Diplomacy

A Cracked Crystal Ball

• Byline:ROBERT GREEN
• Publication Date:12/29/2006

America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan, by Ted Galen Carpenter New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 216 ISBN 1-4039-6841-1 (Courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan)

Ted Galen Carpenter's attempt at cross-strait futurology has been largely overtaken by recent political developments in Taiwan.

Political scientists often argue that their business is not one of prediction or prophecy. Theirs is a discipline, they claim, akin to history, to be studied rigorously and in which the theories are as likely to extend backward to explain patterns of past political behavior as they are to indicate trajectories that might provide clues of what is to come. In America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan, Ted Galen Carpenter drops the illusion and peers intently into the future.

The year is 2013, and China, having grown more economically and militarily powerful, has inherited the role of the Soviet Union in a new Cold War with the United States. Its increasing power has given China a certain swagger in international affairs and a growing impatience over the "Taiwan question." When a pro-independence successor to Chen Shui-bian announces his intention to pursue a permanent separation from the mainland, China threatens war and mobilizes its forces for an attack on Taiwan. The US responds by dispatching aircraft carriers to the region and putting its own forces on high alert. It also attempts to diffuse the situation by pressuring Taiwan's president to abandon the provocative gesture, but to no avail. The tail is determined to wag to the dog.

Beijing and Washington, both believing that the other will back down, escalate the crisis with provocative military maneuvers. Suddenly, China seizes Kinmen and Matsu, two Taiwanese-held island groups lying just off the coast of China, and then the People's Liberation Army unleashes a barrage of rockets at targets in Taiwan. On the morning of July 4, 2013, Chinese and American forces clash in the Taiwan Strait. Both sides accuse the other of firing first, but China clearly carries the day, sending the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier, to a watery grave and leaving the USS Stennis, another carrier, wounded and limping out of the battle area.

A negotiated settlement ends the hostilities, but the results of this fantastic Independence Day battle are a loss of prestige for US forces in the Far East in general, Taipei's loss of confidence in American assistance in particular, a new willingness in Taipei to come to terms with Beijing, a global economic slowdown and the general arrival of China as a world power and regional hegemon.

This scenario is indeed highly alarming for Taiwan and the United States, but how far reality will conform to this fantastic tale is impossible to say. What is known for certain is that a number of the assumptions on which this scenario is built--spelled out in chapters on "ominous trends" in Taiwan and China and "Washington's muddled policy"-are highly dubious and in some cases already refuted by actual political developments.

Name-change Danger

In Carpenter's scenario, the spark that sets off the conflagration in the Taiwan Strait is Taiwan's proposal to change the national moniker from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan through a constitutional amendment, signaling a permanent, legal separation from China and supposedly crossing a Chinese red line. Although this possibility has been discussed openly in Taiwan by independence-leaning politicians, in 2013 the name change proposal carries more weight because Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislators constitute a majority in the Legislature. Moreover, the president, a DPP successor to Chen Shui-bian, is not inclined to show Chen's caution in handling the cross-strait situation or the de facto security alliance with the United States.

This scenario would have been more probable during the early days of Chen Shui-bian's re-election, when the president secured, for the first time in Taiwan's history, a majority of votes for a party other than the Kuomintang (KMT), than it does today. Chen unquestionably reinvigorated debates on Taiwanese identity and presided over small steps toward de jure independence (such as the addition of "Taiwan" to ROC passports, abolishing the anachronistic National Assembly and mothballing the National Unification Council and National Unification Guidelines). Carpenter's assumption that the "increasingly moribund" KMT would lose control of the Legislature and fail to win back the presidency between now and 2013 seems farfetched today. The KMT not only retained control of the Legislature in the last legislative election, but performed surprisingly well in the 2005 local elections that were considered a referendum on the ruling DPP--although even KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou subsequently conceded that the rise in the KMT's fortunes had more to do with the decline in popular support for the DPP than a preference for his party.

In predicting the death of the KMT, Taiwan's chief opposition party, Carpenter falls into a trap that seems to ensnare many Taiwan watchers. The KMT, in that myopic view, is seen the remnant of an alien regime, passing away with the death of the Chinese immigrants, known locally as "mainlanders," who brought the party to Taiwan in 1945. As the legislative majority indicates, support for the KMT goes well beyond the 13 percent of the population that identifies itself as mainlanders. Despite the origins of the Nationalist regime in Nanjing, the KMT counts among its current membership more non-mainlanders than mainlanders, and it is today a mainstream Taiwanese political party.

Realizing that it is no longer a mainlander-dominated party helps explain the KMT's continued appeal in Taiwan. If political identification does not break down solely along lines of communal identification (mainlander versus non-mainlander) and most Taiwanese, including mainlanders, take great pride in Taiwan's development, then the fact that the KMT is alive and kicking should come as no surprise. Without the death of the KMT, Carpenter's scenario becomes highly unlikely, as party differences will keep arguments about the final status of the already self-governing island alive for quite some time, although Taiwanese of all political persuasions would like to see more vocal support in the international community for Taiwan's remarkable political and economic developments.

