E-Notes

Needed: A Newish U.S. Policy for a Newish Taiwan Strait

by Shelley Rigger

March 2009

Shelley Rigger is the Brown Associate Professor of East Asian Politics at Davidson College, an FPRI senior fellow, and author of From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner, 2001). This E-note is one in a series concerning Asia policy for the Obama administration.

With so much out there that’s broke, it may seem a stretch to ask the Obama Administration to spend time fixing one of the few things that ain’t broke. That said, even successful policies need fine-tuning, and Washington’s Taiwan policy is a good example. Taipei has adopted a brand-new blueprint for its China policy, a blueprint loaded with opportunity and risk. The U.S. needs to update its own approach to respond to the new situation Taipei is creating.

From 2000 to early 2008, Washington’s overriding objective in managing relations with Taipei and Beijing was to avoid serious conflict--including military confrontation. While Beijing’s intransigence in dealing with Taiwan clearly played an important role, U.S. policy-makers increasingly came to view Taiwan, and in particular, Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian, as the main troublemaker.

Chen adopted a range of policies intended to strengthen Taiwan’s status as politically, economically, and socially distinct from--in effect, independent of--mainland China. Chen claimed he wanted to improve Taipei’s relations with Beijing, but he wasn’t willing to give up his Taiwan-centric approach to achieve that goal. As a result, political relations between the two sides stagnated, even as Taiwan’s dependence on the Chinese economy deepened. By the time Chen left office, Taiwan was handcuffed to China economically, but lacked political tools to manage the relationship.

Looking beyond the Taiwan Strait, Chen’s “salami-slicing” tactics undermined Taipei’s standing in the international community. Between 2000 and 2008, Taiwan suffered a net loss of six diplomatic partners. Even worse, the period saw a precipitous decline in Taipei-Washington relations--Taiwan’s most important international tie.

In May 2008 Chen handed over the presidency to Ma Ying-jeou, who came into office with a strong popular mandate. He won the presidency with 58 percent of the vote, and his party (the Kuomintang, or KMT) was just shy of a three-fourths majority in Taiwan’s legislature. 

Ma and KMT bring to the policy process a new vision for cross-Strait relations. They reject Chen’s Sino-phobic outlook; in their view, there is no need for Taiwan to sacrifice good relations with the mainland to preserve its autonomy. In his campaign, Ma insisted he could strengthen political and economic ties with Beijing without endangering the island’s de facto independence. His Three Nos--no independence, no unification, no war--capture Ma’s conviction that Taiwanese can have it all.

This new approach has taken Taiwan in an unprecedented direction. It is not only a break with the Chen years, it is also a very different policy from the one President Lee Teng-hui followed from 1988 to 2000. He, like Chen, tried to restrict cross-Strait economic and political interactions. Although Lee upheld the KMT’s pro-unification rhetorical line, when he perceived the dialogue with Beijing was moving too fast, or coming too close to sensitive political topics, he aborted the negotiations. Ma is not looking to finalize a unification deal--on the contrary, he has steadfastly insisted that unification will not occur during his presidency--but unlike Lee and Chen, he is prepared to talk to Beijing about a range of topics, including economic integration and a peace accord to stabilize relations in the Strait.

Since he took office in May 2008, Ma’s government has made significant progress in implementing its short-term agenda for cross-Strait cooperation. The two sides have opened regularly-scheduled direct flights, eased investment restrictions, relaxed rules on tourism, opened direct cargo shipping and implemented food-safety agreements. They’ve exchanged high-level visits, and party-to-party talks between the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT are underway. The next step is to develop an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, after which the Chinese, at least, have said they’d like to move toward a peace accord. Ma has expressed support for both in principle, but they will require lengthy negotiations and cannot be implemented without broad support, including in Taiwan’s legislature.

