ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603180083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TAIPEI, TAIWAN
SOURCE: From The New York Times and The Associated Press
CHINA IS WORRIED that a U.S. show of force will embolden Taiwan's leaders to assert the island's independence.
At the outset of a climactic week of military and political struggle over Taiwan's future, China warned the United States on Sunday to keep its naval forces away from the Taiwan Strait.
Premier Li Peng, speaking in Beijing at the conclusion of the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, said, ``If someone makes a show of force in the Taiwan Strait, that will not only be a futile act, but it also will make the situation all the more complicated.''
On the eve of another round of Chinese war games off the Taiwanese coast, troops on outlying Taiwanese islands reportedly took up positions to defend against a possible beach assault, and hundreds of fishing boats fled the area.
Taiwan's military refused to comment on the China Times newspaper report today of preparations on Wuchiu, an island near China's coast, just 11 miles south of the Chinese military exercises.
A military alert also was heightened in Taiwan's Chu islands, 11 miles north of the exercises, according to the newspaper, which is published in Taipei. And it said a curfew was imposed on Wuchiu, which has 16 civilian residents.
The United States has stated no intention to send either of the two aircraft carrier battle groups it has dispatched to the western Pacific through the 137-mile-long international waterway that separates Taiwan and the mainland, although the carrier Nimitz cruised through the strait in December. In 1958, a major American naval deployment to the strait ordered by President Eisenhower, and backed by an implicit threat to use nuclear weapons, was believed to have deterred Mao Tse-tung from mounting an invasion of the Taiwan-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu.
The same threat does not exist today, but the ``complicated situation'' to which the Chinese premier referred is China's 9-month-old campaign to bring military pressure on Taiwan's voters, who Saturday will elect their president for the first time by direct vote. The current president, Lee Teng-hui, 73, is expected to win easily, but Beijing is hoping to weaken his electoral mandate by frightening voters toward other candidates.
China fears that a large show of force by the United States will further embolden Taiwan's leaders to assert the island's independence.
The Communist Party leadership in Beijing believes that Lee is bent on leading Taiwan toward permanent separation from the mainland, a step that would undermine the ``one China'' commitment of his Nationalist Party, which is dedicated to eventual reunification with the mainland.
Meanwhile Sunday, hundreds of people fled small islands under Taiwan's control off the Chinese mainland close to the area where Chinese troops will begin a new round of air, land and naval war games today.
And on the campaign trail Sunday, Lee called on Taiwan's voters to give him a strong mandate of at least 50 percent of the vote.
He also issued another rebuke of the mainland's pressure tactics, calling them the equivalent of ``state terrorism.''
``Communist China's attempts to use joint sea and air exercises to destroy our elections will be spurned by freedom-loving Chinese and people of international communities,'' he said in a nationally televised speech.
And in a forum for all four presidential candidates, Lee disparaged the legitimacy of the Communist Party on the mainland.
``Its power came from guns, and it relies on guns to maintain its power, and the biggest threat to its power is the democratic direct election across the Taiwan Strait.''
Clinton administration officials say there is no evidence that China has military plans to invade Taiwan or its scattered island territories, but the White House nonetheless is sending a second carrier force to the western Pacific to underscore Washington's insistence that China and Taiwan resolve their longstanding differences by peaceful means.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB