"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times," Dickens charms us in A Tale of Two Cities.  He might well have been speaking of Taipei and Beijing instead of London and Paris, for in matters of defense, Taiwan has no other natural predator. 

Are these the "best of times" for Taiwan's security? Well, they could be. Since President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party handily won the elections to the Legislative Yuan on 1 December 2001, his victory, becoming the largest parliamentary party, apparently sent a strong message to Beijing that the DPP is the legitimate ruling party. And the corollary is that honey draws more flies than vinegar, that if Beijing will show a more attracting face to the Taiwanese by treating the "renegade province" with comity and civility, the Taiwanese may have less reason to be so defensive militarily.

Testimony to this possible change of the mainland's heart came this last Jan. 24, when China's top foreign policy official, Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen, released the most welcoming statement ever toward members of Taiwan's ruling party, which has backed independence from China. This time Qian also did not specifically threaten Taiwan with attack, another softening of Beijing's tone. The [mainland's] leadership is convinced its softer approach toward Taiwan is working. "We don't need to threaten Taiwan anymore," said a foreign policy official. "Our economy is our best weapon. We won't attack them. We will buy them. It's very Chinese."

Or, are these the "worst of times" for Taiwan's security? Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen's message was scarcely afloat before Beijing began backpedaling. It is not clear whether Qian or President Jiang Zemin really believes China's "best weapon" is its economy. And for good measure the PRC continues to add some 50 short-and-medium-range missiles each year along its southeast coast to its battery of over 300 now targeted on Taiwan. The island's defense ministry expects the number to reach 800 by 2006. And China's recent additions of two squadrons of SU-27 fighter jets from Russia seriously challenge Taiwan's air supremacy. And there is more. China has purchased four Russian-made and sophisticated Sovremenny-class destroyers carrying SS-N-22 Sunburn sea-skimming, anti-ship missiles, which can carry a nuclear warhead. And it has expanded its submarine fleet to more than 80 nuclear- and diesel-powered vessels. These, say analysts, are sharks compared to Taiwan's toothless four subs. Control of the Taiwan Strait is in serious jeopardy.

And how does the Minister of National Defense Wu Shi-wen assess the times? To our group of international election observers, he seemed both open and forthcoming, although his actual words were gated through an English interpreter in a large conference room at the Ministry of National Defense, replete with steaming tea, white walls and potted palms.

Still, I find talking about defense always difficult. From experience at the U.S. Air Force War College I found it to be a subject at once full of fascination because of ever-newer "military toys" but always shrouded in secrecy. Frequently the most essential information is classified intelligence. So discourse becomes military-speak, a verbal shorthand briefers use to keep out of the legally classified briar patch.

For example, the first question posed to the minister was at once the most obvious and the most difficult. How did he assess the military threat of the People's Republic (PRC)? His answer was "Effective Deterrence," another code-phrase suggesting Taiwan needed a fighting force big enough and capable of dissuading China from a hasty first-strike. The great fear among Taiwan's military planners is that China will strike preemptively and so quickly that a military response from the United States would be too late in coming. Some Taiwanese security planners believe such a preemptive strike would demoralize the general population and result in a PRC victory without engaging the U.S. So Taiwanese military strategists believe if they are able to deter the PLA for at least 2 weeks, the U.S. could then deploy a counterforce. Such a counterforce, it is assumed, would appear devastating enough to the PRC that they would stand down, unwilling and really unable to repel a far superior U.S. militarily force.

Such a scenario sounds almost otherworldly, but that is the grist of strategic planners both in Taiwan and in the U.S.

Like the elephant in the room no one acknowledged, Minister Wu was never asked, nor did he ever respond to the one question every Taiwanese planner asks every American strategist: Will the U.S. respond to an attack by the mainland? The answer is, alas, not an unequivocal "yes," despite President George W. Bush's now-famous and oft-repeated assurance last April 26 (2001), the United States would do: "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan's integrity. 

And the reason the U.S. maintains a policy of "strategic ambiguity" is to protect its option to decide when and where it will go to war. Stated more plainly, U.S. planners worry that an independence-minded Taiwanese leader could initiate a conflict with the PRC, draw the U.S. into the conflagration to fend off a counterattack and gain independence through U.S. military might. So the U.S. must commit to Taiwan's protection without bearding the Chinese dragon. It's a tightrope to walk, but falling off could precipitate nuclear catastrophe.

So Taiwan must be prepared and vigilant, assuming U.S. strategic protection but never really guaranteed it. And that is "effective deterrence": being as ready as Taiwan can be militarily to thwart any attack lasting from a period of days to a period of weeks, which the mainland might launch short of nuclear war.

Part of the process Taiwan uses to prepare itself for an eventual military challenge from the mainland starts with an annual request to buy arms from the United States. Through the Clinton presidency, this annual request to buy U.S. arms came at a specific time and had caused inevitable tension between the U.S. and the PRC, an outcome neither the U.S. nor China desired. Under George W. Bush, the U.S. government decided to receive arms requests throughout the year, a stratagem, which hopefully will lessen the resulting tension between the U.S. and the PRC.

In the next post, I will try to raise some of the issues surrounding the single biggest U.S. arms package sale to Taiwan in a decade. This package approved in May 2001 included eight diesel-powered submarines, 12 P-3C "sub-hunting" patrol aircraft and four Kidd-class destroyers. The package sent a strong message to the PRC and a strong message to Taiwan. But some argued Taiwan could not effectively utilize such arms...and others argued the U.S. could not deliver them. Both sides sounded, well, defensive!