionally, the position that Taiwan’s legal status was undetermined became official U.S. policy by 1950. See, for instance, President Truman’s letter to Warren Austin dated August 27, 1950, available from the Truman Presidential Library at http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_ collections/korea/large/sec3/mac_6_1.htm.

33. Ballantine, Formosa, p. 54.

34. Tse-han Lai, Ramon H. Myers, and Wei Wou, A Tragic Beginning: The Taiwan Uprising of February 28, 1947 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1991), pp. 44-49.

35. General Albert Wedemeyer, cited in ibid., pp. 65-66.

36. Douglas H. Mendel, Jr., “Japanese Policy and Views toward Formosa,” Journal of Asian Studies 28, no. 3 (May 1969): 513-534.

37. Some reports indicate Chen may actually have developed “a lucrative clandestine trade” with the Japanese as governor of Fukien province, and in some quarters his allegiance was suspect. See, for example, F. A. Lumley, The Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek (London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd., 1976), p. 55.

38. Ballantine, Formosa, pp. 62-63.

39. Lai, Meyers, and Wou, “A Tragic Beginning,” pp. 180-182.

40. Ibid., pp. 192-193.

41. Fred W Riggs, “Chinese Administration in Formosa,” Far Eastern Survey 20, no. 21 (December 12, 1951): 209-215.

SOURCE: Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Remarkably, the works of some Western philosophers did find their way into Chinese political thinking. Particularly reasonable to Chinese thinkers was the British philosopher Herbert Spencer’s notion that humans (and social institutions) could evolve “organically” toward higher states of being.³⁰ Spencer had also been influential in Meiji Japan, in large part because his theories, unlike those of many Western philosophers, could be worked into a loosely Confucian framework. The influence of Spencer and others slowly led the Chinese to embrace political transformation.

The first period of reform after the Sino-Japanese War was the so-called 100 Days Reform that took place in 1898. Inspired and led by the Chinese radical Kang Yu-wei, the reformers advocated a staggeringly ambitious agenda for China that included the creation of a parliament, the notion of “people’s rights,” the translation and acceptance of Western works of science and philosophy, compulsory education, widespread privatization, market reforms, and many other progressive proposals.³¹ It would be hard to overstate just how radical-and how threatening to some-these proposals were. Kang won remarkable support from the Emperor Guangxu, but eventually pressed too hard, too fast. Guangxu was deposed and Kang was run out of Beijing.

In 1911, the Qing dynasty would breathe its last breath. A group of revolutionaries, led by Sun Yat-sen and rallying behind his “Three Principles” (nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood), overthrew the Qings. On January 1, 1912, Sun was inaugurated as the president of a new Chinese republic, but Yuan Shikai, a powerful army commander, rose to challenge Sun, and assumed the presidency just two months later. Yuan’s rule was dictatorial, and would lead to the birth of an opposition party, the Kuomintang.

Song Jiaoren founded the KMT in opposition to Yuan’s rule, and was promptly assassinated. However, the KMT itself grew in support, and Yuan’s power shrank. The country soon descended into anarchic warlordism. Ideological fissures deepened among intellectuals, who were often as divided as the warlords. The KMT and the newly formed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) emerged as the leading political forces by the end of the 1910s. Chiang Kai-shek, a former aide to Sun and a military leader in his own right, slowly rose to prominence within the Kuomintang in the 1920s and effectively consolidated his power so that, by the end of the decade, the CCP had been scattered and the KMT was relatively stable. The Kuomintang made marked advances in infrastructure, social, and legal reforms.

However, by the mid-1930s, the CCP had regrouped and was growing in both ideological appeal and numbers. Though the KMT and CCP had cooperated to fight against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the ideological and personal conflicts were too great to reconcile. Even during the fighting there was tension between the KMT and CCP, with intra-Chinese skirmishes becoming common by 1940. Although both sides suffered heavy losses during the anti-Japanese war, the CCP emerged relatively stronger and would rout the KMT from the mainland entirely in 1949, effectively establishing the People’s Republic of
China.

NOTES:

30. See, for example, Spencer’s two-volume Principles of Biology (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002 [1864-67]) and Robert L. Carneiro, ed., The Evolution of Society: Selections from Herbert Spencer’s Principles of Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).

31. For a thorough analysis of the 100 Days Reform, see Young-Tsu Wong, “Revisionism Reconsidered: Kang Youwei and the Reform Movement of 1898,” Journal of Asian Studies 51, no. 3 (August 1992): 513-544.

SOURCE: Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

The insurgency, which in some cases employed terrorism and sabotage, precipitated a forceful Japanese crackdown and severe suspicion on the part of the Japanese of Taiwanese natives. Over time, a large-scale police state was established on Taiwan: by 1943, police forces-only one-sixth of which were Taiwanese natives-accounted for 14 percent of the population of Taiwan.²³

Despite the insurgent violence that cropped up periodically until the occupation ended in 1945, the Japanese pursued an extensive plan of legal, political, and economic reforms that transformed Taiwan from a provincial, subsistence economy into a modern, relatively successful society. The colonial model used by Japan was extremely centralized, with near-total control being vested in the governor-general.

Taiwan was widely regarded in Japan as a political and economic albatross. It was an almost totally undeveloped backwater, and many Japanese were skeptical of the ability of ethnic Chinese to modernize. In some ways, however, Taiwan’s backwardness was conducive to the Japanese colonial agenda. There were essentially no existing institutions that had to be changed; all modern legal, political, and economic structures could simply be imposed onto a blank political slate.

Additionally, the abruptness with which Japan’s empire itself came together was advantageous. As Japan expert Hyman Kublin pointed out, the colonial architects “did not… have to contend with the inertia, dead-weight, and accumulated debris of imperial systems that had literally grown like Topsy nor was it necessary for them to cope with the manifold vested interests created in an extended process of historical change.”²⁴

The infrastructure and legal reforms imposed by Japan were lasting contributions that played a large role in Taiwan’s precipitous progress in the first half of the twentieth century. However, Japan as a colonial power also tended to plunder its colonies and direct monies back to the imperial government. Kublin noted that the Japanese “understood to their full satisfaction their purposes in engaging in colonialism and pursued their objectives with relentless and unswerving logic.”²⁵ Aside from its strategic importance to Japan, Taiwan was seen as a place to demonstrate the efficacy of Japanese political and social reforms, as well as to generate revenues for the betterment of the empire.

Some reforms were of particular importance, with land reform being perhaps the most revolutionary. Until the Japanese occupation, legal claims to land on Taiwan were murky at best, and there was no fair, effective means to adjudicate conflicting claims. In a way that greatly benefited the Japanese Empire, the governor-general instituted a program by which land claims were institutionalized. In so doing, much of the land was deeded to the government-which was, of course, Japanese. Though the long-term effect of the reform was remarkably positive in that it created an enduring system of property rights on Taiwan, in the short-term Japan managed to line its pockets significantly with the reform’s spoils.²⁶ The benefits to Taiwan in the medium- and long-term, however, were striking. The reforms updated the taxable land area of Taiwan from the previously registered eight hundred-ninety thousand acres to 1.5 million acres.²⁷

Agricultural reforms were also staggering. Largely out of fear of renewed insurgency, the Japanese disarmed large numbers of indigenous hunters, forcing them into a growing, modernizing agricultural industry. Here again, though, the Japanese government had figured out ways to direct much of the immediate gains from modernization to its own coffers. It diverted many of the resources traditionally dedicated to rice production (which could be exported without processing) toward sugar production, which locked Taiwanese farmers into selling their sugar cane to Japanese sugar mills, which enjoyed monopoly status and the ability to fix prices. Japanese consumers suffered alongside Taiwanese farmers, paying higher prices for the monopoly-priced sugar than they would have on the world market.²⁸

As mentioned earlier, Japanese police were omnipresent on Taiwan. The scattered yet nagging insurgency caused substantial fear in the new Japanese empire, and Japan had no intention of being run out of Taiwan by an indigenous uprising. Legal reforms were crafted in a manner that would help ensure Japanese security. The system of pao-chia, or mutual responsibilities, locked indigenous Taiwanese into a system in which social pressure prevented criminality, because many would be punished for the crimes of a few.

The combination of land, agricultural, and legal reforms increased the amount of land area under cultivation to 2.11 million acres in 1941. The value of Taiwan’s foreign trade increased more than thirtyfold between 1897 and 1939.²⁹ Japanese public health measures dramatically reduced the spread of infectious disease, which had been rampant before the introduction of modern vaccinations and treatments. Infrastructure improvements were similarly remarkable: advances in roads and railways, ports and shipping, telephone and telegraph all set Taiwan on a course of social revolution away from the primitive subsistence agriculture of the 1890s toward the modern society that was to emerge there in the twentieth century. Given all of those changes, Taiwan’s political, social, and economic development diverged more and more from that of mainland China. The two entities were becoming very different societies.

