Bernice Lee - The Security Implications of the New Taiwan

The Security Implications of the New Taiwan

First published October 1999 by Oxford University Press for
The International Institute for Strategie Studies
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The International Institute for Strategic Studies 1999

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Editor Gerald Segal
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0-19-922479-x
ISSN 0567-932x

Relations between China and Taiwan suffered their worst crisis for 40 years in 199596. In an attempt to influence the outcome of elections in Taiwan, China fired nuclear-capable missiles and held large-scale military exercises near the island. In response, the US sent two aircraft-carrier battle groups to the area, demonstrating its willingness to risk war with Beijing to defend the principle that force should not be used to settle the China-Taiwan dispute. The US deployments were the largest in Asia for 20 years. The crisis made it crystal clear, if there was ever any doubt, that relations between China and Taiwan are not only about trade, investment and tourism, but also about war and peace.

The crisis ended with an unspoken agreement to return to the ambiguities that had for many years kept the peace in the Taiwan Strait. This uneasy calm did not, however, last for long. On 9 July 1999, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui shattered it with the assertion that relations between China and Taiwan should be conducted on a special state-to-state basis. Lee's new formulation, while carefully avoiding declaring Taiwan an independent state, threatened to explode the one-China myth that had allowed the main actors to side-step the fact of Taiwan's growing separation from the mainland. By declaring that Taipei should be seen as an international actor on a par with Beijing, Lee was coming as close to declaring independence as was possible, without actually doing so.

Three major issues lie behind the dispute between Taiwan and China. The first, and by far the most important, is Taiwan's

democratisation. As a new and more vocal middle class emerged from decades of economic growth, the island's autocratic system has, since the 1980s, given way to increasingly liberal politics. In turn, a new Taiwanese identity has taken shape, defining a more confident and independent-minded polity. The second issue China's growing threat to retake Taiwan by force is in many ways a response to these developments. As the island's self-confidence has grown, so too has a more assertive nationalism on the mainland. Faced with the risk that Taiwan might slip from their grasp, China's leaders chose intimidation through force in 199596. With Lee raising the stakes in 1999, the risk has grown that Beijing may see no alternative but to do so again. Indecisive US foreign policy towards the China- Taiwan conflict is the third factor at work in the dispute. When the 199596 crisis broke, divisions between the US Congress and the president, together with incoherence in general US policy towards China, produced an uncertain and vague reaction. Although in the end the US military response was robust, without a coherent or firm policy, no one can be sure that it will be so again should cross-Strait relations face another crisis.

Increased economic links between Taiwan and China have not resolved the differences across the Strait, and all the parties concerned have difficult choices to make. On the one hand, the US is convinced of the need to ensure that Beijing does not use military means to settle the issue. On the other, it recognises that giving Taiwan's leaders