ESCALATING THREATS TO THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA MUST BE MET HEAD-ON BY THE UNITED STATES

(Washington, D.C.): Asian newspapers are abuzz with
the latest series of threats and extortionary tactics
being employed by Beijing toward Taiwan on the eve of the
Republic of China’s parliamentary elections tomorrow. In
this connection, the mainland simulated an amphibious
attack on Taiwan’s Quemoy Island earlier this month —
the latest of several recent signal-sending activities.

At the same time, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who
personally heads the Communist Party’s Leading Group on
Taiwan Affairs, has expanded the list of possible
Taiwanese “offenses” that would catalyze
military action by the PRC against the ROC. Such
“offenses” are said to include the
“covert” pursuit of independence or even
“procrastination” on reunification talks (that
would presumably be conducted on Beijing’s terms).

‘Invasion Creep’

These latest developments are particularly worrying
to keen observers of the scene, including The
Economist, which points out in its 2 December issue
that Chinese leadership has moved from what were clearly
delineated ROC “provocations” — i.e., a
declaration of independence, the acquisition of nuclear
weapons and/or foreign intervention — to merely what
Beijing “thinks Taiwan is up to”
(emphasis added). Recent ROC successes with regard to
international recognition and free and fair Parliamentary
and Presidential elections (the latter scheduled for
March 1996) are reportedly all viewed by the increasingly
paranoid Chinese gerontocracy as evidence that these new,
fatuous “lines in the sand” are being willfully
crossed.

Perilous Western Discounting

Although official Washington and many other Western
analysts are quick to discount the mainland’s
saber-rattling as “more of the same” and
standard-operating-procedure intended merely to reduce
electoral prospects for Taiwanese pro-independence
candidates in tomorrow’s parliamentary elections, other
senior policy practitioners are not as sanguine. The
Center for Security Policy views the Chinese threat to
Taiwan as becoming considerably more serious and
concrete. Indeed, it can be anticipated that Beijing
will dial up still more ominous displays of its ability
to wreak havoc on the ROC. It would be foolish to
discount its warnings that these could include amphibious
landing and naval embargo exercises, additional missile
tests in the Taiwan Straits and an air cap over that
strategic waterway. Even Beijing’s threats to invade and
temporarily occupy Taiwanese-controlled Quemoy and impose
a blockade on the ROC itself as a final precursor to the
ultimate PRC-dictated “reunification
negotiations” must be taken seriously. The fact that
the most intimidating components of Beijing’s campaign of
political terror may be reserved for the run-up and
aftermath of the presidential elections in March of next
year — which Taiwan’s courageous President Lee Ten-hui
is expected to win handily — afford precious little time
to prepare for these portentous developments.

The Bottom Line

The deafening silence on this side of the Pacific was
broken today by A.M. Rosenthal’s powerful op.ed. in the New
York Times (see attached).
In it, he argues that normal institutional venues to
highlight and discuss these ominous new prospects have
been systematically denied Taiwan. For literally any
other nation in the world, these opportunities would be
afforded by representation in the UN and membership in
key international political, trading and financial
organizations.

Beyond cataloguing the exhaustive list of slights to
Taiwan by the international community, Rosenthal makes
clear that Beijing’s gathering storm against the ROC has
taken on national security proportions for the United
States and our allies in the region. The Center strongly
concurs in this analysis. Accordingly, it believes that the
Congress must step into this foreign policy breach
immediately if Beijing is to be persuaded that there will
be debilitating costs associated with continuing — to
say nothing of intensifying — such a campaign of
intimidation.

Hearings should be convened at once by the relevant
House and Senate committees, leading to resolutions which
communicate the following message loud and clear: The
Clinton Administration may be too cowed by the business
community and Beijing’s trade-related threats or too
shortsighted to establish credibly the harsh consequences
that would result from Beijing’s escalating assault on
Taiwan’s maturing democracy. If so, the Congress will not
hesitate to formulate and enforce such consequences.