While Ma’s policies have alleviated much of the political tension that kept U.S. military planners awake through the Chen years, the new approach is not without risk. One-sided concessions could weaken Taiwan’s ability to fend off Beijing’s unification moves. If Taiwan assumes Beijing’s goodwill is sincere, it could get a nasty surprise. Beijing has been cagey; its rhetorical positions have changed very little since Ma took office, and it has done nothing overt to boost Taiwan’s international status. Nor has China scaled back the daunting array of military hardware aimed at the island.

With the global recession spreading to China, economic problems could encourage displays of nationalism targeting Taiwan. Even when the Chinese economy was booming, Beijing was slow to reciprocate Ma’s goodwill gestures; in hard times, it might be even less inclined to spend political capital on Ma’s behalf.

Taiwan’s opposition party has been quick to raise alarms about the risks in Ma’s approach. Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party and other Ma critics argue the president is conceding too much to Beijing and consulting too little with the Taiwanese people. Ma dismisses claims that he is capitulating to Beijing, defending his actions as a necessary step in building trust and relieving tension between the two sides. Still, his opponents are not persuaded. Even those in the opposition who accept Ma’s assurances that he has no intention to sell out Taiwan worry that the KMT’s pro-unification wing will gain control of mainland policy and do it for him. They pounce on every scrap of evidence (such as the recent allegation that an official in Taiwan’s representative office in Toronto had used a pseudonymous publication to call for the PRC to seize Taiwan by force) that hardliners are influential in Ma’s government.

Ma’s ascent to the presidency marked the beginning of a new era in cross-Strait relations. It brought into effect policies unlike any the U.S. has seen before. His is the first Taiwanese government to accept major political and economic risks to ease tensions with Beijing. This new policy mandates policy adjustment in Washington.

Raymond Burghardt, the Chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington’s de facto embassy in Taiwan, recently visited the island. He said the Obama Administration is “comfortable with” the increasingly amicable tone in cross-Strait relations, and he reiterated long-standing U.S. policy when he stated, “What is the center of U.S. strategic concern is that the issue be dealt with peacefully, is that it is dealt with in a way that represents the agreement or the will of the people on both sides of the strait, and particularly the will of the people in Taiwan.”

Chairman Burghardt’s visit and reassurances are a good start toward an Obama Administration policy that takes account of the changes in Taiwan. But his comments underscore the need for Washington to demonstrate that it is working on the Taiwan issue. Burghardt’s denials, in particular, call attention to the uncertainty many in the U.S. and Taiwan feel about exactly how the U.S. will understand and react to Taipei’s new approach.

In his remarks, Burghardt rejected the suggestion that the U.S. is worried that relations between Taiwan and China have become too warm. He said, “there is not a view in Washington that there is some kind of ‘red line’ in terms of cross-Strait engagement,” and he denied that the current state of relations in any way threatens U.S. interests.

Burghardt’s comments, by themselves, are unlikely to silence the view that warming relations between Taiwan and China create challenges for U.S. foreign policy. There is a long-standing opinion in the United States that unification--whether de jure or merely de facto--would run counter to America’s regional security policy. The most extreme version of this fear holds that if Ma’s economic and political outreach to the mainland is accompanied by a drawdown in Taiwan’s own military effort, weapons systems the U.S. has provided to Taiwan over the years could be transferred to the PRC armed forces. Whether Taiwan merges its armed forces with China’s voluntarily, or China is able to seize them by force because Taiwan’s defenses have become inadequate, critics argue, the cost to the U.S. will be great.

A more judicious version of this concern can be found in a recent CSIS publication by Georgetown School of Foreign Service professor Robert Sutter. Sutter notes with concern the growing asymmetry of power and influence between Taiwan and China, and he questions whether Ma’s policies provide sufficient incentives to inspire Beijing to make concessions of its own.

On the contrary, Sutter worries Beijing might pocket Ma’s goodwill gestures without reciprocating. To avoid that outcome, he proposes that “Taiwan, presumably with U.S. support, works more effectively to show China that if it does not accommodate Taiwan on these issues [participation in the World Health Organization and other international forums and relief from PRC military pressure], Taiwan will follow a different international and military path.”

