China Bullying Again
Paris, Tuesday, 16 February 1999
China is back with another show of force to Taiwan. Three
years ago it fired missiles from ships conducting a military
exercise in the Taiwan Strait. Now it systematically is moving
missiles, reportedly by the hundreds, into the part of China
closest to the territory it regards as a breakaway province.
This development seems to have no specific trigger beyond an
evidently continuing desire to intimidate Taiwan and keep it
from eventually creeping under an American anti-missile
umbrella and thus be even less likely to reunify with the
mainland.
As signals of force, the multiyear coastal deployments are
less dramatic but no less objectionable than the earlier
firings. In Taiwan, at any rate, the effect may be the same -
to advertise to the Taiwanese people the benefits of
independence from Beijing and to turn them further against any
early consideration of reunification.
The United States and other interested countries should not
hesitate to remind Beijing that in their view reunification
can come about only peacefully. Chinese missile rattling has
no place in the proceedings. The rattling also is bound to
increase Taiwan's appetite for anti-missile protection. That
could come to mean, over the years, the inclusion of Taiwan
under an American missile umbrella.
A broad American policy choice may be emerging. The United
States is directed by longtime bipartisan policy as well as by
statute to help provide for Taiwan's defense and to ensure
that the island's future unfolds by peaceful means. But a
missile shield, once developed and deployed, does not stop at
protecting the intended beneficiary, here Taiwan. It is in the
nature of such a shield that it also could embolden Taiwan to
feel that it did not really have to negotiate seriously with
the Chinese.
But all of this is a long way from happening, if it even
happens at all. Negotiations ought to take place without
coercion and on the basis of mutual interest. No serious talks
seems possible while China is flexing its missiles, stirring
fresh doubts about its appetite for negotiation, heating upa
regional arms race and alarming the Taiwanese people whom it
ought to be conciliating.