Taiwan And The One China Principle Term paper
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Taiwan and the One China Principle
Since the conclusion of the Chinese civil war in 1949, China and Taiwan have functioned as separate nations. There has always been the promise by Taiwan to reunify with the mainland, but no real, concerted effort has ever been made. This and the actions of the United States on behalf of Taiwan have caused China to become threatened by the situation in recent months. The Chinese government released a statement last week that will bring the situation to a head in the near future. In light of China’s statement and the response of Taiwan and the U.S., we have to ask what the situation means for China/U.S. relations.
There are many factors to this situation, and they make it very hard to understand, but there is an inevitable conclusion that can be drawn from the facts. This conflict between China and Taiwan will directly result in an armed conflict between the U.S. and China. It will result in war because of the political climate between the PRC and the U.S., the white paper released by the PRC last Tuesday, and the United States’ dedication to defending Taiwan.
The political climate between the U.S. and China in the last few months has been strained to say the least. The Clinton administration has been lobbying toward permanent normal trade relations with China and membership for China in the World Trade Organization for the majority of this term. This policy has met great opposition in Washington and from many different organizations in the U.S., and through the release of the white paper last week; China has greatly jeopardized its position. Adding to this, the U.S. Senate, which has never fully supported the policy of the Clinton administration on China, has not been motivated to further the process of unrestricted trade or WTO membership, but has been pushed toward passing the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act. The act, if passed, will require a greater volume of arms to be sold to Taiwan this year than in previous years, including the groundwork for a missile defense system.
By issuing the white paper at such a critical moment in negotiations with the U.S., China has destroyed any chance of free trade with the U.S. or membership in the WTO as far as Congress is concerned. In addition, China deliberately withheld their intentions for a policy shift in Taiwan from a U.S. delegation to China just two weeks ago; the delegation learned of the shift only after they had returned to the U.S. These actions of the Chinese government weren’t received well by the U.S. government to say the least. To further add to the tension, China also is trying to play with domestic politics in both countries by releasing their statement a month from the election in Taiwan and in the middle of the presidential primaries in the U.S. They are trying to muscle candidates in both countries to submit to their agenda, a unified China in Taiwan’s case, and free trade and WTO membership in the case of the U.S., with the threat of force.
The question that needs to be answered is what does China think it will gain from provoking the U.S. and Taiwan in this manner? China thinks that it will gain everything that it wants by threatening Taiwan, but the cost will be enormous. It seems clear that China wants reunification at any cost and it is boldly daring the U.S. to get involved. In essence, they are rattling their sabers to test the U.S. reaction. They are trying to bluff us into backing down on the Taiwan issue and we are not going to do it. The Taiwan Security Enhancement Act will be our saber rattler and it will go back and forth until someone shoots. They are trying to intimidate us to get their way in Taiwan, and it’s going to bite them hard in the end.
The white paper that was released last Tuesday outlined the history of the Taiwan/China situation in traditional one-sided communist fashion. It also outlined its policy for “one country, two systems” with regard to reunification with Taiwan. The whole paper was filled with meaningless facts and presented no clear position other that the government wants both Chinas to be one country again. In the words of the Chinese ambassador Yu Shuning, “the statement was intended to let the international community…know China’s principle issue on Taiwan” and that the paper will “make the United States government better understand the settlement of the issue.” At least the intention was there because the document made nothing clear other than any further retardation of the reunification by any party other than the PRC will result in an attack on Taiwan. The paper thus increased tensions between China and Taiwan and the U.S., as it was probably intended to.
The paper was largely a response to the current political situation in Taiwan. There is a presidential election in the next couple of weeks and it seriously threatens China. China is threatened because independence has been an underlying issue of the campaigns. China fears that if the favorite, Mr. Chen, wins, Taiwan will certainly move toward independence. This is an imagined threat because Mr. Chen has the same view on reunification that the Taiwanese government has maintained since the split. But China has been known to use new “policy” to get what it wants from the rest of the world.
China has had a history of releasing controversial reports at seemingly odd times with respect to the current political situation of the world. In July, China released a 36-page report that mentioned casually that it had the neutron bomb and various miniature nuclear weapons.2 This report was released directly after the Taiwan president, Lee Teng-hui, had visited the U.S., a visit that was viewed by the Chinese as a step toward independence. To add to that situation, it was right in the middle of the arms secret theft by two Chinese scientists in the U.S.; again it was a situation of China telling Taiwan and the U.S. that it had the power and could be willing to use it if things don’t go their way. China is flexing its muscles to intimidate Taiwan, but why does that mean that the U.S. is involved?
Since the Chinese civil war, the U.S. has put its support behind Taiwan. It did this to gain another foothold (besides Japan) in East Asia against communism and to create another strong trade ally. The U.S. did many of the same things economically for Taiwan as they did for Japan in the cold war years; we provided a market for their Japanese-model export goods, financial support, and defense for the island against attack. The U.S. government did all of these things for Taiwan, but what they said about Taiwan was quite different. In 1978, the U.S. and Chinese governments issued the Joint Communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations. The U.S. acknowledged the PRC as the “sole legal government of China” and “the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is a part of China.”3
This Joint Communiqué by the U.S. government is one of the main Chinese arguments for reunification, but the Chinese don’t take into consideration that it was a diplomatic move more than a serious statement on the status of Taiwan. The statement enabled trade between the U.S. and China; that was its goal; we told them what they wanted to hear to get what we wanted from them. This was definitely the case because we retained the same relationship with Taiwan that we had before the statement was made; we dealt with them as if they were a...
141 Questions and Answers About the Republic of China. Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China: Chung Hwa Information Service, 1978.The People’s Republic of China. The One China Principle and the Taiwan Issue.
Coates, Ken, ed. China and the Bomb. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1986.
Eckholm, Erik, and Steven Lee Myers. “Taiwan asks U.S. to Let it Obtain Top-Flight Arms.” New York Times 1 March 2000.
Perlez, Jane. “Warning By China to Taiwan Poses Challenge to U.S.” New York Times 27 Feb. 2000.
Schmitt, Eric. “U.S. Rejects China’s Taiwan Views.” New York Times 23 Feb. 2000.
United States. National Research Council. Panel on Global Climate Change Sciences in China. China and Global Change: opportunities for Collaboration. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press, 1992.
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