NOTES:

20. For a thorough history of the republican experience in Taiwan, see Harry J. Lam-ley “The 1895 Taiwan Republic: A Significant Episode in Modern Chinese History,” Journal of Asian Studies 27, no. 4 (August 1968): 739-762.

21. A. J. Grajdanzev, “Formosa (Taiwan) under Japanese Rule,” Pacific Affairs 15, no. 3 (September 1942): 311-324.

22. Shimpei Goto, “The Administration of Formosa (Taiwan),” in Shigenobu Okuma, Fifty Years of New Japan (London, 1909), vol. 2, p. 530. Cited in Hyman Kublin, “The Evolution of Japanese Colonialism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 2, no. 1 (October 1959): 67-84.

23. Edward I-te Chen, “Japanese Colonialism in Korea and Formosa: A Comparison of the Systems of Political Control,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 30 (1970): 126-158.

24. Kublin, p. 68.

25. Ibid., p. 83.

26. By one account, in 1942 the Japanese government owned approximately two-thirds of the land in Taiwan, with Japanese corporations and businesses owning much of the remaining third. See Grajdanzev, “Formosa,” p. 318.

27. Joseph W. Ballantine, Formosa: A Problem for United States Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1952), p. 35.

28. Ibid., p. 39.

29. Ibid., pp. 41-44.

SOURCE: Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895, with the Chinese agreeing to cede both Taiwan and the Liaotung peninsula to Japan. On April 23, however, the Germans, French, and Russians offered Japan their “advice” that Japanese possession of the Liaotung peninsula would be a “constant menace to the capital of China, and would at the same time render illusory the independence of Korea; it would henceforth be a perpetual obstacle to peace in the Far East.”¹⁸ The German foreign minister, Baron von Gutschmid, went so far as to hint that force might be used if Japan were to refuse to disgorge the Liaotung peninsula. This joint European diplomatic warning became known as the Triple Intervention.¹⁹ The Western powers were only concerned about Japanese occupation of territory on the Chinese mainland, however. After Japan responded favorably to the Triple Intervention on May 4, the Liaotung returned to Chinese ownership, but Taiwan remained a new part of the Japanese empire.

NOTES:

14. The Chinese approach was bizarre. During its attempts to broker peace, it escalated its rhetoric, shifting from referring to the Japanese as “dwarfs” to referring to them as “dwarf bandits.” It also sent low-level diplomats and even negotiators without vested authority to conduct the peace negotiations (Paine, pp. 254-257).

15. Edward I-te Chen, “Japan’s Decision to Annex Taiwan: A Study of Ito-Mutsu Diplomacy, 1894-1895,” Journal of Asian Studies 37, no. 1 (November 1977): 61-72.

16. Frank W. Ikle, “The Triple Intervention: Japan’s Lesson in the Diplomacy of Imperialism,” Monumenta Nipponica 22, no. 1/2 (1967): 122-130.

17. Chen, “Japan’s Decision,” p. 70.

18. Quoted in Ikle, “The Triple Intervention,” pp. 127-128.

19. For a complete analysis of the dynamics of the Triple Intervention, see Ikle, pp. 122-130.

SOURCE: Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

The Ming dynasty, facing military pressure from Manchurian forces that would later become the Qing dynasty, fled to Taiwan in 1661 and evicted the Dutch East India Company, de facto occupier of the island since the early 1620s. The Qing forces eventually overtook the Ming on Taiwan in 1683, and ruled Taiwan until the Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan in 1895.

Under Qing rule, increasing numbers of mainlanders moved to Taiwan to participate in the lucrative trade in commodities, such as tea and camphor.² Although there were recurring conflicts between mainlanders and indigenous Taiwanese over resource allocation and other contentious issues, by the end of Qing rule the Taiwanese had effectively been assimilated into the Chinese empire. But as the nineteenth century drew to a close, Taiwan’s status was about to change dramatically. Ironically, that change would come about because of a conflict between China and Japan over Korea.³

During the middle and late nineteenth century, Japan’s and China’s political and social structures could hardly have been more different. Japan was undertaking the Meiji government’s reforms-reforms that included the end of feudalism, the introduction of compulsory education, modernization and unification of Japan’s military, modernization of the Japanese banking system, and deep judicial reforms, among others.⁴ China, by contrast, was languishing in the remains of its feudal system, clinging tightly to Confucian ideals, and retaining its hostility toward Western ideals and technology. The rise of Japan as an imperial power and the decline of China were both clearly demonstrated by the war that erupted between them in 1894.

In February of that year, a popular uprising brought crisis to the Korean peninsula. A group of citizens organized under the Tonghak religious/political movement rebelled against the government, complaining of unreasonably high taxes and the growing influence of Western ideas on their society. The unrest continued to grow until finally, on June 3, King Kojong appealed to China to send troops to help quell the unrest. Four days later, China informed Japan that it intended to honor that request and send troops to Korea. The notification was given to comply with the Tianjin treaty of 1885, which bound both China and Japan to inform the other if one of them intended to deploy troops to Korea. That same day, Japan informed China that it too intended to send troops-to protect its embassy, consulates, and nationals living in Korea.⁵

The Tianjin treaty had been signed after the Japanese and Chinese legations in Korea clashed over a Japanese-led coup attempt in 1884. Chinese troops squashed the coup, and the Japanese regime backed off, agreeing to the treaty rather than risking a wider conflict.⁶ In the ten years since the treaty was signed, however, Japan had undergone tremendous modernization and economic and technological growth, while Chinese power had continued to atrophy. The Japanese knew this, and saw the Tonghak rebellion as their chance to parlay the tension with China into a war to challenge Chinese regional preeminence.

The Japanese troop deployment to Korea in 1894 was between two and four times that of the Chinese. The Chinese were shocked to discover the number of Japanese forces and warships deployed; by mid-June, there were ten Japanese warships patrolling the waters off the coast of Korea.⁷ Nevertheless, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Hongzhang believed either that he could secure European intervention to prevent Japanese expansion or that all-out war was otherwise avoidable. He was wrong in both cases.⁸

Although it appeared increasingly evident that Japan was serious about challenging China over Korea, nearly all Western commentators expected that China would deal Japan a crushing defeat. One observer stated: “[F]or a little, weak country like Japan to fight a big, strong country like China is suicidal. Japan will be obliterated like a fly in the flame.”⁹ This aptly summed up the opinion of nearly all Western observers regarding the prospective outcome of the war. They too would be proven dramatically wrong.

Japan made clear its intentions when on July 23 its troops stormed King Ko-jong’s palace in Seoul and took him hostage. Then on July 25, the Japanese navy sank a British-owned, Chinese-leased merchant ship, the Gaosheng, which was ferrying Chinese soldiers to Korea. Nearly all of the eleven hundred Chinese soldiers on board perished.¹⁰ On August 1, Japan declared war on China, stating that China sought to “weaken the position of [Korea] in the family of nations-a position obtained for Korea through Japan’s efforts-but also to obscure the significance of the treaties recognizing and confirming that position. Such conduct on the part of China is not only a direct injury to the rights and interests of this Empire, but also a menace to the permanent peace and tranquility of the Orient.”¹¹ Japan’s complaints about China’s military buildup and warlike posture should not obscure the fact that it was Japan that wanted this fight, not China.

Neither China’s army nor its navy stood a chance of defeating the Japanese without foreign intervention, which was not forthcoming. China’s navy was composed of heavily armored, slow moving ships, whereas Japan’s navy consisted of sleek, swift, modern ships. Additionally, China did not possess a national army. There were regional armies, under the control of regional commanders, and as a result, the forces from Chihli province (the region directly affected by the conflict) had to do a disproportionate share of the fighting. Even though troops from other provinces had been mobilized, China was crippled by logistical problems stemming from a lack of efficient transportation systems (attempts to build an expansive modern railway had been stalled)¹² and because the army had essentially no supply lines. Much of the army had to pillage the towns it passed through to survive. Accordingly, news that the army was coming was greeted with anxiety across the affected region.

Further, there was not a sense of national urgency in China, as contrasted with the enthusiasm that was frequently described as “war mania” in Japan. There was a continued belief in China (and in the West) that, although the Japanese were scoring strategic victories early on, they could not outlast the much larger Chinese army. The Chinese army adopted a strategy of counter-punching, and sought to wear down the Japanese forces by attrition.

