China and Taiwan the Military

China and Taiwan

The military situation between China and Taiwan has been simmering on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, with clear indications that China intends to reclaim the renegade province it lost in 1949, if it must use force to accomplish the objective (Blank 2004, Minnick 2004, Associated Press 2004). U.S. Undersecretary for Defense Douglas Feith met with Deputy Chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army Xiong Guankai in Beijing in February last year to urge China to reduce the close to 500 missiles it set and targeted against Taiwan, which considers these missiles a direct threat and provocation from China. Analysts agree that these Chinese missiles are a major precipitating factor in the current crisis (Black).

The U.S. Knight-Ridder News Service's report on China's arms acquisition and development in February last year increased Pentagon's suspicion that Beijing could be preparing to attach Taiwan (Black 2004). The report also said that Pentagon told Taiwan that, by 2006, China might be able to deter U.S. counter-attacks and intervention and that there could be limited action sooner. The yearly addition of 75 short-range missiles against Taiwan, amphibious carriers and light tanks, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance satellites and the qualitative and quantitative increase of Chinese forces around Taiwan meant two things. One was China's deterrence of any U.S. intervention and the other is the resoluteness on the legitimacy of its claim over Taiwan to the point of seeing Beijing's fall in Taiwan's resisting the claim. The massive increase of Chinese forces was viewed as threatening the U.S. with unacceptable losses. Some analysts believed that China would not invade Taiwan because it would be counterproductive to do so, but others could not be too sure it would not. The U.S. would not tend to join conflicts where it would lose high casualties. And the Beijing government would fight at any cost if sufficiently provoked, even at a disadvantage or inferior position, because of its military doctrine of winning wars. It publicly announced increases in military spending at 18% a year but China's traditionally secret ways are not only drawn from Communist habits but also on centuries of military wisdom dating back to Sun Zi, making it nearly impossible to detect or guess true statistics and figures and China's accurate capabilities.Taiwan believed that China could launch that attach in five to 10 years. Another cause for concern was China's links with Russia, wherein China has been acquiring Russian systems and technologies since 2000 (Black).

Meantime, Taiwan has been doing its part in preparing for an eventual attack from China (Black 2004) and the Pentagon has alerted Taiwan to perk up on its anti-submarine capabilities and to form a command to meet the attacks, considering that Taiwan's anti-missile defenses were not up to par with China's. Like China, it has begun enhancing high-tech capabilities, e.g., improved command and control, communication, computers, intelligence, space and reconnaissance capabilities or C4ISR, increased contact with U.S. military forces and access to U.S. defensive systems and acquiring Patriot anti-missile missiles (Black).

Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute warned that Beijing's increasing belligerence towards Taiwan's resistance could result in a violent collision in ten years' time (Alexander 2004). He based his assessment on the current policy of the People's Republic of China, which considers Taiwan as merely a renegade province, and criticized the U.S. government for its failure to recognize or appropriately respond to China's continuing deployment of missiles, now numbering more than 500, as a clear threat to Taiwan's security. Taiwan's separation from the mainland was not an urgent matter to China two decades ago, but the attitude has changed, according to Carpenter. Recent developments in Taipei, such as the re-election of President Chen Shui-bian and the increase in strength of the Democratic Progressive Party General, have widened the rift. The Taiwanese government has been increasingly nursing an isolationist agenda, which displeases PRC leaders, who consider Taiwan a legitimate part of the mainland and push for its reunification. Taiwan first became a domestic colony under the Qing dynasty and remained so for 212 years until taken by Japan in 1895. The Chinese Communist Party helped the Taiwanese regain their independence with Japan's surrender in 1945. But they suffered more when restored under Chinese control than under the Japanese, hence, the Taiwanese's resentment and separatist sentiments to this day. The cultural, political and social differences between them make them, especially the young Taiwanese, feel that the mainland is an alien place and would not accept reunification "under any conceivable circumstances (Alexander)."

The United States is embroiled in the crises and attempts to ward off a conflict that it could no longer ignore (Alexander 2004). While it officially adopted a One-China policy, the U.S. has sold arms to Taiwan and has not pressured it to give in to Beijing's demand for reunification and this has incensed Beijing. The U.S.' arms sale to Taiwan is part of its implicit obligation under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. China branded this as an infringement on its sovereignty, throwing the U.S. off balance and into a dangerous policy of "strategic ambiguity," which has made Taiwan uncertain of American aid in the event of an invasion by China, on the one hand, and China suspecting that the U.S.' arms sale meant an assurance of that help to Taiwan. The ambiguity is able to restrain both sides from making the first decisive step (Alexander).

Taiwan's strategic makes it extremely valuable to China (Minnick 2004). The Taiwan Strait is a critical sea lane, which would allow China to dominate international commercial shipping, especially of oil, to Japan and South, if it wanted to. Taiwan could also serve as an excellent window for U.S. intelligence collection, since Taiwan's National Security Bureau and the U.S. National Security Agency jointly operate a Signal Intelligence facility on Yangmingshan Mountain north of Taipei (Minnick).

The giddiness of the situation reached a new tempo when a Chinese general recently said that China was prepared to destroy "hundreds" of American cities if the U.S. would attack China because of this rift with Taiwan (The Associated Press 2005). General Zhu Chenghu told the Financial Times that Beijing would be ready to respond if the Americans interfered. He said that the Chinese would be ready if the Americans would destroy all the cities east of Xian but that Americans should also be prepared for the destruction of hundreds of its cities by the Chinese. His emphasis on the use of nuclear weapons is by far the most specific threat ever made by senior Chinese official and at a time when the Pentagon was preparing to brief Congress on the Chinese military build-up and the proposed takeover of Unocal Corporation, an oil company, by a Chinese state-run company (The Associated Press).

While the U.S. may feel comfortable in this condition of "strategic ambiguity," the warring parties harbored other feelings, Carpenter believed (Alexander 2004). Taiwan is tired of the ambiguity and wants its position clarified, while China has likewise become more impatient and wants a resolution to the issue within a few years, not decades. Carpenter saw that the U.S.' continued protection of Taiwan could be an increasingly dangerous option in the face of the continued growth of Chinese military power. He stressed that the U.S. should get out of the mess through a change in policy as its highest priority or face the grim risk of a war with China (Alexander).