Short-sighted policy motivates missile firings

Short-sighted policy motivates missile firings

HONG KONG (JP): High above Indonesia as you read this, somewhere in the stratosphere above the Northern Hemisphere, a large Chinese spy satellite is now entering its death throes.

This Tuesday it will probably fall into either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. The precise spot cannot yet be calculated. The satellite was meant to be recovered by its spymasters, so it will not burn up on re-entry into the atmosphere. But because its technology has failed, the satellite's parachute will not open and bring it down to a soft landing in China.

Instead the satellite, should it come down over land, will crash into the earth at a speed of around 400 m.p.h. and make a sizable crater.

Chinese leaders should be praying that the errant satellite does not come down on the heavily populated areas of Hong Kong or Taiwan, where it could easily cause heavy casualties.

Were it to do so, it would be a further nail in the coffin of China's reunification -- at a time when the Chinese are already hammering in such nails as a result of their obviously counter- productive policy choices.

First, they are making their policy towards Taiwan, and indeed towards Southeast Asia, hostage to the uncertain qualities of their missile technology. The missiles fired early last Friday at target areas close to the two main Taiwanese ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung landed safely.

But more such missile tests are due and there can be no guarantee they will all land in the right place. The Chinese should quit while they are ahead, but they will not do so.

Instead, China risks losing out whatever happens. If China continues the missile tests, it will only embolden those in Taiwan who argue that separation from the One China dream is the best option for the island. If one missile actually lands accidentally on Taiwan that too plays into the hands of those advocating Taiwan independence. It would give the demand even more emotional thrust, when it has plenty of that already.

Second, the very resort to missile tests advertises China's weakness rather than its strength. The hard truth is that, with around 54 amphibious ships in the Chinese Navy, there is no question whatsoever of China being able to actually invade Taiwan across the 100 miles or so of the Taiwan Strait.

Some experts calculate that China, with its present amphibious capability, could only land 5,000 troops on Taiwan's beaches, a totally insufficient force when faced with a hostile country of 21 million people.

Even if China had the amphibious capability to land one or two divisions, say 20,000 troops, it would still be wholly inadequate army to pit against the large and well-armed Taiwan military forces.

Thirdly, what the People's Liberation Army (PLA) could possibly do is to capture one of the smaller offshore islands from among the dozen or so still held by Taiwan on the Chinese side of the Taiwan Straits. They may try to do this at some point in the next few weeks if China sticks with its policy of intimidation.

Even so, the two larger islands of Quemoy and Matsu, the focal points of the two earlier Taiwan Straits crises in 1954-55 and 1958, are probably still too heavily defended to be easily taken.

But even if the PLA captures an island or two, it still plays into the hands of the Democratic Progressive Party on Taiwan, advocating independence. The DPP has long sought the abandonment, by Taiwan, of its offshore island connection with Chinese territory.

Fourth, whichever way China pursues the policy of military intimidation, it will end up being counter-productive. Reunification can only mean something, can only be implemented, if China abandons its old image as a harsh and brutal totalitarian regime. By firing missiles close to Taiwan it only sustains that image. Beijing has to win hearts and minds on Taiwan, if reunification is to mean anything, but is instead alienating them.

Fifth, lobbing missiles in the general direction of your leading foreign investor is not usually considered a good way of attracting its investment. But that is what China has been doing for quite a while. Taiwan is the leading "foreign" investor in China with investments variously estimated at between US$18 billion and $25 billion.

Already Taiwanese investors are scaling back both the number and the extent of their investments on the mainland. The wonder is that the total value of Taiwan's financial commitments to China has, until now, continued to increase. Actual disinvestment has not yet set in. It may well do so if the policy of intimidation accidentally backfires or even if it just continues.

Taiwanese businesses invest in China because they are free to do so. Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui could end that freedom if China continues to pursue reunification through the threat of force. With foreign exchange reserves still hovering around $100 billion Taiwan could easily afford to fully compensate all those who suffered losses as a result.

China, by contrast, would find that all other foreign investors were having second thoughts, too. China's bubble-like economy would be in greater danger of bursting.

But, sixth, China is not only in danger of losing the confidence of foreign businesses. Much more important, it could lose much hard-won credibility with foreign countries, too. China attacks those nations whom it alleges are pursuing a policy of containment towards it. No nation is pursuing such a policy right now. But if China continues to behave like a regional bully, it will willy-nilly force other nations to the conclusion that China needs to be contained.

For, seventh, by pursuing reunification in its present counter-productive way, China forces foreigners to wonder if, in the erratic world of Chinese factionalism, mindless politics is once more in command. That excessive factionalism, which gave China the famine that accompanied the Great Leap Forward, and the civil war horrors that attended the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, could be staging a comeback.

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