The Taiwanese have survived and prospered despite nearly 50 years of such bullying from the mainland. But the nagging risk is that China’s threats and bombast may lead to a major confrontation – not just with Taiwan but with the United States. Since Washington switched its formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1978, it has continued, in effect, to be Taiwan’s protector. Moreover, the United States, with security ties to Japan, the Philippines and South Korea, helps shape the regional balance of power. What China does affects the United States – and the reverse is equally true.
Yet tensions between Washington and Beijing have been ratcheting upward for months. Even before China’s first M-9 left its launcher last week, many senior U.S. Asia hands were bracing for a crisis. Within the next few months the two giants will have to face off on just about every major grievance that divides them. Such issues demand cool logic and icy nerve – and these days those qualities are vanishingly rare in both countries’ capitals. In Beijing, expectations of Deng Xiaoping’s death have transformed every aspiring leader into a militarist. In Washington, the election-year din is drowning out all but the angriest voices. Neither government can afford to wreck the diplomatic ties they have crafted for the past two decades. But the sense of mutual hostility continues to grow, aided, perhaps, by the American policy of “creative ambiguity” (that’s dip-lomatese for fudge) in the region.
That period, in which Washington tried to keep both Taipei and Beijing guessing about its true intentions, may be over. Late last week, as tension in Taiwan escalated, several top-ranking American officials, including Secretary of State Warren Christopher and William Perry, the secretary of defense, met with Liu Huaqiu, a senior representative of the Beijing government, for a 21/2 -hour closed-door meeting. “It was not a social event,” Christopher told NEWSWEEK afterward. " “Grave consequences’ is the warning we used, and deliberately so.” The hope is that if Washington sends a firm enough message, China’s leaders will be sensible enough to avoid a crisis. Still, many foreign-policy experts worry that at this point no warnings might be strong enough to pull U.S.-China relations back on course. One senior State Department official, offering his personal assessment, predicts: “China will be the largest problem for the United States in the next 50 to 100 years.”
The barrage off Taiwan’s shores wasn’t the only complaint against China last week. The U.S. arms-control director, John D. Holum, said he was studying evidence that China has violated its international commitments by supplying Iran with C802 cruise missiles and by selling uranium-enrichment equipment to Pakistan. And the State Department’s annual worldwide human-rights report not only castigated China but, in effect, proclaimed the failure of the Clinton administration’s policy. Two years ago the president’s foreign-policy advisers persuaded him to exclude the issue of human rights from his decision to renew China’s most-favored-nation trade status, hoping that growth in the Chinese economy would automatically bring greater political freedom in its wake. Wrong, said last week’s report: despite China’s economic boom, Beijing has continued to quash dissent as brutally and systematically as ever. Christopher insists the basic policy is sound but concedes: “We may be learning that it takes more time.”
Beijing answered the charges with unrepentant fury. “The United States does not have the right to make irresponsible remarks on the internal affairs of China,” declared Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang. “We are firmly opposed to such an act of interference in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of “human rights’.” But China’s record will only get further scrutiny in coming weeks. Washington has vowed to cosponsor a resolution condemning Beijing at the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission, which convenes this week in Geneva. Few delegates are likely to have forgotten a recent report from the New York-based group Human Rights Watch documenting the mistreatment and sometimes fatal neglect of children at a state-run orphanage in Shanghai.
In Washington, meanwhile, renewal of China’s MFN status is due in early June. The debate has already started. “It will be a lot more contentious than last year,” says Jan Berris of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a cultural-exchange group. “It’s no longer a single issue, it’s multifaceted: baby-killing, nuclear weapons, Taiwan . . .” Removing MFN would be a tacit admission on President Clinton’s part that his policy had failed; it might also threaten at least 150,000 jobs which, by some estimates, depend on trade with China. In any case, the debate on MFN will give gleeful Republicans a perfect chance to trash Clinton’s China policy. “We’ve got ’em by the b—s,” a Republican congressional staffer laughed last week – while the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives called the missile tests “an act of terror.” And members of the Republican-led House and Senate jointly approved a final draft of a new foreign-relations bill that would, among other things, mandate closer U.S. ties with Taiwan in order to punish China.
Nice grandstanding – but such a move would just exacerbate tensions between Beijing and Taipei, at a time when they need to be calmed. China officially regards the island as nothing more than a renegade province, and the Taiwan government has never declared its independence from the mainland. In public, at least, both sides are committed to a common goal of reunification. But lately the island has begun trying to raise its international profile. Late last year Taiwan even offered a $1 billion “donation” to developing countries in exchange for a role of any sort at the United Nations.
China’s leaders vowed to haul the wayward province back into line. Beijing has publicly stated that one purpose of its missile tests is to tilt Taiwan’s March 23 presidential election against the incumbent, Lee Teng-hui. Missiles or no missiles, he remains heavily favored to win. But Beijing doesn’t want his margin to be too overwhelming. China’s leaders are convinced that Lee, who was born near Taipei and has never set foot on the mainland, is a closet separatist. The Taiwanese people themselves aren’t sure what he privately believes. He says unification must wait until political reforms on the mainland begin catching up with Taiwanese democracy. Depending on how you envision China’s future unfolding, that could mean “all in due time,” or it could mean “when pigs have wings.” Taiwanese opinion polls show him drawing strong support from voters on both sides of the debate.
Will Taiwan’s voters allow themselves to be intimidated by China? The missiles’ economic impact was real but limited. Taiwan’s stock index dipped slightly after the tests were announced, but it began climbing again before the close of the week’s trading. Shipping companies and airlines rerouted their craft around the missile-test areas; even so, most delays amounted to no more than 20 minutes or so. Many banks exhausted their regular supplies of U.S. currency, a traditional staple in tense times for many prudent Taiwanese. Nevertheless, government intervention kept the local currency unit, the New Taiwan Dollar, on a steady course. Taiwanese authorities did their best to keep the public calm, going so far as to praise the sophistication of China’s missiles. There is little danger of an accident, Taiwanese officials insisted, because the M-9 is accurate to within 600 meters of its intended target. They also said the test missiles are equipped to self-destruct in case they do stray off course.
In fact, while Taiwan keeps its cool, China is the side that looks truly frightened. Some observers say Beijing’s nightmare goes far beyond the specter of Taiwanese separatism. The real fear, they say, is the steadily rising tide of democracy – not only in Taiwan and Hong Kong but on the mainland as well. And at least some of that fear is grounded in fact. China’s galloping prosperity is raising people’s aspirations and expectations. Growing numbers of Chinese are realizing for the first time that individual liberties are no less precious than refrigerators and television sets. That’s one reason the Beijing government has felt compelled to go on waging its war against public dissent – because that dissent is flourishing. The government may not be wrong, either, in supposing that nearly 50 years of totalitarian rule have left many Chinese with scores to settle. Change has to be approached with deep caution.
It might help if Washington recognized China’s fear. There’s a way to speak to someone who is deeply frightened: calmly and clearly and firmly. But even if the Clinton administration has finally stumbled upon that truth, China’s leaders might put off listening until November, when they’ll know who’s going to be talking for the next four years. Meanwhile, they can contemplate the spectacle of democracy in action. No wonder they’re scared.
