The United States, China, and Taiwan - Public International Law ...

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China's dominant military concept now is to be prepared to fight high--tech limited wars on itsperiphery against weaker opponents. To accomplish this, China conveys the perception to theoutside world that it is backward ---- as Sunzi said: "When capable, feign incapacity" ---- but atthe same time stakes out its territorial claims in domestic National Peoples' Congress (NPC)legislation. The NPC law of 1992, claiming the Spratly, Diao Yu Dao Islands, and Taiwan andreserving the right to use force, backs up these claims. Is this contrast between modernizing[*746] its military, insisting it is obsolete, and then claiming the seas around China a seemingcontradiction? Yes, it is, but if you are not prepared to deal with contradictions, then you do notbelong in the China business.China has a track record of frequently using violence to sort out sovereignty issues on itsperiphery, so the island chain concept is not entirely new. As Jonathan Wilkenfeld, head of theUniversity of Maryland's ICONS project has pointed out, China has used force more frequentlythan any other nation since 1949, citing Vietnam, Burma, India, Soviet Union, Korea, andTaiwan Strait ---- all instances where force was used. Justifications for the use of force can bedebated; the fact that force was used cannot be.Historically, and history certainly counts in current Chinese calculations (certainly more thanwith the U.S.), John K. Fairbank, who paid a lot of attention to the trends of dynastic history,carefully and wisely came up with three Chinese principles governing its strategy:(1) stop the primary threat from the land ---- the Great Wall was built at enormous cost to stopthe northern barbarians. It was not always successful, given the Mongol and Manchu victories;(2) downgrade sea power ---- with some notably brief exceptions in the southern Song and earlyMing dynasties;(3) establish moral superiority ---- ultimately it is not force of arms but the superiority of yourcivilization which expands your influence and protects the motherland.As with all principles, at times they were followed, and at times they did not work. Certainly, theeunuch Admiral Zheng He's seven maritime expeditions in the early Ming dynasty, when Chinaruled the waves, was abruptly stopped to turn inward and to build China's strength and protect itagainst any resurgent Mongols in the north. In the Qing dynasty, a major miscalculation wasmade when Li Hong--zhang, who wanted to build up China's sea power after the disastrousOpium War, was overruled by the emperor in favor of Zuo Zong--tang, who wanted toemphasize land forces against the Russians and Mongols in the north. The result was a disasterfor China as the major threat continued to come from the sea ---- Japan in 1895 and 1931. Chinaalso experienced humiliation at the hands of eight foreign powers during the Boxer Rebellion in1900, and these forces came from the sea as well.Recently, China has been torn. Certainly in the 1950s, during the heyday of Sino--Sovietcooperation, China's military industrial strength moved inland, led by Chinese revolutionariesfrom inland provinces such as Hunan, Sichuan, and Shanxi. The coastal areas dominated by[*747] foreign colonialists were decimated ---- Shanghai was a main target.
However, the Soviet break with China in 1960 altered this, but China still turned inward to the"third line" to protect against the Soviet threat. In an orgy of paranoia and defensiveness, Chinabuilt huge useless mounds, bristling with guns, surrounded by moats, filled with undergroundstorage chambers, all along the traditional invasion routes of China. Mao's lunacy reigned: digdeep tunnels, and they were dug deep at a huge cost ---- China's new Great Wall.But China was not completely engulfed by this foolishness. This was the era when theyconcentrated efforts on engineers and scientists, many trained in the U.S. and USSR, to buildICBMs, nuclear bombs, and nuclear powered submarines. There were two Chinas (no allusionmeant to present political hang--ups): one backward, poverty--stricken, mired in mass programssuch as People's War, and one scientific, modern, forward--looking, and capable.The Chinese argued with themselves about whether China should modernize, adapt westernways, look outward to the east to the blue waters of the ocean, or whether they should remaininward--looking, bogged down in the chauvinistic and isolated Yellow River culture. He Shang(the Yellow River elegy) captured this in 1988 in a popular television series which supported thelook outward and ridiculed China's past preoccupation with itself. It was initially backed by ZhaoZhiyang, the deposed party leader, but was later emphatically banned in 1988.Today, China sees its land borders with the Central Asia republics and Russia as largely non--threatening and seeks to stabilize them. Boris Yeltsin's visit to China in May 1996 put the cap onthis in a glittering, but slightly ridiculous, grand meeting in Shanghai where a border agreementwas signed with much fanfare by Yeltsin, Jiang Zemin, and leaders of the Central Asianrepublics. Chinese strategists were quick to point out, a year later during a visit of our NationalDefense University, that now China would look eastward ---- to Taiwan. Its land borders werenow secure, and so to solidify its security it would turn eastward toward Taiwan, the islandchains, and to Greater China.The leadership in Beijing today is not from Sichuan or Hunan, but is largely from the coast ----namely Shanghai, which has risen phoenix--like from the ashes. Economics and money are thepreferred engines of influence, but there must be a major miliary component which can feed oneconomic growth and also exploit the once--in--a--lifetime opportunities by drawing on a brokendown but militarily useful Russia. The lessons of history are that China now should turnoutward, extend its sovereignty, strengthen its security, and neutralize its opposition on itsperiphery.Taiwan is a principal target of this strategy, to be used economically, to be circumscribeddiplomatically, to be isolated politically, and to be neutralized militarily. The spiritual pollutionof democracy must be negated in Taiwan and in Hong Kong because the current Chineseleadership believes that China must remain under the political control of a single communistparty backed by a strong and modernized military. Taiwan must be pulled into the Chinese orbit---- the way this is done, given past shifts, probably can be worked out over time through cross--strait dialogue. In the short--term, the Chinese are banking on this tactic.
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