Recognizing their own military deficiencies and realizing that they had overplayed their hand, the Chinese decided to mass their troops in Pyongyang, hoping to stave off Japanese advances onto Chinese territory. The disorganized Chinese forces in Pyongyang proved to be utterly inept. After suffering a devastating defeat there, Chinese forces suffered a major naval defeat in the Yellow Sea, then another land defeat on the banks of the Yalu River, a land defeat at Port Arthur, and a final devastating combined land and naval defeat at the port of Weihaiwei.¹³

After this series of disasters, China began to reach the reluctant conclusion that it had no chance of winning the war. The arrogance and condescension that had characterized the Chinese view of Japan and its military became untenable in the face of the devastation wrought on Chinese forces at the hands of the Japanese. In an attempt to retain “face” with its citizens, the Chinese government made a series of disingenuous gestures to end the war that would have allowed it to maintain that China had not been defeated. Japan knew that China was trying to save face, and continued to press the battle until China was prepared to admit defeat. After a long history of being the smaller, weaker neighbor, Japan wanted China cowed and had no intention of stopping the war until China was ready to prostrate itself before the new regional power.

THE END OF THE WAR AND THE TREATY OF SHIMONOSEKI

JAPAN’S OCCUPATION OF TAIWAN, 1895-1945

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MODERN STATE IN CHINA

THE END OF WORLD WAR II AND THE RETURN OF TAIWAN TO CHINA

THE CCP TAKES OVER MAINLAND CHINA

THE KUOMINTANG SETTLE ON TAIWAN-BUT WHO REPRESENTS CHINA?

THE FIRST TAIWAN STRAIT CRISIS

THE SECOND TAIWAN STRAIT CRISIS

TAIWAN DURING THE 1960S

THE SHANGHAI COMMUNIQUÉ AND CHINA POLICY IN THE 1970S

NOTES:

1. The history of Taiwan pre-1895 is taken from Johnathan I. Charney and J. R. V. Prescott, “Resolving Cross-Strait Relations between China and Taiwan,” American Journal of International Law 94, no. 3 (July 2000): 453-477.

2.Republic of China, Taiwan Yearbook 2003 (Taipei: Government Information Office, 2003), pp. 39-40.

3. Much of this section draws on S. C. M. Paine’s excellent history, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

4. Paine, Sino-Japanese, p. 87.

5. Stewart Lone, Japan’s First Modern War: Army and Society in the Conflict with China, 1894–1895 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), p. 26.

6. Ibid., p. 16.

7. Paine, Sino-Japanese, p. 115.

8. Ibid., p. 117.

9. British journalist W. T. Stead, cited in Marius B. Jansen, Japan and China: From War to Peace, 1894-1972 (Chicago, Ill.: Rand McNally College Publishing Company, 1975), p. 22. For more examples of Western skepticism of Japan’s capabilities, see Paine, pp. 125-127; 138-139, Lone, p. 29.

10. Paine, Sino-Japanese, pp. 133-134.

11. Taken from Zenone Volpicelli (published under the pseudonym “Vladimir”), The China-Japan War Compiled from Japanese, Chinese, and Foreign Sources (Kansas City, Mo.: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1905), Appendix D, p. 245.

12. “Japanese Next Station,” New York Times, February 20, 1895, p. 5. Cited in Paine, p. 152 n. 230.

13. Paine, Sino-Japanese, pp. 165-243.

SOURCE:

Ted Galen Carpenter, “America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course Over Taiwan“, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

dThe war that erupted between the United States and China in 2013 was a classic case of miscalculation by both parties. Neither Beijing nor Washington thought that the other side would escalate the long-standing tensions over Taiwan to the point of armed conflict. Yet armed conflict was the result, and the world has been paying the price ever since. For a quarter century, the world’s two leading powers have been locked in a cold war that has been at least as intense as the earlier surly confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The prospects for global peace and prosperity that looked so promising in the 1990s following the end of the first cold war have turned to ashes. U.S. policymakers have undoubtedly asked themselves many times whether the brief but intense war that broke out in July 2013 could have been avoided. They probably have asked themselves at least as many times whether defending Taiwan was worth the price.

As the secretary of state prepared to enter the White House on the morning of June 2, 2013, he wondered whether Taiwan’s president had finally pushed Beijing too far. The day before, the Taiwanese leader announced that he would seek an amendment to the constitution changing the island’s official name from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan, a move that was certain to infuriate the PRC. It may not officially have been a declaration of Taiwanese independence, but it was the functional equivalent of one. And it certainly would be the surprise of the century if Beijing did not regard it as Typically, Taiwan’s president had made that blockbuster of an announcement without any advance notice to the United States. That seemed to be his standard operating procedure since his re-election to the presidency in March 2012. Even more than his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, the current leader had a habit of blindsiding Taiwan’s protector, the United States, with potentially dangerous initiatives. This was just the latest and most provocative one.

Although both presidents were members of the Democratic Progressive Party, the similarities tended to end there. For all of his faults, Chen Shui-bian had displayed a shrewd sense of what was and what was not possible in Taiwan’s delicate relationship with mainland China. His pro-independence rhetoric could at times be a bit much, but his actual policies tended to be relatively cautious. Chen’s successor showed little of that caution. His boldness was not all that surprising since he came from the hard-line independence faction in the DPP. To many hard-liners, Chen Shui-bian had been squishy and a disappointment.

The current president believed he also had a broader mandate to push his independence agenda. Throughout his presidency, Chen had had to deal with a national legislature controlled by the more moderate Kuomintang Party (KMT) and its allies. Whatever his private inclinations might have been, that political reality restrained his actions. Chen’s successor had no such political constraints. The DPP now controlled 55 percent of the Legislative Yuan, and the party’s even more rabidly pro-independence ally, the Taiwan Solidarity Union, controlled another 8 percent. The president himself had been re-elected with nearly 58 percent of the vote against the increasingly moribund KMT and what was left of the relatively pro-Beijing People First Party. Chen Shui-bian had never come close to getting a popular mandate of that magnitude.

The U.S. president had assembled the members of his national security team to hear the secretary of state’s report on the latest news out of Taipei and Beijing. The news was not good. Throngs of DPP and TSU supporters had gone into the streets of Taipei and other cities on the island to support their president’s proposed change of the country’s name. Most of them were waving the green flag of Taiwan’s independence movement. As yet there was no official reaction from Beijing, but the latest online edition of People’s Daily was more than a little ominous.

<blockquote>The patience of the People’s Republic of China is not unlimited, and the latest actions by the authorities on Taiwan are testing that patience to the breaking point. The government of the PRC has made it clear on numerous occasions that moves to establish so-called Taiwan independence are unacceptable and will lead our Taiwan compatriots to the abyss of disaster. Yet the current Taiwanese authorities and the other splittist forces seem determined to wrench Taiwan away from the motherland regardless of the danger. Make no mistake. The forces of the People’s Liberation Army are prepared to defend the unity of China at whatever cost. Taiwan separatism will not be allowed to succeed. It is time for sober-minded Taiwan compatriots to let the DPP, the TSU and the rest of that ilk understand that the Taiwanese people will not follow them into the abyss. It is also time for the United States to make it clear to the Taiwan authorities that any effort to establish a so-called Republic of Taiwan will gravely endanger the peace and stability of the entire region.</blockquote>

The U.S. president queried his advisors about how to respond to the latest moves. The director of national intelligence reported on the latest satellite data, which showed an unusual amount of activity at several Chinese military airfields in Fujian Province, directly across the Strait from Taiwan. That was a troubling indicator, but manned aircraft was only one element of the firepower the PRC could deploy against Taiwan. China also had more than twelve hundred missiles targeted against the island, and those would play a major role if Beijing ever decided to use military force. The secretary of state recommended that the president personally issue a statement reiterating the U.S. position against any unilateral changes in the status quo by either Taipei or Beijing. The secretary further recommended that the president explicitly condemn the Taiwanese leader’s call to amend the constitution as precisely the kind of unilateral change that jeopardized peace in the Taiwan Strait and make it clear that the United States would oppose such a change.

The president hesitated. Taiwan had a lot of friends in Congress and the media who would react badly to any statement that seemed to be appeasement of Beijing. He recognized that a statement of criticism had to be made, but he wanted it handled at a lower level to minimize the publicity and the resulting outcry. The president instructed the secretary of state to have the deputy secretary issue the statement-and to soften the condemnation of the Taiwan president’s proposal to "the United States cannot support" instead of the United States "opposes" the proposed name change to the Republic of Taiwan. The secretary protested that more subtle formulations were unlikely to dissuade DPP hard-liners, but the president would not be moved.

Before the meeting adjourned, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff recommended that the United States begin the process of redeploying some of its aircraft carrier battle groups in order to be prepared if the crisis escalated. Two carriers were the best candidates. The USS Stennis was just completing a call at Pearl Harbor, and the USS Ronald Reagan was conducting joint training exercises with the navies of India and several Southeast Asian nations in and around the
Strait of Malacca. The JCS chairman suggested that both carrier battle groups be relocated to waters closer to Taiwan. The president expressed his view that the diplomatic crisis would probably blow over in a short time just as all previous ones had, but he agreed that the redeployment of the two carriers was probably a prudent step.