Sutter does not expect the U.S. or Taiwan to take that approach right away, stating “For now at least, neither the U.S. nor Taiwan government shows much interest in demonstrating such resolve, preferring to emphasize the positive and reassure Beijing.” But if they don’t, he says they had better be ready to explain and accommodate unprecedented developments in the Taiwan Strait.

Of course, even de facto unification faces huge obstacles. Whether Ma Ying-jeou or other KMT politicians secretly long for unification matters little, if Taiwan’s electorate opposes it. The island’s political institutions would not permit a top-down decision on such a critical issue--as the violent reaction to last fall’s visit by a top PRC Taiwan policy official illustrated. Taiwan is a democracy; its people have indicated in a wide variety of ways their strong preference for de facto independence. It is therefore unlikely to yield easily or precipitously to pressure for unification, whether it comes from Beijing or from elites in Taipei.

That said, Sutter is raising an important issue: Does the U.S. government know how to interpret unprecedented developments in the Strait? If there is a tipping point beyond which Taiwan will be unable (or unwilling) to resist China’s demands, will we see it coming? And what can the U.S. do, both to discern Taiwan’s intentions and to support Taipei’s efforts to hedge against the possibility that Beijing might not compromise?

These questions illustrate why Chairman Burghardt’s comments in Taipei were a good start, but only a start. It is clearly important to reinforce Ma’s efforts to reduce cross-Strait tension and build a foundation for cooperation, but the U.S. needs to look beyond the near term, and help Taiwan prepare for the consequences if Ma’s strategy succeeds, and for the consequences if it fails.

Chairman Burghardt’s visit to Taiwan is a useful development in yet another way. One of Ma’s campaign promises was to improve cross-Strait relations, and he has done that. He sold the policy on the grounds that it would make Taiwan more secure and boost the island’s economy. Thanks largely to the global recession, the promised economic benefits have not materialized, and that is degrading the political value of Ma’s new approach.

There is little the U.S. can do to reverse that trend, but it can help Ma in other ways. Another of President Ma’s campaign promises was to repair the broken relationship with the U.S. Burghardt’s visit, with its strong affirmation of Ma’s approach, is evidence that he is fulfilling that promise. But there’s more the U.S. could do, including reopening the discussion of enhanced economic cooperation, exchanging visits (within established boundaries) and deepening military cooperation.

The issue of military sales and cooperation has been particularly fraught over the past eight years, and it is an area in which the KMT has created more than its share of headaches for the U.S. side. Taiwan’s recently-published defense review, however, suggests Taipei is still very much committed to defending itself. The quadrennial report recommends the purchase of several new weapons systems, including F-16 C/D aircraft. The source for most of these new weapons is the U.S.

The quadrennial report surprised some military observers, who expected a less assertive assessment. It suggests the Ma government is beginning to respond to critics’ claims that he’s been too soft on China. In that sense, it represents an opportunity for the Obama Administration to move its policy forward in response to those same concerns. To date, Washington has rewarded Ma for making nice with Beijing, but the defense report suggests Ma is ready to back up his goodwill gestures with strength. He should be rewarded for this, too, because a militarily weak Taiwan that does not have a back-up plan for dealing with a hostile China is a dangerous scenario for everyone--including the U.S.

One other aspect of U.S. policy that needs updating is Washington’s plan for encouraging Beijing to be more forthcoming in meeting Taiwan’s demands for security and international space. What, specifically, would constitute “forthcoming”? Beyond allowing Taiwan observer status at the World Health Organization, what else is the U.S. prepared to push for? What would constitute a meaningful reduction in the military threat? If we give China full credit for half measures, Taiwan’s position may be eroded beyond the point of no return.

The Obama Administration faces issues far more pressing than cross-Strait relations. For the moment, things are going relatively well there. Still, there are many ways things could go wrong in the coming years, and the interests at stake are no less important than they were when the issue was hot. A pot that was boiling two years ago may be simmering today, but that doesn’t make it safe to leave the kitchen.

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