Other Misunderstandings

"Ominous" trends in China as outlined by Carpenter in Chapter five seem equally off target. He points out the oft-repeated rubric that after the restoration of Chinese sovereignty over the former colonies of Macao and Hong Kong, Taiwan must be recaptured to end the historic humiliation of the Chinese by Western powers (and their client regimes, such as the ROC government). This fits neatly into the argument that nationalism has supplanted communism in the ideological outlook of the leadership in Beijing. But was the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ever not nationalistic? In clashes with the Soviets and others, the Communist Chinese leaders consistently indicated their desire to restore China's imperial borders and raise China once again to the status of a great nation. If nationalism has been there all along, what then does the CCP offer the people of China today in place of the failed policies of communism? It is, of course, capitalism, through the tortuously named vehicle "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Carpenter argues that the economic damage China would suffer from an attack on Taiwan would be trumped by the jingoistic appeal of retaking Taiwan. Yet, a sampling of recent Chinese white papers indicates that economic development in fact enjoys a privileged position in the pecking order of state concerns. The importance of economic development, for example, is stressed in expected places like white papers on social welfare but also in more surprising places like those on foreign policy and even defense. A recent defense white paper, for example, lists as the second point under "basic goals and tasks in maintaining national security": "To safeguard the interests of national development, promote economic and social development in an all-round coordinated and sustainable way and steadily increase the overall national strength."

This augurs well for cross-strait stability. The Chinese seem well aware that military action could very well lead to a humiliating defeat and a declaration of independence in Taiwan, and would almost certainly bring China's rapid growth rates plummeting to Earth. China's limited means of influencing the political situation is underscored by Beijing's passage of the Anti-Secession Law, an act which Carpenter reads as an escalation, but which is in reality nothing more than an indication of China's impotence in convincing Taiwan to abandon democratic politics.

When, in the run up to the first direct election for the president of the ROC in 1996, Beijing lobbed missiles into the sea off the coast of Taiwan's major port cities, voters turned out in defiance, and Beijing has refrained from overt military action ever since. In fact, despite 50 odd years of threatening rhetoric, the PRC has never attempted to "retake" Taiwan. Beijing has been at a loss as to how to best deter Taiwan from pursuing formal independence. Thus in response to Chen Shui-bian's public statements about Taiwan's independence, China in March of this year adopted a curious new tactic--it passed a law denying Taiwan the right to secede and codified its threats to use force if it did.

There is a great deal of irony in this legal manifestation of CCP policy. When China objects to US arms sales to Taiwan, they are treated to a discourse on Western legal traditions. The US must arm Taiwan, they are told, because it is US law, which represents the will of the people through their elected representatives in Congress. The executive branch, moreover, is powerless to traverse the powers of Congress. One can imagine that the Chinese feel they are being given the runaround.

In China, the law is quite a different matter altogether. It is not a force to curb government powers or balance interests. The CCP is the supreme authority, and the law is subordinate. Passing a law in response to growing calls for independence in Taiwan, however, was certain to catch the attention of Washington and Taipei, where laws actually do constrain the decisions of policymakers. In this light, the Anti-Secession Law is nothing more than a giant billboard advertising Beijing's policy on Taiwan. Moreover, as the most significant attempt to date by the PRC to dissuade Taiwan's elected leaders from pursuing de jure independence, it is remarkably feeble.

Perils of Ambiguity

The most convincing portion of Carpenter's book is his analysis of the dangers of the intentionally ambiguous US policy concerning the Taiwan Strait. The United States adheres to a one-China policy and withholds formal recognition of the government in Taipei. Yet, according to US law, the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States must supply Taiwan with the necessary arms to defend itself. Although the security guarantee in the act is vague, the implication, as Carpenter points out, is that the United States is obligated to ensure that Taiwan will not be taken by force. Taiwan, in other words, falls under an extension of the US security umbrella covering South Korea and Japan. Although many Taiwanese do not believe it, the United States would be obligated to defend Taiwan if attacked in order not to preserve Taiwan's independence but US supremacy in the waters of East Asia.

The ambiguity of US policy upsets both Beijing, which would like the US to stop selling arms to Taiwan, and Taiwan, which would like a clearer statement of support for a fellow democracy and an important actor in the global economy. Carpenter's recommendation is for the United States to renounce its security commitment to Taiwan and openly state that it will step up arms sales to Taipei. By doing so, he believes, Taiwan would arm itself in a more robust manner (thereby deterring a Chinese attack) and the United States would be free from having to restrain democratically elected leaders in Taiwan and uncouple US prestige from the fate of Taiwan.

Carpenter convincingly argues that US policy tempts both sides into miscalculations and could encourage instability, yet his recommendation that US forces simply wash their hands of Taiwan is reminiscent of the US Vietnamization policy for the defense of South Vietnam. One simply hands the weapons over to a former ally in a life-or-death struggle, pats him on the back and says good luck.

It is hard to imagine what would happen to US prestige if US forces simply sailed away, leaving a fellow democracy to fight it out on its own. Despite the ambiguity of US policy, no conflict has taken place since 1949. In the intervening years, Taiwan has prospered and become democratic, and China has become increasingly interested in working within the existing international system. A clear statement that the United States had no intention of helping Taiwan in a crisis seems most likely to ignite the conflict that the policy would be intended to prevent and possibly undo years of progress on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

What then is to be made of a book by a serious scholar of international relations--Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, a US think tank, and a well-respected analyst of global defense issues--that freely prophesies a war that will likely never come? For one, it is a good read: the author uses a wide array of sources, makes cogent arguments and keeps the pace brisk. He highlights the possible sources of conflict in a tense region in an intelligent and informed manner. The book, in other words, is a valuable addition to a lively debate over what will or what could result from the current standoff in the Taiwan Strait.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Robert Green