Reactions from Beijing and Taipei to the State Department’s criticism of unilateral changes in the status quo were not encouraging. Speaking at a DPP conference the following day, the Taiwanese president bluntly rejected the U.S. criticism. "The Republic of China has been a sovereign state for more than a century and a full-fledged democracy for nearly two decades," he stated. "It is up to the people of Taiwan to decide if we should change the name of our country to the Republic of Taiwan. The communist authorities on the mainland have nothing to say about it, and even a friend like the United States has no right to interfere in the affairs of a sister democracy." His comments seemed to confirm the secretary of state’s worst fears, that the DPP government would not be dissuaded by gentle criticisms.

If the reaction from Taipei was disappointing, the subsequent reaction from Beijing was alarming. The Taiwan Affairs Office issued a shrill statement of condemnation coupled with a threat.

<blockquote>The separatist traitors do not represent the best interests of the people of Taiwan. We urge our Taiwan compatriots to repudiate this irresponsible leadership before it is too late. The People’s Republic of China has said repeatedly that it wants to settle the issue of Taiwan’s reunification by peaceful means. Some provocations are simply intolerable, however. If the Taiwan authorities insist on proclaiming a so-called Republic of Taiwan, it will prove impossible for the PRC to adhere to a peaceful course.</blockquote>

The PRC’s embassy in Washington, too, was unimpressed with the statement issued by the State Department. In a meeting with the secretary of state, China’s ambassador dismissed the U.S. position as "anemic and utterly inadequate." In a rare display of anger, the ambassador stated:

<blockquote>We are weary of your government’s supposed adherence to a one-China policy when you constantly take actions that run contrary to that policy. We have put up with your sales of advanced weaponry to Taiwan-including offensive weapons-despite your commitment in the Third Communiqué signed by Ronald Reagan to gradually eliminate all arms sales. We have tolerated your willingness to issue visas to Taiwanese officials to visit the United States despite our protests. We have even tolerated those officials meeting with prominent members of Congress and giving public speeches in which they condemn the PRC. But we will not tolerate having your government give quiet encouragement to a so-called Taiwan leader while he creates an entity called the Republic of Taiwan. You need to bring serious pressure to bear on him NOW, if you wish to preserve friendly relations between China and the United States.</blockquote>

The secretary was taken aback by the intensity of the ambassador’s protest. Beijing had long been unhappy about Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan as well as other aspects of U.S. policy. But most PRC protests had acquired a rote aspect to them over the years. This was different. There was an uncompromising undertone of menace to Beijing’s position.
Any hope that the crisis might dissipate ended on June 4, when the Taiwanese administration formally introduced its proposed constitutional changes. Once again there was an unpleasant surprise for the United States. Not only did the executive propose to change Taiwan’s name from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan, but there was another provision delineating the boundaries of the new republic. The territory claimed was Taiwan itself plus Kinmen (Quemoy) and other small islands just off the Chinese mainland. Gone was any claim to represent any portion of the mainland. If the name change was not the functional equivalent of a declaration of independence, the second provision certainly was.

To this day it is uncertain why the Taiwanese president decided on such a daring course of action in June 2013. His own long-time commitment to the cause of an independent Taiwan was undoubtedly a key factor, but there appeared to be some other elements. Part of the move may even have been defensive. At the time he submitted the proposed constitutional amendments, only sixteen countries had diplomatic relations with the Republic of China. That number had been shrinking for years; a decade earlier, nearly thirty countries maintained diplomatic ties with the ROC. Beijing’s strategy of isolating Taipei diplomatically was clearly working. Even the sixteen countries that still recognized the ROC were all small, poor countries, mainly in Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa. They were all prime candidates to be bribed by the PRC to change their diplomatic allegiance-as so many others already had done. Taiwan’s leaders may have thought that they had nothing to lose by being bold, since the alternative was slow, but inexorable, diplomatic extinction.

Another factor appears to have been pervasive Taiwanese confidence that the United States would defend the island’s security if the PRC tried to resort to coercive measures. Granted, America’s obligations under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act were not the same as a clear-cut defense commitment. The TRA obligated the United States to sell Taiwan arms of a defensive nature (loosely defined) and to regard any PRC threat or use of force as a grave breach of the peace of the East Asian region. The latter provision implied that the United States would use its own military forces to defend Taiwan from attack. Although previous U.S. administrations had sometimes cautioned Taiwanese leaders that the commitment was not unconditional and that they should refrain from provoking the PRC, the current Taiwanese president and his followers were convinced that if a crisis erupted-regardless of its origins-the United States would defend a thriving democracy against aggression from a dictatorial China.

Taiwan’s supporters in the U.S. Congress and much of the American media encouraged Taipei to think in those terms. The Taiwan government had added confidence about the current administration, since the sitting American president was a conservative Republican and the conservative wing of the GOP had always been the most supportive of Taiwan’s ambitions. Consequently, Taipei may have concluded that the time was propitious for making a bold bid for permanent separation from China.

The changing military balance across the Taiwan Strait may have been another factor leading to the conclusion that it was "now or never." In the late 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century, Taiwan seemed capable of matching-and perhaps more than matching-the PRC’s military capabilities. Indeed, Taiwan’s modern air force with its F-16s and Mirages was probably superior to anything China could put into the air. But that situation had been slowly changing. In recent years, the PRC had been spending close to $70 billion a year on its military and was purchasing cutting-edge planes, ships, and other hardware from Russia and the nations of the European Union. Meanwhile, Taiwan had steadily trimmed its defense budget, choosing instead to spend money on a variety of domestic priorities. The military balance between Taiwan and the PRC was already shifting in favor of the latter. There was no doubt that in a few years China would have a decisive military edge over Taiwan, and then the island would have to rely entirely on the United States for its security. In 2013 the nature of the balance was still uncertain, but time clearly was not on Taiwan’s side.

Whatever the specific motivations, the government in Taipei decided to cross what Beijing had repeatedly indicated was a bright red line. The PRC had made it clear that crossing that line would bring extremely unpleasant consequences, and Beijing’s response to the Taiwan administration’s proposed constitutional amendments was not long in coming. On June 5 the PRC president ordered the mobilization of the People’s Liberation Army.

Both Taiwanese and U.S. officials seemed caught off guard by Beijing’s action. Taipei immediately ordered the mobilization of its forces, including calling reserves to active duty. The United States increased the alert level for its forces stationed in South Korea and Japan. That move in turn caused some agitation in both Seoul and Tokyo. The South Korean foreign ministry issued a statement emphasizing that its mutual security treaty with the United States did not cover contingencies in the Taiwan Strait. Seoul reiterated its adherence to a one-China policy and admonished Taipei to stop provoking a crisis with the PRC. Officials in the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and other East Asian countries issued similar statements over the subsequent week. Even America’s long-standing ally, Australia, made it clear that if an armed conflict erupted in the Taiwan Strait neither Taiwan nor the United States could expect help from Canberra.

Only Japan refrained from publicly chastising the Taiwanese and stating that it would not back the United States in a conflict with the PRC. Yet even Japan’s response was hedged and murky. The prime minister reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the alliance with the United States and stressed how important a vigorous U.S. military presence was to the security and stability of the East Asian and western Pacific regions. However, on the burgeoning crisis in the Taiwan Strait, the Japanese leader merely urged both Taipei and Beijing to "exercise restraint and display a commitment to settle this dispute by peaceful means."

The reaction of the U.S. government was more assertive. In opening remarks at a press conference on June 7, the president reminded China that the TRA put the United States on record that any effort by Beijing to coerce Taiwan "would be threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States." Beijing’s decision to mobilize the PLA was "most unhelpful" and served to "make an already tense situation worse." The president announced that the aircraft carriers Stennis and Reagan had been deployed to "waters near Taiwan" as a precaution. He went on to urge the Taipei government to put the proposed constitutional changes on "indefinite hold" as a gesture of good faith on Taiwan’s part to ease the crisis.

The president’s attempt to outline a balanced policy infuriated Taiwan partisans in the United States. Within hours of the president’s press conference, the House majority leader announced that he would introduce a resolution expressing support for Taiwan’s right to make changes in its constitution free from threats by its communist neighbor and affirming that the United States stood ready to carry out its obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act, "including the use of force to repel aggression in the Taiwan Strait, should that become necessary." By the next day, that resolution had more than forty cosponsors.

The introduction of the resolution was an implicit criticism of the administration’s policy, but that reaction was mild compared to the sentiments expressed in the right-wing press excoriating the administration for its cautious response to China’s military mobilization.

