Trouble in Taiwan

Michael D. Swaine

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004

Summary:  George W. Bush was right to rebuke Taiwan's president over his plans for a referendum on relations with China. Administration critics assume that democracy and independence are inseparable, that the "one China" principle is no longer useful, and that China would never go to war over Taiwan. But they are wrong on all three counts and fail to appreciate the dangers that may lie ahead.

Michael D. Swaine is Senior Associate and Co-Director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

STRAIT TALK

On December 9, 2003, in the presence of visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, President George W. Bush broke significant new ground in U.S. relations with China and Taiwan. Having pledged in April 2001 to do "whatever it takes" to help Taiwan defend itself, Bush changed tack, reaffirming U.S. support for maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Of even greater significance, he rebuked Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, stating that "the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose."

Bush's volte-face was prompted by moves by Chen in the run-up to Taiwan's March 2004 presidential election. Chen is pushing for an unprecedented public referendum that would condemn China's growing missile threat and its refusal to renounce the use of force against Taiwan. He has also proposed a new constitution to replace the version used by the island since the 1940s. The Chinese government believes that Chen's proposals would move Taiwan much closer to permanent separation from the mainland, and so Beijing has threatened coercive measures to prevent such an outcome. This scenario would almost certainly lead to a confrontation with the United States, possibly involving armed conflict.

Although Wen and other senior Chinese officials have expressed appreciation for Bush's words and have moderated their reaction to Chen's proposals, the situation is by no means under control. Chen continues to downplay Bush's efforts to restrain him, claiming that he is advancing the democratic cause and strengthening Taiwan's ability to resist Chinese intimidation. These arguments have received a sympathetic hearing from some conservatives and liberals in the U.S. Congress, who were enraged by Bush's rebuke and argue that Washington has a moral obligation to endorse Chen's call for national plebiscites and a new constitution. Some critics even advocate ignoring China's concerns over Taiwan altogether, abandoning support for the "one China" policy (the view that Taiwan is a part of China), and endorsing Taiwan's right to self-determination, thus compelling Beijing to accept the reality of Taiwanese independence.

But these critics make three faulty assumptions: that Beijing would ultimately permit Taiwanese independence rather than confront the United States; that an expression of democratic self-determination is sufficient to establish territorial sovereignty and that democracy is incompatible with any political arrangement short of formal independence; and that it is immoral, as well as fundamentally contrary to U.S. interests, to oppose any manifestation of democracy in Taiwan. Once these assumptions are debunked, the prudence of maintaining the status quo becomes apparent.

A HIGH-STAKES GAME

China very much wants to avoid conflict over Taiwan. But this does not mean that it would be unprepared to go to war over the island. For China's leaders, the Taiwan issue is inextricably related to national self-respect and regime survival. The island -- ruled as a prefecture by the Manchu Qing Dynasty for more than two hundred years before becoming a Chinese province in 1887 -- was forcibly seized by imperial Japan in 1895 and came under de facto U.S. protection shortly after Japan's defeat in World War II. Beijing regards the eventual reunification of China and Taiwan as essential to China's recovery from a century of national weakness, vulnerability, and humiliation, and to its emergence as a respected great power.

Today, however, China's main objective is not to assert direct territorial rule over Taiwan but to avoid the island's permanent loss. Losing Taiwan against Beijing's will would deal a severe blow to Chinese prestige and self-confidence: Chinese leaders believe that their government would likely collapse in such a scenario. Taiwanese independence would also establish a dangerous precedent for other potentially secession-minded areas of the country, such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. This is the primary reason why the Chinese leadership will not jettison the one-China principle, the recognition of which remains a precondition to any serious political negotiations with Taipei. To discard such a principle would cast serious doubt on the Chinese government's claim that the island and the mainland are parts of a single sovereign authority. China has offered Taiwan a form of political reunification that would grant the island operational autonomy in domestic affairs, but, in return, Taipei would have to acknowledge a single shared sovereignty. China also refuses to renounce its use of force over the island, claiming that the ability to employ force over one's territory is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Removing that threat would also lift what China regards as an essential deterrent to the island's moving even more determinedly toward independence.

China's leaders are under few illusions about the detrimental effects a coercive strategy would have on Beijing's ties with the United States. But China would almost certainly sacrifice good relations with the West (and the economic benefits that accrue from those relations) in order to avoid losing Taiwan. The damage to China's political and social stability in being seen to lose territory, in other words, would be even greater than the diplomatic and economic damage resulting from a conflict with the United States.

The Chinese leadership would thus almost certainly fight to avoid the loss of Taiwan if it concluded that no other alternative existed, even if its chances of prevailing in such a conflict were low. Exactly how much blood and treasure China would be willing to expend over the issue is unclear, but it might be considerably more than the United States would be prepared to shoulder. Indeed, many Chinese believe that, in the final analysis, Taiwan matters far more to China than it does to the United States. It is highly unlikely, therefore, that the Chinese government can be persuaded or coerced to alter its calculus regarding Taiwan, especially not by a U.S. government that appears to be supporting Taiwan's independence. This notion directly contradicts a key assumption held by critics of the status quo.