China escalates Taiwanese crisis

China escalates Taiwanese crisis

As earlier predicted by The Jakarta Post's Asia Correspondent Harvey Stockwin, China is continuing to dangerously escalate its relations with Taiwan, with scant regard for regional stability. In the first of two articles, he takes a look at the developments last week, and in the second he analyses the clearly counter- productive character of China's current course.

HONG KONG (JP): China has moved its current tense relations with Taiwan one major step closer to overt conflict. Early on March 8, it fired three missiles into the sea close to the two major Taiwanese ports of Keelung and Kaohsiung.

Taiwan, which earlier in the week vowed to retaliate if Chinese missiles landed on its territory or within its territorial waters, did not respond in kind, but denounced the act, as did the United States, with President Bill Clinton himself going on U.S. television saying that China's actions were "provocative and reckless".

U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich denounced the missile tests as an "act of terror". U.S. reaction apart, various nations -- among them Indonesia, New Zealand and Japan -- expressed varying degrees of disquiet.

But China has already dismissed all such protests as unacceptable interference in China's internal affairs, even as it has also ignored a carefully reasoned plea by former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, made in a speech on March 3, that further escalation should be avoided by both sides. Taiwan immediately welcomed Lee Kuan Yew's initiative. China has yet to even report his speech in its controlled media.

A few hours before the missiles were fired towards Taiwan, a leading Beijing official responsible for informal contacts with Taipei confirmed that the missile firings were aimed at intimidating the island and stopping it from pursuing independence.

Chinese President and party leader Jiang Zemin has added to the Chinese air of intransigence as he reiterated, after the missile tests, China's intention to forcefully pursue reunification. An important aspect of the developing crisis has been that China's controlled newspapers, dutifully echoing a speech on March 5 by Prime Minister Li Peng, all carried commentaries denouncing Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui as a "splittist" -- a grave political crime in the Chinese communist political vocabulary.

In several ways, the missile crisis comes as no surprise.

This is the third time that China has conducted military exercises in the vicinity of Taiwan after President Lee Teng- hui's private visit to the U.S. last June.

The date and locations of today's missile exercises were announced in advance. The three missiles were fired just two hours into the stated 8-day exercise period between now and March 15.

China's leading communist politicians appear unable or unwilling to moderate their hardline stance towards Taiwan.

China chose to view that Lee visit to the U.S. as further evidence that President Lee was moving towards declaring Taiwan independent, hence the latest grave charge of "splittism".

Lee, in fact, still accepts the longterm goal of Taiwan's ultimate reunification with China but, responding to the pressures generated by the enhanced degree of democracy on Taiwan which he himself brought about, clearly seeks to sustain Taiwan's continued separation from China while the communists remain in power.

Taiwan is currently in the middle of the first popular presidential election in Chinese history, with polling due on March 23. Today's missiles are thus also targeted at Taiwan's democracy, aimed at discouraging Taiwanese voters from re- electing President Lee.

For now, the greatest danger posed by the missile tests is that they could easily go wrong, thereby making further escalation inevitable.

It is not yet known for certain which missiles China fired today but they could be either M-9s, with a range of 600 km, or M-11s with a range of 300 km. These are the same missiles that China has sold to Pakistan.

Today's rockets were evidently fired from a missile base in Jiangxi province which would suggest that they were M-9s. China had set target areas 20 to 25 miles off the two most important Taiwan ports of Kaohsiung, in the south, and Keelung just to the north of the main population center of Taipei. (Two of the missiles came down in the Kaohsiung target area and one near Keelung).

Even U.S. missiles, with their more advanced technology, still missed their targets 18 percent of the time during the Gulf War. Chinese missile tests last year saw at least one missile come down well short of its target in Fujian province in China.

Another very visible demonstration of the primitive state of Chinese missile technology came recently when a rocket launch, meant to carry a U.S. satellite into space, failed to go straight up but instead quickly returned to earth, officially killing six but evidently causing many more casualties.

An additional reason why these missile exercises can be regarded as reckless is that the target areas are not all that far from three of Taiwan's nuclear power stations.

President Lee has asserted that the Chinese missiles are being tested without warheads. Even if this is true, missiles falling on populated areas like Kaohsiung, Keelung or Taipei could still cause considerable damage and loss of life.

Ironically, the immediate reaction of the Taiwan Stock Market to the missiles was a 50 point rise in the index, after major falls earlier in the week. The rise was thought to be due in part to relief that the initial firings had apparently been accurate.

But there was a degree of panic in some urban areas as Taiwanese rushed to change their savings into gold or U.S. dollars and to stock up on rice and tinned food. The rush for dollars was so great that banks had to ration the amount each person could exchange for dollars. A leading U.S. bank will be flying in a planeload of dollars to make up the shortage.

Meanwhile President Lee continued with his election campaign. Earlier, on March 5, Lee's Defense Minister Chiang Chung-ling warned that "if any missiles land within our 12 nautical miles territorial waters, we will strike back immediately." On March 8 he repeated the warning.

This is not the only way in which the crisis could escalate. Far from being intimidated, as China had hoped, Taiwan's pro- independence Democratic Progressive Party reacted angrily, argued that China's actions justified its stand, called for a mass rally on Sunday, and announced that some of their members would protest the missile tests by sailing into the target area themselves.

Window: For now, the greatest danger posed by the missile tests is that they could easily go wrong, thereby making further escalation inevitable.