<blockquote>If the experience of the 1930s taught us anything, it is that free nations make a colossal blunder when they attempt to appease totalitarian aggressors. Yet the administration seems to be determined to repeat the folly of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Instead of issuing a statement making it clear that the United States will defend democratic Taiwan, the president and his advisors persist in trying to placate the communist dictatorship in Beijing. The president should state unequivocally that if China attacks Taiwan, it means war with the United States. Faced with such a clear and determined policy, it is likely that Communist China will back down, especially since its military forces are no match for those of the United States. If the gang of thugs in Beijing persist in their saber rattling, the United States should escalate the stakes by threatening to abandon the one-China policy and recognize Taiwan’s independence. It is a policy that should have been reconsidered long ago in any case. If Beijing insists on disrupting the peace and tranquility of East Asia, China’s communist rulers need to know that they could lose far more than they anticipate.</blockquote>

Whether it was the mounting criticism from his political base, the troubling information from U.S. surveillance satellites about PLA troop movements across from Taiwan, or some combination of the two factors, the president ordered the Stennis and Reagan carrier battle groups to move closer to the possible theater of action-into position in waters just east of Taiwan. Following the advice of the joint chiefs of staff and the secretary of defense, he also ordered another carrier battle group, led by the USS Lincoln, to leave the Persian Gulf area (which for the moment was unusually quiet) and steam for the western Pacific to support the Reagan and Stennis. As yet, he refrained from ordering any ships into the Taiwan Strait itself. Even so, Beijing’s reaction was harsh. China’s foreign minister issued a statement again demanding that the United States cease its interference in China’s internal affairs. He described the deployment of U.S. naval forces as "extremely provocative," warning that such "threatening gestures" from the United States were jeopardizing the "entire range of China-U.S. relations."

What the foreign minister meant by the "entire range" of relations became evident within days. China’s Central Bank began selling massive quantities of the U.S. treasuries that it held. For nearly a decade, China had been the primary funding source for U.S. government debt-holding more than $1.2 trillion by 2013. With Washington’s annual budget deficit hovering near $800 billion, China’s policy on the debt issue was no small consideration. It kept interest rates in the United States several percentage points below what they might have been if China had not been willing to soak up those debt instruments. When the central bank declined to purchase any more debt and began to unload hundreds of billions of dollars in what it already held, the impact on U.S. financial markets was immediate and devastating. On what became known as Black Thursday, the yield on the ten-year U.S. treasury note spiked, the stock market plunged more than 12 percent, following smaller but still significant declines the two previous sessions, and the dollar plummeted more than 5 percent. The following day the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee met in emergency session and raised the Federal Funds rate by 150 basis points (1.5 percentage points) in a desperate attempt to prevent a collapse of the dollar. That move soon proved insufficient to stem an even more dramatic decline.

China was clearly playing hardball, but despite the growing tensions, pro-Taiwan forces in the United States did not relax their pressure to get the administration to stand up to Beijing. The congressional resolution demanding that China end its threatening behavior toward Taiwan and pledging that the United States would defend Taiwan against aggression moved rapidly through the House of Representatives. During the floor debate in mid-June, a steady parade of House members-mainly conservative Republicans, but including more than a smattering of liberal Democrats-rose to praise Taiwan’s democracy and to denounce the PRC for everything from its belligerent military posture toward the island, to Beijing’s own dismal human rights record, to the flood of Chinese imports that produced America’s chronic massive trade deficit with that country. Only a handful of representatives dared to urge caution, warning that precipitous action could derail a crucial U.S. economic and political relationship, and suggesting that going eyeball to eyeball with a nuclear-armed nation had the potential for catastrophe.

The congressional tsunami of hostility toward the PRC caught many observers by surprise. The conventional wisdom had been that the U.S. business community, with its nearly $250 billion-a-year relationship with the PRC at stake, would use its considerable influence to rein in all but the most rabidly anti-PRC members of Congress. During the crisis of June 2013, that assumption was proven spectacularly wrong. Those who favored a cautious policy toward the PRC were routed by allegations that they were willing to sacrifice America’s honor and values to protect the interests of amoral corporations. In the end, the House passed the resolution by a vote of 359 to 67. A similar resolution was making its way through the Senate, and it was clear that the margin of victory in that chamber would be only a little less lopsided.
Beijing’s next move dramatically heightened the crisis. On June 22, PRC air, naval, and ground forces attacked the offshore islands of Kinmen and Matsu.

Within a matter of hours, Taiwan’s badly outnumbered and outgunned defense forces surrendered and the red flag of the People’s Republic of China rose over both territories. Taiwan’s president responded by going on national television and radio and vowing that Taiwanese forces were prepared to defend the country at all cost and would not rest until the conquered islands were retaken. He also explicitly called on the United States to honor the provisions of the Taiwan Relations Act. "It is clear that the goal of China’s communist regime is nothing less than the subjugation of free and democratic Taiwan. In the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States said that such coercion would threaten the peace of all of East Asia. America now needs to take decisive action to repel this aggression or its word will mean nothing."

China’s attack on the offshore islands did not come entirely as a surprise to Washington. The movement of PRC military forces during the previous two weeks suggested that such a move was possible. Yet most members of the president’s national security team had not thought that Beijing would really go that far. The consensus had been that Chinese leaders were using the mobilization and new deployments to ratchet up the pressure on Taipei and force the Taiwanese regime to retreat on its proposed constitutional revisions. Now that China had instead resorted to military action, the United States faced a dilemma. It was a dilemma that went back as far as the Formosa Straits crises in the 1950s. At that time, the Eisenhower administration had agonized about what to do if the PRC attacked the offshore islands but did not launch an assault on Taiwan itself. Fortunately, China had never changed matters to the point where the United States had to decide whether to respond militarily. The current administration faced no such luxury.

The administration was badly divided about how to respond. The secretary of state opposed any U.S. military intervention. Those offshore islands were not essential to Taiwan’s economy or security, he said, noting that even some members of the DPP had previously expressed indifference about their fate. Opposition to military intervention also came from the secretary of the treasury, who warned that the U.S. financial markets had already been badly damaged by the ongoing tensions with China and that, if the crisis escalated, the effect on America’s economic health could be devastating. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the director of national intelligence strongly disagreed with the dovish position. They believed that the attack on the offshore islands was merely a prelude to an attempt to conquer Taiwan or intimidate it into surrendering. U.S. credibility was at stake, they stressed, and warned that if the United States did not respond militarily, not only Washington’s commitment to defend Taiwan would be in doubt, but so would the other security commitments in East Asia and beyond. This was a clear case of Chinese expansionist aggression, the JCS chairman emphasized, and the United States had to intervene.

The national security advisor proposed a compromise. Move the Stennis and the Reagan into the Taiwan Strait, she suggested, but refrain at present from taking any direct military action against PRC forces. Such a middle position between doing nothing and initiating a shooting war with China appealed to the president. Later that day, the Stennis and Reagan battle groups began to move into the Strait. Within days the Lincoln also would be in position just east of Taiwan.

The president also called in the PRC ambassador for a dressing down. The secretary of state, who attended the meeting, later said that he had never seen his boss quite so angry or determined. The president warned the Chinese ambassador that the seizure of the islands was "completely unacceptable," and that Beijing’s "reckless actions" risked igniting a war between the United States and China. But the ambassador was in no mood to give ground. He reiterated his government’s demand that the United States cease interfering in an "internal Chinese dispute." He warned further against any "unwise escalation"-especially against sending U.S. military units into the Taiwan Strait. It was, as diplomats are fond of saying, an "extremely frank exchange of views."

Beijing was not about to back down in the face of the U.S. moves. Indeed, the next day, the PRC defense ministry announced that it was imposing a blockade on "the renegade province of Taiwan" and warned all ships to refrain from approaching Taiwanese ports. The blockade announcement combined with the seizure of the offshore islands sent Taiwan’s supporters in the United States into a rage. As might be expected, right-wing pundits led the anti-PRC verbal barrage.

<blockquote>China’s communist government has proven itself to be an aggressor and an outlaw regime. The United States has no choice but to lead the civilized world in repelling this aggression and saving democratic Taiwan. Monsters like Adolf Hitler arise in every generation, and the PRC has shown itself to be the Nazi Germany of our generation. Some say that it would be too dangerous to confront China’s brutal aggression, but we must ignore such voices of timidity and appeasement. Yes, it may cost lives-including American lives-to stop China’s warmongering expansionism in its tracks. But it will cost even more later on if we let China subjugate free Taiwan. The appetite of a totalitarian aggressor is never satisfied. If the Chinese dictatorship succeeds in conquering Taiwan, where will it stop? Korea will likely be next, and Japan not long after. America’s entire position in East Asia and its credibility throughout the world will be destroyed if we do not act resolutely now. But if we do have the courage to lead, other nations will follow us and stand up to the communist aggressors. To the advocates of appeasement, it should be said that it is better to have a small war now than to have a larger and much more destructive war later. Indeed, our objective now should be nothing less than the removal of the outlaw regime in Beijing. Only then will there be lasting peace in East Asia. The president needs to decide whether he wants to be remembered as the twenty-first century’s Winston Churchill or Neville Chamberlain. America’s honor as well as its security is at stake. We must defend free and democratic Taiwan!</blockquote>

Although those pundits were confident that other nations would stand shoulder to shoulder with a resolute America in stopping China’s coercion of Taiwan, the administration found out differently. Even before Washington sounded out Seoul about its position, the Korean government made it clear that not only would it refuse to join any U.S. military action against the PRC, it forbade the United States from using its own military bases in the Republic of Korea for such purposes. Other governments throughout East Asia followed suit, declaring their neutrality in any armed conflict between the United States and China.

