The Stability of Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait.

• Author: Ross, Robert S.

THE CASE can and has been made that the foreign policy of the Bush Administration differs little from that of its predecessor. Only the rhetoric has changed, it has been claimed, and even some of that is falling back into old patterns--with regard to North Korea, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and what to do about Ba'athi Iraq. [1] Remaining differences of rhetoric, it is said, mask essential continuity. The Bush Administration carries a more unilateralist tone over a range of issues--the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, proposals to verify the 1972 Biological Weapons Treaty and control the flow of small arms--but it is not clear that the Clinton Administration was really more eager to press ahead on such matters, or that a Gore Administration would have been. Even on missile defense and the ABM teaty, the differences between Clinton and Bush may end up being quite minor when all is said and done.

One could argue the general case for the persistence of policy either way, but in one specific area there is a clear difference, and not just a rhetorical one. It concerns policy toward China.

When President Bush took office, he telephoned every major world leader but Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The Bush Administration then reportedly set about revising the SIOP (Strategic Integrated Operating Plan) to target more U.S. nuclear missiles against China. It has given serious consideration to prioritizing preparation for conventional war in East Asia against China and has promoted enhanced strategic cooperation with India and Japan. It has encouraged Japan to loosen its restraints on a more active regional military presence and it has proposed development with U.S. allies South Korea, Japan and Australia of a "regional" dialogue. It has also stressed cooperation with Russia on missile defense seemingly at the expense of China. It has defined the "no foreign-made products" stricture for the U.S. military to mean essentially no Chinese-made products and curtailed Pentagon contacts with the Chinese military. It has reversed a twenty-year U.S. policy by agreeing to sell submarines to Taiwan. It has also allowed high-profile visits to the United States by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and the Dalai Lama. Withal, the administration has not appointed a specialist on China to any senior position in the government.

Such a confrontational posture toward China cannot be explained as a response to the downing of a U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane and the detention of its crew for eleven days. The trend predates the incident and, despite Secretary of State Colin Powell's constructive visit to Beijing in July, has continued since. Rather, the explanation seems to lie in the administration's sympathy for Taiwan, its dour assessment of Chinese intentions and the prospect, in its view, of heightened instability in the Taiwan Strait. There is more than just talk going on: the administration is pursuing broad coordination with Taiwan's military to enable cooperation in a possible war with China, that coordination being an objective of many Republican defense and foreign policy specialists and members of Congress since 1996.

This is a well-intended but misguided effort. Such cooperation will not make Taiwan more secure, the United States more effective militarily or the deterrence of war more assured. Should the Bush Administration nevertheless continue this policy, it will eventually elicit mainland opposition because it threatens to reverse the essence of the post-1979 U.S.-China strategic understanding on Taiwan. It is worth emphasizing the core of that understanding from the Chinese point of view, to which many American analysts have somehow become oblivious.

From the days of the Korean War until 1979, Taiwan loomed in Beijing's eyes as a kind of American "Cuba." In other words, Beijing believed that the U.S. presence on Taiwan enabled the United States to threaten China's borders directly, just as the United States believed that the Soviet presence in Cuba threatened U.S. security from the early 1960s to the end of the Cold War. Indeed, in 1954 Washington and Taipei signed the U.S.-Republic of China Mutual Defense Treaty, which led to the U.S. deployment of advanced aircraft and nuclear-capable missiles on the island. But in 1979, when Washington normalized diplomatic relations with Beijing, it agreed to terminate the 1954 treaty with Taiwan and to withdraw its military presence from the island, thus satisfying China's demand that the United States cease using Taiwan to threaten Chinese security.

If Chinese leaders believe, in their bedrock strategic realism, that the United States is out to reverse the 1979 understanding, they have a full menu of riposte at their disposal. They can engage in nerve-wracking saber-rattling in the Taiwan Strait in order to heighten regional tension and political and economic instability on Taiwan. They can reduce cooperation on the Korean peninsula and renew missile proliferation to Pakistan and the Middle East. They can also impose costly sanctions against major U.S. export industries dependent on the Chinese market, such as Boeing.

In the face of such potential trouble, the Bush Administration seems to believe that if it firmly wields U.S. power, it can command Chinese accommodation to U.S. policy initiatives. But this repeats the old mistakes of several new entrants to the White House. The Carter, Reagan and Clinton Administrations (but not the first Bush Administration) each made the same error and encountered a level of Chinese resistance that required them to move back to the policy of their predecessors. Each discovered, too, that their predecessor's policy was compatible with U.S. interests in both defending Taiwan and cooperating with China.

The Bush Administration should maintain essential policy continuity with its predecessors simply because there is no good reason for any other course. There is, in effect, a firm triangle of military deterrence and political dissuasion at work: China is deterred from the use of force against Taiwan so long as American power and interests are engaged there and Taiwan does not declare independence; Taiwan is deterred from declaring independence due to credible Chinese threats to use limited but politically significant force in the face of any such declaration; and the United States is--or ought to be--dissuaded from tampering with this situation because it enables Washington to defend Taiwan, deal with China as necessary and prudent on a range of issues, and minimize the possibility of war through miscalculation. Moreover, the effective deterrence and mutual interests in stability that are characteristic of this triangle are conditions bound to last well into the 21st century.

Why China Wants Peace with Taiwan

CHINA HAS three sets of interests in Taiwan--concerning security, nationalism and domestic politics--each of which provides a powerful incentive for Chinese leaders to exercise influence over the Taiwan issue. Together, these interests ensure that the mainland would be prepared to use force to reverse seriously unwelcome trends in Taiwan's international role.

China's security interest in the Taiwan issue reflects the concern of all states for secure borders. Located eighty miles from the Chinese coast, Taiwan's enduring strategic importance to China is obvious. Should any great power establish a strategic presence on...