CHINA: WAKING UP TO THE NEXT SUPERPOWER

(6 of 7)

The U.S. too is pledged to a one-China policy, but Beijing has come to suspect that Washington is backing away from it. When the U.S. granted Lee Teng-hui a visa last year for a private visit to his alma mater, Cornell University, Beijing was irate. Hard-liners and moderates in the leadership may disagree on any number of questions, but they are of one mind when it comes to sovereignty over Taiwan; there is no room for compromise. "No leader in Beijing," says Ralph Cossa, executive director of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu think tank, "could survive if he lost Taiwan." Beijing's current missile diplomacy backs up earlier warnings by President Jiang that Taiwan must stick to the one-China policy and that a declaration of independence means war.

While the U.S. acknowledges that the island is part of China, it is also pledged to view an attack on it with "grave concern"--a purposely ambiguous statement that not only angers America's containment advocates but also frustrates Beijing. When Chinese officials felt out Nye in late 1995 about a U.S. reaction if China were to threaten Taiwan, he told them, "Nobody knows." In a later interview with TIME, he elaborated, saying, "There's less ambiguity here than meets the eye. But we don't want either side to rock the boat. We don't want Taiwan to declare independence, which would be the case if we gave it a blank check, and we don't want the Chinese to use aggressive tactics, which would be the case if we gave them a blank check. I told the Chinese that Americans are unpredictable: even if we said we wouldn't defend Taiwan, the U.S. Congress and the American public might change their minds. The moral of the story is, be very cautious. As you saw in 1950--when we said we weren't going to do anything in Korea--we were at war within the year."

The generals in Beijing, says Andrew Nien-Dzu Yang, a Taiwan specialist on the Chinese military, "don't want a confrontation with the U.S.," but some of Beijing's rhetoric about the U.S. commitment to Taiwan has had a harsh tone. Whether with pure bluster or a touch of psy-war, a member of the general staff late last year told Chas. W. Freeman, a former U.S. diplomat in Beijing and Assistant Secretary of Defense, that "America will not sacrifice Los Angeles to protect Taiwan." At this point China lacks the military capability to bring off a successful invasion of a well-defended Taiwan. Even if the Chinese had the amphibious equipment needed to move large numbers of troops across the 100-mile Taiwan Strait, U.S. military experts estimate that Beijing would have to deploy half a million men for a victorious assault and that casualties would be in the range of 50%. True, China could seriously damage Taiwan's economy with a naval blockade or sporadic missile strikes, but it would also suffer by losing foreign support, particularly the substantial Taiwanese investment on the mainland--$29 billion, by most estimates.