Even Japan left the United States in the lurch. After an agonizing and contentious meeting of the Japanese Cabinet, Tokyo refused to allow the United States to use its military facilities on Japanese territory for operations against PRC forces. Washington reacted with anger and dismay, pointing out that Japan’s de facto declaration of neutrality violated the spirit of the security statement adopted by the two governments in February 2005 declaring that a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan dispute was a crucial security interest of both Japan and the United States. Japan’s reneging on that commitment, U.S. officials warned Tokyo, endangered the future of the U.S.-Japanese alliance. Nevertheless, Tokyo did not relent. Although there was considerable sympathy for Taiwan among the Japanese public as well as the country’s political elite, the fear of PRC economic and military retaliation for Japanese support of an American military defense of Taiwan was even greater. As the crisis of 2013 built to a climax, America stood alone in protecting Taiwan.

The crisis escalated another notch in the early morning hours of July 3. China finally put to use some of the twelve hundred missiles it had been amassing for two decades. Missiles began slamming into targets throughout Taiwan just before dawn. The initial barrage consisted of fewer than one hundred missiles, and Taiwan’s missile defense system intercepted more than 80 percent of that number. The physical damage inflicted by the warheads that actually hit their targets was quite modest, but the psychological impact was another matter. Taiwan’s stock market tried to open briefly that morning, but after share values plunged more than 20 percent in the first hour of trading, the Taiwanese president ordered all exchanges closed for the duration of the emergency. In addition to the economic impact, thousands of civilians made a panicked exodus from Taipei and other cities, clogging the highways and creating general chaos.

Taiwan’s air and naval forces quickly responded to the PRC attack. Although Taipei had reacted angrily to the blockade proclamation, it had not taken action against PRC naval vessels deployed in the Strait. Following the missile barrage, that restraint ended. Taiwanese planes attacked more than a dozen PRC surface vessels, and there were aerial dogfights over the Strait throughout the day. But the most dramatic move came when Taiwanese aircraft struck four of the missile batteries on the mainland, completely destroying two and badly damaging the other two. China responded with a second missile barrage, nearly twice as large as the first.

With all of the combat in and around the Taiwan Strait on July 3, what happened next probably should not have come as a surprise. To this day, no one is certain who fired the first shot in the conflict between U.S. and Chinese forces in the Taiwan Strait in the early morning hours on July 4. Beijing later claimed that a U.S. plane from one of the aircraft carriers strafed a Chinese destroyer in the western part of the Strait, barely ten miles off of the mainland coast, setting off the cascade of violence. The United States told a very different story. According to Washington, both aircraft carrier battle groups sought to avoid conflict with Chinese units while U.S. officials frantically pressed both Beijing and Taipei for a cease fire. At that point, Washington was even willing to concede the PLAs seizure of the offshore islands and had bluntly told Taipei that the United States was unwilling to go to war to dislodge those forces. The U.S. version of events was that China began the war with a missile attack from Chinese navy destroyers and submarines against the Reagan battle group.

It is impossible to determine with certainty whose version is correct, but there are several reasons to question the Chinese account. The fact that the PRC began a comprehensive campaign of electronic warfare to disrupt U.S. communications and launched several anti-satellite weapons, knocking out two key U.S. spy satellites, just as the confrontation got under way lends a good deal of credence to the American version. It seems likely that China initiated the conflict, not merely reacted to an American attack. In any case, those tactics were a bold stroke, and they proved highly effective. The advantage that the United States had enjoyed in every conflict since the First Gulf War of being able to see and manage the battlefield far better than any adversary virtually disappeared. In the Taiwan Strait war, American forces had no significant informational advantage over their Chinese opponents. That was a new and very unsettling experience.

In any case, it is indisputable that the Chinese missile assault on the Reagan and its support ships was massive and devastating. Three of those ships were sunk and four others damaged in the first hours of the battle. But the worst was yet to come. A coordinated attack using the new generation Advanced Sunburn missiles struck home in multiple locations on the Reagan itself. Shortly before 6 A.M. on July 4, 2013, the USS Ronald Reagan went to the bottom of the Taiwan Strait. Although vigorous rescue operations were mounted in the midst of the chaos, some 1,832 personnel perished with that ship. Chinese missile, aircraft, and submarine attacks on the Stennis battle group caused some damage, but the Stennis survived to retreat out of the Strait, losing only one of its escort vessels.

It is impossible to overstate how much the loss of the Reagan shocked not only the U.S. Navy but the American people. Before that episode, most people simply regarded the massive carriers in the U.S. fleet as invincible. The call for revenge against China was overwhelming, and U.S. forces in the western Pacific were not long in responding. Planes from the Stennis and the Lincoln attacked PRC air forces over the Strait, and although outnumbered, prevailed in most of the skirmishes. The counterattack against Chinese naval vessels in the Taiwan Strait was even more pronounced. The most dangerous action, though, was the decision to join the Taiwanese air force in striking airfields and other military installations on the mainland coast itself. On balance, it seemed that the U.S. and Taiwanese forces inflicted more damage than they suffered, but events were threatening to spiral out of control. It was especially ominous that both the United States and the PRC put their strategic nuclear forces on maximum alert. The United States and China teetered on the brink of all-out war.

At a White House meeting following the sinking of the Reagan, several members of the president’s national security team were in favor of escalation. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff could barely contain his anger. He advocated not only continuing to strike airfields and missile batteries on the mainland, but attacking military and infrastructure targets throughout the PRC. Clearly, that would require far more air power than the United States had available from the two remaining carriers. Indeed, the JCS chairman and the director of national intelligence urged the president to order the fleet of B-2 bombers from the continental United States into action. Those planes would focus on the government compound in Beijing as well as selected targets in China’s prize economic jewel, Shanghai. The hawks on the president’s national security team also suggested that the United States launch attacks from its bases in South Korea and Japan, whether the host governments in those countries approved the attacks or not. "What good are our so-called allies," the JCS chairman fumed, "if they won’t even let us use our own facilities when we’re under attack?"

Predictably, the secretary of state and the national security advisor urged caution and argued forcefully against escalation. The principal surprise in the meeting was that the secretary of defense supported their position and emphatically disagreed with her hawkish colleagues. She pointed out that China had more than two hundred nuclear warheads mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching any target in the United States, and that the PRC government had put those forces on the highest alert status. If the United States started bombing Beijing and Shanghai, she warned, there was no telling where the cycle of escalation would stop. An all-out war between the United States and China, possibly involving the use of nuclear weapons, would be a disaster beyond comprehension. She pleaded with the president not to take such a fateful step.

For once, the chief executive proved to be both decisive and prudent. As painful as the decision must have been, he opted against escalation. A similar process of fear-induced restraint seemed to be taking place within the PRC government, and both sides began to pull back from the abyss of nuclear confrontation. In a series of calls on July 4 and 5 over the hotline between Beijing and Washington, the two presidents negotiated a cease fire. China agreed to stop its bombardment of Taiwan and to lift the blockade, while the United States agreed not to dispute continued PRC control of the offshore islands and to withdraw its forces from the Strait. Beijing also agreed to withdraw its forces to the western half of the Strait, if Taiwan redeployed its forces to the eastern half. Although those moves formed the basis for the cease fire, China had other demands that had to be met before the crisis could come to an end. Beijing insisted on the resignation of the Taiwanese leader, the end to any effort to change the name of the Republic of China, and the opening of talks on reunification. China reluctantly agreed that Taiwan would not have to accept the one-China principle as a prerequisite for such talks, but that it would be the first topic of discussion.

Not surprisingly, when the United States informed the Taiwanese president of Beijing’s demand for his resignation, he flatly refused. The U.S. administration was at the limit of its patience with the volatile Taiwanese leader, though. Washington informed him that if he insisted on staying in office, the United States would withdraw all of its forces from the area and would no longer honor its commitment under the TRA to defend Taiwan. Faced with that ultimatum, he had little choice. On July 6, he announced his resignation to the Taiwanese people. His replacement, the vice president, promptly met Beijing’s other demands-withdrawing the proposed constitutional changes and agreeing to commence negotiations on reunification.

