ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 19, 1996 TAG: 9603190053
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CARL H. TONG
WHETHER the escalating China-Taiwan tension is a problem or opportunity depends on how it is handled. If handled emotionally and recklessly, it can lead to a grave chaos for many years to come. If handled thoughtfully and skillfully, it can result in long-term political stability, economic prosperity, and international cooperation.
As the No. 1 political, economic and military leader in the world and with a strong national interest in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States has an important stake in the outcome of this potentially explosive China-Taiwan strife.
About one year ago, the relationship between China and Taiwan was still amicable, and they even seriously considered opening their seaports to each other and beginning direct air service. Now,their relationship has taken a sharp downturn, with China firing missiles near busy Taiwan seaports and holding live-fire war games in the Taiwan Strait.
Since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has been ruling mainland China and the Chinese Nationalist Party has been governing Taiwan. Today, mainland China has a population of about 1.2 billion, and Taiwan about 21 million. While mainland China continues to have a communist government, Taiwan has gradually become a democracy during the past 10 years, and now has three major political parties.
Taiwan has never been controlled by Communist China. In fact, it was the Tiananmen massacres of 1989 that caused the people in Taiwan to wonder whether they should rush into reunification with Communist China.
China acknowledges that its heavy military pressure on Taiwan is to influence Taiwan's first democratic presidential election, scheduled for Saturday.
Beijing's leaders accuse Taiwan's presidential-election front-runner, President Lee Teng-Hui, of engineering Taiwan toward independence. President Lee has repeatedly denied this accusation and has said he just wants to create more diplomatic space for Taiwan on the world stage. After all, Taiwan has the 18th largest economy on the globe and ranks 14th in international trade.
Politically, China has been trying hard to isolate Taiwan. Only 31 countries have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan today. The relationship between China and Taiwan started deteriorating after Taiwan's President Lee made a private visit to his alma mater, Cornell University, in June 1995. As recently as March 8, China's president and Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin warned, ``Beijing's pressure on Taiwan will not stop for a single day until Taiwan's leaders abandon the drive to lift the island out of diplomatic isolation.''
Some China experts believe the escalation of the China-Taiwan tension has to do with the anticipated political-power struggle in China after its senior leader Deng Xiao-Ping's imminent departure. A group of hard-line generals and politicians in China is using the issue of unification with Taiwan to arouse nationalism, which, they hope, will help maintain discipline, win support and gain power in the Chinese military, the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese society.
China's overt military threats to Taiwan have drawn furious protests from Taiwan and condemnation from several countries. The United States has condemned China's missile launches as ``provocative and reckless.'' President Clinton has ordered a second aircraft carrier to move toward Taiwan. Japan's Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said that China's actions had taken an ``unfortunate direction.'' U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for restraint by all sides.
If Taiwan is attacked by China, the United States is very likely to help defend Taiwan for two reasons. First, the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 requires the United States to intervene when China attacks Taiwan. Second, U.S. credibility and leadership in all of Asia will suffer a severe blow if China attacks Taiwan and the United States does nothing.
A seemingly unrelated but important fact is that the U.S.-China relationship curently is not very good. China allegedly passed M-11 missile technology to Pakistan, helped Iran obtain nuclear technology, conducted nuclear-weapons tests, violated U.S.-China agreements on intellectual property rights and market access, was insensitive in its handling of the U.N.-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women and Nongovernmental Organization Forum, and failed to protect basic human rights.
I think that China and Taiwan need, and can surely benefit from, the help of a third party. Their present situation is very much like the husband and the wife of a family having a really serious dispute. They can be helped by a trusted friend or a professional mediator.
Singapore's senior leader Lee Kuan-Yew recently suggested that China and Taiwan should have ``very high-level talks'' in order to avert a war in the Taiwan Strait. Perhaps the United States should encourage Lee Kuan-Yew to act as the peacemaker between China and Taiwan.
Finally, I would like to offer the following quotes to the leaders of China and Taiwan:
``Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate,'' said John F. Kennedy.
``Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?'' asked Abraham Lincoln.
Carl H. Tong, a professor of marketing and international business at Radford University, was born in mainland China and reared in Taiwan.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: GARY VISKUPIC/Newsdayby CNB