The Taiwanese election disrupted the status quo on several fronts. It represented the most serious threat yet to the principle, officially honored in both Washington and Beijing, that Taiwan is just a wayward province of China, destined for eventual reunification. The vote also set in motion the first democratic transfer of power in China’s 5,000-year history. And it ended more than 50 years of unbroken rule by the Kuomintang (KMT), the once iron-fisted regime of Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist exiles. Last week’s victor was Chen Shui-bian, 49, the son of a poor farmer and leader of a party that favors independence from China. Only three days before the vote, Chen reacted to a warlike warning from Beijing by insisting: “Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country. It is not a part of the People’s Republic of China.”
Washington and Beijing disagreed. Clinton reaffirmed America’s longstanding “one China” policy and urged “both sides to reach out and resolve their differences peacefully through dialogue.” Beijing wasn’t reaching out. Dismissing the Taiwanese vote as a “local leadership election,” China’s cabinet insisted that “independence in any form is absolutely impermissible.” And a Chinese newspaper warned that “independence means war.”
Jitters in Beijing and Taipei presented Washington with a diplomatic problem, though not yet a crisis. Politically, the Taiwan issue was heating up at an awkward time for Clinton, just when he was trying to get congressional support for one of his key goals: Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization. During the next few months the Republican-controlled Congress will decide whether to grant China “permanent normal trade relations,” the standard low tariffs offered to most nations. The president promised to upgrade China’s trade status after Beijing agreed to huge tariff concessions last year as the price of its entry into the WTO. But a growing coalition of liberal Democrats and right-wing Republicans argues that trade concessions would give an undeserved reward to a Chinese regime that refuses to play by global rules on human rights, arms proliferation and labor issues. Chen’s victory could sharpen the debate on Capitol Hill. “Democracy in Taiwan has changed the whole situation in ways that are inadequately appreciated,” Paul Wolfowitz, a leading foreign-policy adviser to George W. Bush, told The Washington Post last week.
Three days before the election, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji raised tensions in Washington, as well as Taipei, with a blistering attack on Chen. He warned that if “people who favor independence” won the election, the outcome might “undermine peace” in the region. “The Chinese people are ready to shed blood,” he said angrily. Can Beijing make good on such a threat? In the past year China has begun to build up the naval and amphibious capabilities it would need for an invasion of Taiwan.
The Chinese have bought warplanes and a missile-firing destroyer from Russia, and they seem to have reordered their priorities. When the late strongman Deng Xiaoping called for his “four modernizations,” he put the military last, after agriculture, industry and science. “Defense is no longer the last of the four modernizations,” says a well-placed mainland source. He says Chinese military leaders are “making active and concrete preparations” for a possible future war over Taiwan. But Beijing is not ready yet. After a recent trip to China, Adm. Dennis Blair, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, concluded that the Chinese still lack the capability to “invade and control” Taiwan. “We need a decade or two of peace,” agrees a Chinese military expert. “Then… maybe.”
After his victory, Chen tried to calm his critics in Beijing. “Our goal is reconciliation,” he said. “Safety in the Taiwan Strait is the common expectation of people on the two sides.” On his side of the water, Chen’s mandate was not strong. In a crowded field, he won with only 39 percent of the vote, to 37 percent for populist reformer James Soong, a former Nationalist, and 23 percent for Vice President Lien Chan, the official KMT candidate.
Sympathy for Chen probably will not delay the congressional vote on tariffs for long. The Republicans know that if the debate drags into the summer, it could become a banner issue for Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, an inveterate China-basher who threatens to steal votes from Bush. But before it passes the tariff bill, Congress may demand a concession from Clinton–most likely the sale to Taiwan of the four Aegis-class antimissile cruisers it has requested. “It’s very important to show strong support for Taiwan,” says James Lilley, a former U.S. ambassador to China. The key to maintaining peace, he says, is “not to let the Chinese dictate the terms.” But for both Washington and Taipei, standing up to China will be a risky business.