Although the new president came from the more pragmatic wing of the DPP, those concessions were an extremely bitter pill to swallow. Yet he seemed to have little choice. Taiwan had neglected its own defenses, not even purchasing all of the military hardware that the United States had offered to sell over the years. Taipei had put all of its hopes in U.S. military protection, and that protection had not proved sufficient. Given the damage the United States had suffered in this confrontation with China, it was clear that Washington’s military protection would be even less reliable in the future. Even many DPP stalwarts now concluded that Taiwan’s dream of internationally recognized independence was probably not achievable. The only remaining strategy was to stall as long as possible in reunification negotiations and then strike the best deal available.

Beijing gained a good many of its objectives in the crisis of 2013, although reunification talks would drag on for more than a decade, and when reunification finally occurred it was only in the form of a very loose confederation between Taiwan and the PRC. Moreover, China paid an extraordinarily high price for those gains. Public and congressional sentiment in the United States for retribution against the PRC was irresistible. Passage of the Anti-Aggression Act of 2013 in mid-July mandated not only the severing of diplomatic ties, but also a total embargo on commerce with the PRC and a ban on U.S. investment in China. Although the president had grave misgivings about both aspects, he did not resist when the legislation passed both houses of Congress by veto-proof majorities. The embargo did serious damage to the American economy and the global economy generally, but it had an absolutely devastating effect on China’s economic health. A decade-long recession settled over that country, leading to the social upheavals that for a time threatened the unity and stability of the country.

A cold war has settled over U.S.-China relations in the quarter century since the conflict of 2013. Diplomatic ties were restored in 2019, and amendments to the Anti-Aggression Act over the years have led to a limited resumption of commerce. Nevertheless, bilateral trade in 2038 is less than 20 percent of what it was in 2012, and the United States, China, and the rest of the global economy have all suffered the consequences. Equally troubling, the bitter U.S.-Chinese strategic and economic rivalry intensified throughout East Asia, with the United States gradually but inexorably losing ground to the PRC. All of those negative results occurred because of a festering dispute over the status of one small island.

On the surface, America’s relations with China seem to be rather cordial. Tensions spiked in April 2001 over the incident in which a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter plane, but that quarrel soon receded, and ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks China and the United States have cooperated in the campaign against radical Islamic terrorism. More recently, Washington and Beijing have worked together to induce North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, the important economic relationship has continued to grow, with bilateral trade now exceeding $160 billion a year.

Despite these components of a cooperative relationship, there are in the United States vocal advocates of a more hard-line policy toward the People’s Republic of China. Indeed, in recent years critics of the current policy have redoubled their efforts on a number of issues. The hard-liners have sought to get the U.S. government to press China on its abuses of human rights, to increase arms sales to Taiwan, to restrict the export of high technology (especially dual use) products to the PRC, to sanction China for its proliferation of key weapons systems to unfriendly regimes, and to adopt a number of protectionist trade measures to reduce the bilateral trade deficit (and perhaps retard China’s economic development).

Pressure from the hard-liners has had some effect on U.S. policy regarding several of those issues, but generally that impact has been only at the margins. For example, there have been more restrictions on high-tech exports to China on national security grounds than during the Clinton years. U.S. officials also have expressed public criticism of Beijing’s human rights record-although that criticism has become less frequent and more muted during recent years. Perhaps most significant, the United States has imposed sanctions against Chinese companies a dozen times in the past four years for alleged proliferation activities, and Washington has exerted intense diplomatic pressure on Beijing regarding that issue.¹

These are all measures that advocates of a hard-line policy have been pushing for years. The Cox Committee report in 1999, which charged that China was using espionage and imported strategic goods to build up the PRC’s military power, especially generated pressure for restraints on technology trade among political conservatives.² A rather alarming July 2002 report to Congress by the U.S.China Security Review Commission (established by the Defense Authorization Act of 2001) on the national security implications of the economic relationship between the United States and China intensified calls for action on the trade front.³ It was significant that this congressionally established bipartisan committee of outside experts had a disproportionate number of China critics in its membership.

In evaluating the call for trade restrictions, it is difficult to separate national security motives from purely self-serving economic motives. This is particularly true with regard to the Bush administration’s ongoing campaign to get China to revalue its currency. U.S. competitors have long complained that the PRC manipulates the value of the yuan, keeping it artificially low to make Chinese goods more competitive in the world market. The administration has grudgingly responded to the demand of its domestic economic constituencies that something be done about that problem. Although Beijing has been just grudgingly responsive on the currency revaluation issue, Chinese officials do seem concerned about the mounting calls in the United States for punitive measures to narrow the trade deficit. For example, in late 2003 and early 2004, China announced the purchase of billions of dollars worth of American goods, including airplanes, jet engines, and auto parts.

Some calls for commercial sanctions against China appear to involve a mixture of economic and security motives. How proponents of a hard-line policy combine those issues can be gauged by the comments of William R. Hawkins, senior fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC), a prominent economic nationalist think tank in Washington. Hawkins called for countervailing duties on Chinese imports "across the board" to close the yawning trade deficit. Although one of the reasons he cited was the need to prevent the further loss of American manufacturing jobs, he also stressed that the trade deficit was not the only concern. He specifically warned Americans of an insidious Chinese ploy to narrow the deficit. "Beijing’s gambit is to renew calls for a relaxation of import restrictions on sensitive technology, especially technology with military application, as the way to boost American exports. China has long chafed under security restrictions and has circumvented them whenever possible, often with the aid of the same avaricious American firms who lobby on Beijing’s behalf." Americans must not succumb to that ploy, Hawkins emphasized. "All China really wants from the United States is technology, and the capital and know-how needed to replicate it. Opening the gates to Beijing in strategic trade might narrow the deficit somewhat in the short run, but in the long run the adverse impact on both U.S. competitiveness and national security would be catastrophic."⁴ Hawkins also warned that Beijing’s policies were "part of China’s drive to become the strongest economy in Asia and to overturn the global balance of power that currently favors the United States."⁵ His views represented the perfect marriage of trade protectionist motives and national security concerns. To this point, his views are shared only by a minority-but a substantial minority-in Congress, the foreign policy community, and the general public. That this minority exists is important because it shows that a significant reservoir of hostility toward the PRC already exists in the United States-a reservoir that easily could be tapped in the event of a crisis.

In the PRC, there are counterparts to the U.S. neoconservatives and economic nationalists who urge Beijing to adopt a more assertive policy toward the United States. Those hard-liners are especially numerous in the upper ranks of the People’s Liberation Army. One prominent example of this assertive policy is a book, Unrestricted Warfare, published in 1999 by two colonels in the PLA.⁶ The book’s analysis and arguments are directed at one basic end: identifying weaknesses in the U.S. military and ways of exploiting them. The book goes into great detail about what the authors’ perceive as America’s strategic weaknesses: an undue reliance on technology, a hypersensitive aversion to casualties, and alleged weaknesses in joint war-fighting integration. In addition to the military analysis, the underlying assumption of Unrestricted Warfare is that the United States is an implacable enemy of China and that someday the PRC must confront its adversary militarily.

Michael Pillsbury, a leading scholar of Chinese affairs, has audited much of the available material from military strategists inside the PRC and notes that "not one of the more than 200 books" reviewed for his study "admitted that the United States could defeat China in any scenario-but many techniques can supposedly defeat U.S. forces."⁷ In addition, "a common theme in PLA views of future warfare [is that] America is proclaimed to be a declining power with but two or three decades of primacy left."⁸ The undertone of the Chinese analyses is a mixture of hostility and disdain toward the United States.

Wang Yiwei, assistant to the dean of China’s prestigious Fudan University, penned a December 2004 article in which he noticed some disturbing trends in the attitudes of Chinese opinion leaders regarding U.S.-China relations. "In the eyes of Chinese strategists, ‘the America Opportunity Theory’ has been replaced by ‘the America Threat Theory.’ Strident voices can be heard concerning the serious situation of ‘Taiwan independence,’ saying that China will not scruple to have a strategic showdown with the U.S."⁹

Hard-liners are sometimes able to rouse China’s population into anti-America outbursts. The most vivid example was the reaction to the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Balkan war in May 1999. Although President Bill Clinton and other U.S. officials immediately sought to apologize for what Washington described as a horrible accident, the PRC was unforgiving. Chinese officials and opinion leaders openly charged that the attack was deliberate, perpetrated by anti-Chinese elements within the U.S. military and foreign policy bureaucracies. A negative reaction was probably inevitable, but what occurred during the days following the bombing incident went beyond a normal response. Mobs of Chinese young people attacked American businesses and other targets in Shanghai, Beijing, and other cities.¹⁰ The mob violence against the U.S. embassy and the ambassador’s residence was so severe-a barrage of rocks, bottles, and firebombs-that Ambassador James Sasser dared not leave the residence for three days.

