Picture this: There is a knife-wielding bandit planning to rob someone of his money. The chosen victim hurriedly buys some body armor from a good person.
But the bandit doesn't give up. He pulls out a gun and continues to try to force the victim to hand over his money. The victim buys still better body armor.
Seeing that his cost is rising while still not seeing any money, the bandit finds the good person and says, "I'll put the gun back in my pocket, and you stop selling him body armor."
Gun in pocket and knife in hand, the bandit is still intent on robbing his victim, but he wants the good person to refrain from interfering in defense of the victim.
This is the bandit logic of a bully, and it is also a bargaining trick often used by China. Beijing is threatening to "liberate" Taiwan by use of military force.
But the good person, the US, cannot sit idly by and watch a democratic country be taken over by a communist dictatorship. So it persists in selling defensive arms to Taiwan to prevent China from succeeding.
Unable to realize its ambitions, China then raises its threats a level and deploys missiles aimed at Taiwan, followed by a so-called show of good will: "Since you both are so afraid of missiles, we'll dismantle the missiles if the US stops selling defensive equipment to Taiwan."
Beijing has never said that it would give up the option of "liberating" Taiwan or using other forms of armed coercion to force Taiwan into "unification."All it has done is raise its profile. Then, seeing the concern among the people of Taiwan, it has shouted that "we want peace, not missiles." Then it tried to direct the US Army by offering to dismantle its missiles in exchange for the weakening of Taiwan's defenses.
In fact, China's armed threat against Taiwan goes much further than just a few hundred missiles. How could this kind of bandit logic have been allowed to show its ugly face?
A US government official has pointed out that "China never formally suggested this [dismantling of missiles in exchange for an end to US arms sales to Taiwan], in the Texas meeting or in other meetings between US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民). I don't think anyone believes it was a proposal."
Chinese government officials will only confirm that Jiang mentioned to former US defense secretary William Perry that China may give way on the missile issue if the US remains faithful to the three joint US-China communiques.
Reports from Taipei say that Perry has been conveying messages [to Taipei], but now these messages have been altered to say that China will dismantle its missiles in exchange for an end to, or a decrease in, US arms sales to Taiwan.
The differences between these versions involve the issue of correct use of terminology. Considering the diverging US and Chinese opinions on this issue, the statements of US and Chinese officials may be more accurate. Messages conveyed through Perry may have been subjected to deliberate additions to turn them into a tool for Chinese propaganda and to exert more pressure on Taiwan.
US sales of military equipment to Taiwan are regulated by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). The US is obliged to sell a sufficient amount of defensive arms to Taiwan.
The US-China joint communique from Aug. 17, 1982, stipulates that the US will undertake to gradually decrease military equipment sales to Taiwan, giving consideration to the calm in the Taiwan Strait and to finding a final solution to the cross-strait issue. China promises that its overall policy will be to find a "peaceful" solution to the Taiwan issue. As far as the US is concerned, its conflict with China over arms sales to Taiwan is resolved, and there is no room for renewed negotiations.
The issue of military equipment sales to Taiwan was left unresolved when the US and China established diplomatic relations because it could not be resolved during the preceding negotiations. The US agreed to let China keep the right to propose further negotiations at a future date.
China used this right to force the US into negotiations that resulted in the US-Sino joint communique on Aug. 17, 1982. This communique still left much flexibility for the US on the issue of military equipment sales, allowing it to continue to adjust the level of miltary equipment sales to Taiwan according to its assessment of the military situation in the Taiwan Strait and the severity of China's armed threats against Taiwan.
In the early period after the announcement of the 1982 communique, most attention was given to the fact that China ignored that US transfers of military technology to Taiwan were actually unrestricted, which resulted in Taiwan obtaining the ability to manufacture the Ching-kuo fighter plane.
The communique's flexibility did not end there. Due to China's military upgrades, the US took the initiative to adjust both quality and volume of military equipment sales, including the sale of defensive military equipment such as F-16 fighter planes, anti-submarine aircraft, Harpoon missiles, air-to-ship missiles, mid-range air-to-air missiles, missile defense systems and submarines.
According to US opinion and methods, Washington would consider decreasing its sales of military equipment to Taiwan if China's military threat to Taiwan were to be diminished. This mechanism was already agreed upon in the 1982 communique. The initiative to diminish the threat against Taiwan lay with China, and the initiative to take response measures lay with the US.
The communique did not confer any rights to reopen negotiations, since that could shake the foundations of the original Shanghai Communique.
The 1982 communique does not specify any time limit on the sale of military equipment to Taiwan, and the US guarantees that it will not discuss arms sales to Taiwan with China or revise the TRA. If the US accepts Chinese suggestions to negotiate, it will lose its position and violate both domestic legislation and promises to Taiwan.
The confirmation by Chinese officials that Jiang has mentioned to Perry that China may give way on the missile issue if the US remains faithful to the three communiques is probably the more accurate version, since China is in a position where it can request that the US remain faithful to the three communiques. That is to say, even if the US makes clear that it remains faithful to the communiques, the intent [of China] to "give way" is not clear.
In any case, missiles would only be withdrawn or dismantled but not "destroyed." Withdrawing or dismantling the missiles doesn't carry too much significance, since it would be the same as the US and China agreeing to stop aiming inter-continental missiles at each other -- it would look good, but re-aiming them at the other side would only be a matter of minutes.
Threatening what China itself calls "an inseparable part of Chinese territory" with missiles is more savage than was the use of the army against its own people at Tiananmen square.
If China wants to rid itself of this savage image, it could do so by unilaterally withdrawing the missiles and declaring the opening of equal negotiations with Taiwan concerning the cross-strait relationship instead of first mounting a great military threat only to withdraw that threat in exchange for the benefits it couldn't obtain by mounting the threat in the first place.
If the information -- that Perry told Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) that China would withdraw its missiles in exchange for an end to US military equipment sales to Taiwan -- is correct, it proves the biased intentions and the unreliability of what has become known as the "track-two" approach.
Perry has been manipulated and used by people such as David Lampton. Lampton used to work for the pro-Beijing National Committee on US-China Relations in New York. He has also testified at Congressional hearings as a pro-Beijing witness, and the previous KMT-government did not want to have any contacts with him. His reason for using Perry as a trail-blazer was to strengthen his own voice and hide his pro-Beijing stance.
Interaction between Taiwan and China involves the status of Taiwanese sovereignty. Neither Beijing nor Taipei should let people with ulterior motives deliver messages. Rather, they should engage in direct dialogue.
In the past, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has treated the track-two approach as a spoiled child, and the result of its excessive trust in the concept is that no one knows what it actually means. Taipei should take a renewed in-depth look at the track-two approach to deal with this incident of rumor mongering.
James Wang is a Washington-based journalist.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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