"China has become a leading provider of missile technology to terrorist-sponsoring states, despite its pledges to the U.S. to stop such activities" asserts the U.S.-China Security Review Commission's just-released (July 15, 2002) First Annual Report To Congress. The report has not been widely reviewed, yet, but some of its conclusions are really hard-hitting.

This report is not eye-candy, and its findings are troubling. For example:

"[It] estimates that China spends $65 billion a year on military modernization, and is seeking to force Taiwan to negotiate unification on China's terms by increasing its arsenal of short-range ballistic missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait. The report also says that China is upgrading its current arsenal of 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. But it added that Beijing continues to see "opportunity" in close relations with the U.S. 

Besides the startling conclusions, what makes this report so compelling is that U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia and the Senate's President Pro Tempore sponsored it. Byrd is also the Senate's senior member of the majority Democratic party and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Byrd's co-sponsor is the formidable U.S. Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), and member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the National Security Working Group. Note that powerful senators from both sides of the Senate's political aisle are casting a troubled, but bipartisan, eye on U.S./China/Taiwan relations.
Several points about this report need vetting: 1) the specific points the commission made, 2) the members of the commission who wrote the report, 3) the support it gives to the Bush Administration's own China policy, 4) the Chinese reaction to the report, and finally, 5)the possible significance for Taiwan the report carries.

First take a look at three of the contentious accusations the report makes:

1. China's leaders believe the United States is a declining power with important military vulnerabilities that can be exploited.

2. The U.S. may be developing a reliance on Chinese imports that could in time undermine the U.S. defense industrial base.

3. China provides technology and components for weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems to terrorist sponsoring states, presenting an increasing threat to U.S. security interests in the Middle East and Asia in particular.

There are more jarring points, but just these will suggest how far U.S. policy on China is straying from Bill Clinton's "strategic ambiguity," or "minimize the problems and open up those markets to hundreds of millions of eager Chinese buyers of American products."

Second, the members of the 12-person Security Review Commission are not just the anti-China lobby, either. Rather they are some of the U.S.'s heavy-hitters in Chinese analysis, like C. Richard D'Amato, (Commission Chairman), Delegate to the Maryland House of Delegates and former Counsel to Senator Byrd, June Teufel Dreyer, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Miami, along with Arthur Waldron, director of Asian Studies, American Enterprise Institute and Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania.

Third, while rejecting Bill Clinton's business-oriented China policy, the congressional report fits hand-in-glove with the Bush administration's sale of military hardware to Taiwan, the 12 observation aircraft, 4 Kidd-class destroyers and 8-diesel powered submarines, the largest arms sale in a decade. This sale was intended to send Beijing a message of support although not independence--for Taiwan. Few U.S. analysts believe Beijing got the right message, however. For Beijing, this was just simply the U.S. meddling in an internal Chinese affair.

Fourth, and not unsurprisingly, China reacted angrily and with complete denial of the report's accusations. CNN reported that a top America expert at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Hong Yuan, said the Pentagon report was a product of "unfriendly attention" and "cold war mentality." Hong continued, telling the Chinese media that the report was "a pretext [for the U.S.] to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan, which is a reflection of the interests of the American military-industrial establishment."
And China can be none too comfortable in the knowledge that if the Bush administration finds China is "a leading provider of missile technology to terrorist-sponsoring states..." it becomes a candidate for offensive military strikes against state-sponsored terrorists. While no analysts really believe the U.S. would strike China preemptively, the collision course of the 2 asymmetrical powers is more sharply drawn. And that is an outcome no one can seriously want.

Still others in the West have speculated that at a minimum, the 75-year old president, Jiang Zemin, might try to use this "hardening" of U.S./China relations, if that is an accurate description, to withhold leadership from the Fourth Generation one more time at the seaside resort leadership conference in Beidaihe. Jiang apparently believes one more term under his leadership would cement his legacy, The Three Represents Theory, in the Chinese Pantheon of Ideas along with Mao Zedong's Thought and Deng Xiaoping's Pragmatism. Roughly formulated, the Three Represents Theory means the party should represent the highest productivity, the best culture and the masses' interests.

Finally, what might be some of the possible implications of this new congressional articulation for Taiwan-mainland relations and U.S/Taiwan relations? Of course the mainland's continuing antipathy towards Taiwan's political leadership is old news, but one new implication may even unmask a silver lining lurking under this recently looming U.S. congressional cloud. One of Taiwan's biggest dailies, The China Times, reported a June meeting of Taiwanese lawmakers and retired generals who met secretly with high-ranking mainland military officers in Beijing. The China Times called the meeting "full of political significance" because it was the first time in recent years retired Taiwanese generals have met face-to-face with PLA military leaders on the mainland.

The implication here may be that the Bush administration's firm and overt support for Taiwan--"Whatever it takes" to guarantee Taiwan's security--is finally having its intended effect and has at length really got through to Beijing. If that is true many analysts in the Bush administration and out will breath a sigh of relief, having found that a big stick and a velvet glove, and not just economic concessions, will get results in Beijing.

Thursday, July 25, 2002

J. Bryan Collester
Maybeck Place
Elsah, IL 62028