Chinese authorities took steps to prevent similar violent, large-scale demonstrations during the April 2001 spy plane incident, perhaps fearing that they would again get out of control. Internet chat rooms in China teemed with anti-American sentiment, however.¹¹ That was significant in that internet users are likely to be more affluent, more educated, urban dwellers-in other words, the type of Chinese who would normally favor a more open political system and be friendly to America and American values. Instead, many of them expressed an extremely virulent variety of Chinese nationalism.

Those episodes suggest a sizeable undercurrent of hostility toward the United States among members of China’s elite as well as the general public. In normal times, the numerous ties that link the interests of the United States and the PRC keep such sentiments in the background. In a time of crisis, though, the outcome could be very different.

The trade deficit, China’s proliferation activities, and the PRC’s human rights abuses pose problems in the relationship between the United States and China. So do sharp differences over China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive war (which Beijing vehemently opposes), and a variety of other issues. But it is virtually impossible to imagine any of them leading to an armed conflict. The sole exception is the status of Taiwan. And, given the overall fragile nature of the U.S.-PRC relationship, Taiwan could become the occasion for a very nasty confrontation indeed.

Beijing insists that Taiwan is merely a renegade province of the People’s Republic of China, and although Chinese officials state that the PRC wants to settle the dispute by peaceful means, they also have consistently refused to renounce the use of force to achieve reunification. Renunciation is an option that they will not entertain even in private, off-the-record discussions. That is true even when the concession is presented as part of a quid pro quo for the termination of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan-something Beijing wants very much.¹² Taiwan seems to be one of those emotional "hot button" issues that galvanize mainland Chinese, including those who are less than passionate supporters of the government on other topics.

It is often difficult for Americans and other Westerners to comprehend the depth of Chinese determination to get Taiwan to "return to the motherland." But to many (and probably most) Chinese, Taiwan is the most potent remaining symbol of China’s long period of weakness and dependence, which began in the early nineteenth century, and its shabby treatment at the hands of various colonial powers. For the Chinese, the inheritors of an ancient and proud culture, that treatment was profoundly humiliating and opened deep emotional wounds that have yet to heal fully. It was during the period of weakness that Britain wrested Hong Kong away from China’s control; that Japan seized Taiwan (and later Manchuria); that czarist Russia amputated portions of Chinese territory along their border; and that France, Germany, and other countries established colonies or enclaves. That is why the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 was such a crucial event-with the emotional symbolism transcending its admittedly significant economic importance. The last of the European enclaves, Macao, was restored to Beijing’s jurisdiction in 1999. Taiwan is now the principal piece of traditional Chinese territory that has yet to be recovered. That fact alone makes Taiwan’s status a potentially explosive issue.

There are elements within the People’s Liberation Army who seem willing to threaten military force-and perhaps even use military force-to resolve the Taiwan issue. So far, the civilian leadership of the Chinese Communist Party appears to be more cautious. Beijing has not yet decided to use coercion to achieve reunification, but it is equally apparent that the PRC political elite regards the use of force as a viable option if peaceful alternatives prove ineffective. Any one of a number of developments could put a coercive strategy in motion: the emergence of a more hard-line PRC government, evidence that pro-independence sentiment on Taiwan was becoming dominant, or simply frustration on the mainland with the prospect of an indefinite stalemate. The latter danger may increase as communism fades as a unifying force in China. The most likely substitute unifying force would be Chinese nationalism-and Taiwan is the most important, emotionally laden, nationalist issue.

At the same time that China is becoming more confrontational about the Taiwan issue, separatist sentiments are growing in Taiwan-especially among younger Taiwanese. To them, China is an alien country.¹³ A vibrant, distinct society has grown up on Taiwan, and many Taiwanese point out that their island has been ruled from Beijing only 4 years out of the last 110-and the government in question was not communist. Taiwan has developed separately from the mainland, and it is understandable if many Taiwanese want that reality ratified by having an independent state that enjoys full international recognition. True, the bulk of the Taiwanese business community favors close ties with the mainland, and that faction is an important force for caution and restraint, helping to counteract the influence of the pro-independence faction.¹⁴ But the overall trend seems clear. Numerous public opinion surveys show that very few Taiwanese are interested in reunification with a communist China. Indeed, a growing number of Taiwanese may not be interested in reunification even if the mainland someday becomes democratic. At the very least, there is a broad consensus in favor of the island’s current de facto independence, and most Taiwanese want some form of political recognition from the international community.

The divergent attitudinal trends on the mainland and Taiwan leave little room for compromise. Given the intensity of the emotions on both sides of the Strait, it is uncertain how long the modus vivendi that has existed since Washington’s rapprochement with the PRC in the 1970s can endure. Both Beijing and Taipei seem increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo built around Taiwan’s acceptance of being in political and diplomatic limbo. They also have sharply conflicting prescriptions for resolving the impasse. Beijing advocates the formula of "one country, two systems," which would mean a status for Taiwan similar to that granted Hong Kong, albeit with somewhat greater autonomy. Taipei categorically rejects that solution. During the years of control by the Kuomintang Party from the late 1940s until the mid-1990s, Taiwanese leaders at least implicitly accepted the concept of one China. But the formula under KMT President Lee Teng-hui in the late 1990s shifted to "one China, two states." The model Lee and his supporters seemed to be advocating was the two Germanys during the latter stages of the Cold War. That option, though, was anathema to the PRC.

When the Democratic Progressive Party won Taiwan’s presidency in 2000, sentiment for an independent Taiwan intensified. Under the current president, Chen Shui-bian, even the pro forma acceptance of one China has largely been abandoned. According to Chen, one China is merely one possible outcome of negotiations between two sovereign and equal states: the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) and the PRC. Moreover, a sizable portion of the Democratic Progressive Party’s membership is even more radical than Chen. And the DPP’s junior partner in the "Pan Green" electoral alliance-the Taiwan Solidarity Union-makes the DPP look anemic on the independence issue. To staunchly pro-independence elements in both the DPP and the TSU, the ultimate goal of negotiations with Beijing is not reunification but formal separation.

The United States has pursued a policy that seeks both to preserve friendly ties with Beijing and protect Taiwan’s de facto independence. As developed during the 1980s and 1990s, that policy incorporated the doctrine of strategic ambiguity. On the one hand, Washington officially adheres to a one-China policy and does not dispute Beijing’s contention that Taiwan is part of China. On the other hand, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act mandates that the United States sell defensive arms to Taiwan and regard any PRC effort to coerce Taiwan as a grave breach of the peace. Left ambiguous is whether the United States would intervene with its own military forces in the event of a Chinese attack on the island. The point of strategic ambiguity is to keep both sides guessing about U.S. intentions. The rationale is that Taiwan would have to wonder whether the United States would really come to its rescue if Taiwanese leaders needlessly provoked Beijing by pushing an independence agenda. Conversely, Beijing would have to suspect that the United States would defend Taiwan. Therefore, both sides have an incentive to act cautiously.

Strategic ambiguity worked reasonably well until the mid-1990s, when a newly democratic Taiwan began to push the envelope regarding independence and the PRC reacted with ever more pointed warnings. During the past decade, U.S. leaders have tinkered at the margins of strategic ambiguity even as signs continue to mount that a confrontation between Beijing and Taipei is a very real danger. As the United States has tried to preserve an increasingly fragile status quo, it has often created confusion and increased the risk of miscalculation by one or both parties to the Taiwan dispute. (See chapter 6.)

An especially troubling aspect of U.S. policy is that America has little control over events relevant to the Taiwan situation. To some extent, that is a problem inherent in any international trouble spot involving the United States. It is always possible for the opposing party to trigger a crisis. But the Taiwan problem is far more complicated and dangerous. The United States has to worry not only about whether its potential adversary (China) remains prudent, but also whether its client state (Taiwan) remains prudent. Indeed, in this case, Washington may have to worry more about Taipei provoking a crisis than Beijing doing so. It is dangerous to undertake any commitment to defend a client or ally, but it is especially risky when the United States does not, and probably cannot, exercise effective control over the actions of that ally or client. And that is precisely the situation today in the relationship between Washington and Taipei. That vulnerability, whereby the security patron can be dragged into a confrontation (perhaps even a full-blown war) by an excessively assertive client, is the problem that Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Travis Tanner, scholars at the National Interest, aptly refer to as the "wag the dog" phenomenon.¹⁵ Taiwan is a textbook example of that danger.

A related problem is that Taiwan is in a position to manipulate the decisionmaking process in the United States. Taipei spends a great deal of time, money, and effort not only to influence the course of action that the executive branch pursues but to cultivate support in Congress and the American opinion elite needed to push for policies that advance Taiwan’s agenda. That is another facet of the "wag the dog" problem, since such influence can cause U.S. officials to take measures that might not be in America’s best interest.

The United States is at a precario