China - U.S. Ties Strained Over Taiwan Again

03/08/2004| IslamWeb

China was elated last December when President Bush, flanked in Washington by visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, bluntly warned Taiwan's leaders not to upset the status quo. Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian appeared bent on steering the island down the road to independence, talking up plans to hold a contentious referendum alongside elections in March. Eight months later, the warm glow is gone. Beijing is taking no solace from the White House's words of backing of a "one-China" policy and opposition to independence for Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province and an inalienable part of China. "The sense of desperation is real and seems to have crept up the food chain to the very top," said Alan Wachman, an expert on China and Taiwan at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Chen has been re-elected, the referendum went ahead as planned -- although voters rejected it -- and Washington has been a disappointment from Beijing's perspective, leaving mainland leaders feeling the United States may be an unreliable partner in efforts to keep Taiwan in check. China's generals and officials have renewed warnings of an armed clash with Taiwan by 2008 if Chen slinks further toward independence. President Hu Jintao personally called Bush at the weekend to warn him not to sell arms to Taiwan. The mainland now presents Taiwan as basically the only issue worth discussing with the United States. It has practically hijacked every meeting with senior U.S. officials in Beijing. "Especially since the Taiwan election, Chinese leaders are more and more dissatisfied with the American position," said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Beijing's Renmin University. "On the one hand, the U.S. has gradually, in Chinese eyes, reduced pressure on Chen Shui-bian, and it has warmed up relations with him," he said. Analysts point to several snubs after Chen's re-election to a second four-year term. May, the month Chen was inaugurated, was particularly rough. That month, Bush reiterated U.S. support for the "one-China" policy in a phone call with Chinese President Hu. But the Pentagon issued a report warning that China's military was modernizing rapidly, with the express aim of conquering Taiwan. The House of Representatives voted to support Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization. **ANGERED BY ARMS*** Worse still in China's view, the United States allowed Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu, reviled on the mainland for her pro-independence views, to make transit stops in the United States en route to and from Central America. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, mandated under the Taiwan Relations Act, have rankled as well. China has been upset by the June mission to the United States by Taiwan politicians to discuss an $18.2 billion arms package that includes anti-missile systems, submarines and anti-submarine aircraft. That would be a setback for China's military, widely expected to gain strategic superiority over Taiwan next year. All have added up to major disappointment on the part of Beijing. "They do believe that we are not proceeding on the basis of the agreements reached in the past," Ted Stevens, a Republican senator from Alaska, said on Tuesday during a visit to Beijing on which, no doubt, HE got an earful about Taiwan. "But we believe we are," he added. China appears, on the one hand, to be reviewing a reliance on the United States to reel Taiwan's independence-seekers back from the brink and baring its teeth to remind Taiwan what is at stake. On the other, Beijing has apparently not given up completely on the United States. In his July 30 chat with Bush by telephone, Hu warned the United States off the arms sales, and repeated the mantra that China doesn't want war but would never tolerate Taiwan independence. In similar reassurances to the ones he gave Wen eight months ago, Bush said the U.S. stance would never change. Beijing, analysts say, is now left pondering its few options. "Is the People's Republic of China actually determined to take matters into its own hands because it sees Washington is sending mixed messages and has not adequately restrained Chen Shui-bian?" Wachman asked. "Or is Beijing applying what psychological pressure it can to the U.S. by conveying the message that it is 'mad as hell and cannot take it any more' so as to impel Washington to do more because the leadership in Beijing understands that there are no new tools left in their own toolbox other than the military ones?"