the china syndrome

The China Syndrome

The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

To say that George Bush has his hands full right now would be the understatement of the decade. The debacle in Iraq gets worse, the US economy is looking more than fragile, Democrat hopeful John Kerry has stolen a lead in the polls after the party's convention, and George has only 3 months left to convince voters that he deserves another 4 years in the White House. The last thing he needs is another international crisis to test his resolve.

Over the past few weeks there's been such a crisis brewing that hasn't received a great deal of media attention. I refer to the China/Taiwan imbroglio that could just blast Iraq off the front pages of the world's newspapers. And over the weekend, China's President Hu Jintao, called Bush on the telephone to tell him so.

Since 1949, when Mao's communists ousted Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek and forced him off the South China coast to Taiwan, the People's Republic (PRC) has been rattling its sabres and threatening to take back the island they claim is part of mainland China. Up until now, there's been lots of name-calling and bluster, but no actual gunplay. Most commentators seem to think that will continue - longtime China-watcher Michael Swaine wrote recently in Foreign Affairs that he is unimpressed by China’s military build-up across the Strait, arguing that it is not a "new threat" and "does not constitute clear evidence that Beijing actually intends to attack the island. In fact, Beijing would far prefer to intimidate Taiwan than actually attack it." Maybe, but I sense a bit of "the boy who cried wolf" here. There is another gentleman who is still at large in the wilds of the Afghan/Pakistan mountains who continually threatened to attack mainland USA - so much so, and so often, that in the end no one took his ravings seriously. Until September 11 2001.

In his conversation with Bush, Hu said the Taiwan question is "very sensitive and complicated." That's as maybe, but this is the duck's guts of the matter:-

1/ Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian has proposed a new constitution that would make Taiwan an independent sovereign nation by 2008. Hu Jintao has said that the PRC will "absolutely not tolerate Taiwan independence and absolutely not allow anyone to split Taiwan from China."

2/ The US is proposing to sell some fairly sophisticated arms to Taiwan which has got Hu in even more of a lather.

3/ To further complicate things, the PRC is putting through legislation which calls for the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. President Chen says this would be a mandate for war (see below)

4/ In the past few weeks, both the PRC and Taiwan have been conducting war games in the Straits of Taiwan.

5/ In April 2001, George Bush said America would secure Taiwan's independence "with whatever it takes." George may well regret those words, especially as the US no longer recognises Taiwanese sovereignty over China but has accepted for many years that the power lies in Beijing.

So is the scene set for a showdown - and if so, when?

The Chinese have been called "inscrutable" and hard to predict. It's often very difficult to know just what they're thinking, as anyone who has tried to do business or invest in China will tell you. You also have to remember that China's history is littered with the most appalling human rights abuses - when you have a nation of 1.4 billion souls, life is cheap. It's less than 40 years since the Cultural Revolution when hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, were tortured and executed, and it's only 15 years since the Tienanmen Square massacre when a nascent democratic movement was ruthlessly crushed. Former leader Deng Xao Ping is credited for converting China to a market economy, but he also orderered the slaughter of thousands of protesters in June 1989 who had had the temerity to ask for some democratic freedoms. China may have advanced economically at astonishing speed, but it is still held in the iron grip of a ruthless one party government that brooks no opposition. China wants Taiwan, even more than it wanted the return of Hong Kong in 1997. It won't blanch at the prospect of a bloody military conflict to get it.

If Beijing wants to make a play for Taiwan it'll never have a better opportunity that in the run-up to the US Presidential election. Bush knows his forces are stretched in Iraq, and he's already desperately trying to suggest that the Budget deficit isn't going to be as bad as first thought. He simply cannot afford a confrontation with China from a military, economic or political standpoint - he knows it and so does Beijing. By the same token, Bush has made such a strong pledge to defend Taiwan that he is going to look weak and indecisive if he stands by and watches the PLA march into Taipei. Bush is running his whole re-election campaign on being exactly the opposite.

Of course Bush would make lots of threats and no doubt dispatch a task force to the region hoping to bluff his way out. But should push come to shove, President Hu has one more ace up his sleeve. If Bush didn't back off, Hu might threaten to dump all $600 billion worth of the US debt that China holds - and that would be enough to annihilate the bond and stock markets and set off a derivatives neutron bomb. It would also severely damage the Chinese economy as well, dependent as it is on exports to America.

Will it happen? Probably not. The Chinese are more concerned with economic growth than upsetting the US. But then again, their patience is probably being sorely tested right now. I doubt if a few years of recession and a few hundred thousand dead soldiers will deter Beijing if it really is as set on regaining Taiwan as it appears to be.

Stay tuned, this US election may have some wild cards that no one counted on.

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APPENDIX

China Again Threatens to Attack Taiwan Over Independence
VOA News
30 Jul 2004, 09:10 UTC

China has warned Taiwan not to push ahead with a plan to reform its constitution.

Chinese state-run media quote the deputy minister of China's Taiwan Affairs Office (Wang Zaixi) as saying Beijing may take military action against the island, if Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian goes ahead with plans to make constitutional changes by 2008.

China calls Mr. Chen's constitutional reform proposal part of efforts to declare independence for the island. Mr. Chen insists his plan is aimed at improving the efficiency of Taiwan's government, not declaring independence.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Mr. Chen has criticized proposed legislation in China mandating reunification, saying it will only worsen problems.

Chen warns of China 'mandate' to invade Taiwan

Straits Times

July 31 2004

New reunification proposal could give Beijing a legal basis for People's Liberation Army attack on Taiwan, says a 'concerned' President Chen

TAIPEI - Proposed Chinese legislation that would give a mandate for the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland would provide a legal basis for an attack on the island, Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has said.

Mr Chen, speaking for the first time on the mainland's proposal to adopt a reunification law, said he was very concerned about it.

'China is undertaking a legal battle. If Taiwan does not follow, it will undertake a military battle,' he was quoted by the United Daily News as saying during a visit to the southern county of Tainan late on Thursday.

'The reunification law is a bid to obtain a basis to attack Taiwan,' he said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is considering a proposal made in May that parliament should draft and adopt a reunification law to prevent Taiwan from edging towards independence.

A reunification law would legally bind Chinese leaders to order the 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army to attack Taiwan if the island declared independence.

'I am very concerned,' Mr Chen said in Tainan.

Wang Zaixi (¤ý¦b§Æ), vice minister of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, warned that "Bei-jing would not rule out war if President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) pursued his plan to adopt a new constitution by 2008."

The United States has remained the leading arms supplier to Taiwan despite its switch of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

Under a 25-year-old US law called the Taiwan Relations Act, Washington acknowledges Beijing's position that Taiwan is part of China but is bound by law to provide weapons to help the island defend itself if its security is threatened.