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.