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For the children: once upon a time there was a crippling U.S. debate over foreign policy about who was responsible for the Communist victory in China’s civil war. Nothing worthwhile came out of it, except the insightful riposte China was not ours to lose.
That comes to mind with rhetorical flourishess by Sen. Biden, new Senate foreign relations chairman, as he makes his “long-nosed barbarian’s” pilgrimage to Beijing to kowtow to the Communist leadership. [Does anyone seriously believe these “parachuting” trips with all the protocol, this-must-be-Thursday-because-we-are-in-Shanghai rush, the Potemkin-village environment, lead to judicious evaluation?]
Biden, never known for golden silences, although he does use Latin [Beijing’s military “lift” is de minimu; commonspeak: the Communists lack transport.] Logic, Biden reasons, persuades that Beijing does not represent a military threat because its military budget is only $40 against the U.S.’ $340 billion. [What was Sadaam’s military budget? And everyone knew he didn’t have the lift. So why did he attack Kuwait?]
Biden repeated cliches about how economic development would force China to liberalize. [Must one keep on knocking down this idiocy? Japan, a principle world traders in the 1930s, dependent on exports and critical raw material imports, turned its back on Western values, and moved on China, Southeast and the U.S.]
``We should make sure that Taiwan is never in a position where there is such an imbalance where they [China] are able to blackmail, threaten and, or physically dominate,'' Biden said.``…Word [s] matter[s]. It matters particularly in Asia. It's very important to get it right so we do not create any misimpression, any misunderstanding about what our positions are,'' Biden said,
Now, that reaches the crux:
Increasingly, it seems, Taiwan’s fate will not be decided by military prowess. In the China Civil War, 1945-50, there were few set-piece battles. More was decided on the trading floors of Shanghai and in warlords’ plotting. There is a grave danger that a similar combination could decide Taiwan’s fate.
How important is the fate of Taiwan to U.S. national interest? Biden, and others critical of the earlier strong line by Pres.Bush — wilting under the combined assault of critics and the State Dept. under Gen. Powell,— acknowledges its importance. In the short term, Taiwan is a potentital link in the strategy against any threat repeat threat of Chinese aggression. Japanese strategists, reticent to flaunt their views like Biden, have always considered Taiwan critical to their defense. We do not yet know the technological requirements of any regional anti-ballistics defense of Japan and South Korea, but it would seem likely that Taiwan-based technology could be major.
If those are our givens, then domestic events in Taiwan as well as effect on them of Washington statements, are critical. While the debate reaches crescendos in Washington, it ignores what is happening on the ground. That is, the question of the extent of U.S. military commitment could be increasingly irrelevant except as a psychological prop.
Several trends in Taiwan are worrying:
Having made a rapid transformation from an Oriental despotism to parliamentary democracy, Taiwan is reaping side-effects. Pres. Chen Hsui-bian won, the first peaceful transfer of power in China’s long history, because of a split within the Kuomintang, the Party of Chiang Kai-shek.
That framentation continues. Unfortunately, rather than over domestic issues or relations with the Mainland, it reflects animosity between the million refugees and their families who arrived with Chiang in 1949 and “native” Taiwanese. Its has the bitterness of “family feuds”. Rather than large, less ideological, two or three parties, Taiwan politics look toward fragmentation that has destabilzied more than one Asian representative government attempt.
The island’s business community, largely dominated by native Taiwanese, has plunged into investment on the Mainland despite its past support of “independence”. They are attracted by cheap labor and the potentially huge Mainland market. But as Vice Pres. Lu, a fervent Taiwanese “nationalist”, has warned, it gives Beijing a basis for blackmail. The estimated $70 billion, and worse still, diversion of exports from Taiwan, has contributed, coupled with a dropoff in demand for Taiwan’s hi tech exports, particularly from the U.S. and Japan,.to a downturn in the island’s economy.
Meanwhile, there is no let up in Beijing’s good policeman, bad policeman tactics. The largest Communist amphibious military exercises have recently been held in nearby coastal islands. Taiwan visitors are wined and dined. Growing political instability coupled with seductive business interests could erode the present resolve to remain autonomous until China, itself, has moved toward liberal institutions. That has to be the U.S.’s long-time goal.
Loose talk and wobbly policy by American officials, in and out of the Administration, in the early 2000s could repeat the late 1940s when American attitudes helped demoralize the KMT. And a who-lost-Taiwan? debate would be no more rewarding than the earlier demagoguery.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@abac.com), is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.