Taiwan conquest could be counterproductive

This is the second of several articles on the deteriorating security situation in East Asia, The Jakarta Post's Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin examines the implications of the hints coming from Beijing that it may take military action against Taiwan's offshore islands.

HONG KONG (JP): As China threatens the use of military force against Taiwan, its limited capability suggests undertaking one relatively easy operation, but China's political convictions and diplomatic ideology should act as a major deterrent to any such campaign.

It is very clear, and military sources are generally agreed, that one possible Chinese option -- an amphibious operation mounting an invasion of Taiwan itself -- is simply out of the question. China simply does not possess the vast military resources to mount the large-scale operation that such an invasion would require if it was to have any chance of success.

But in the last six weeks since Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui upset China by pointing out that he led a legitimate government, not a renegade province, there have been numerous hints, once again nearly always on the basis of "unnamed Beijing sources", that China might show its displeasure by capturing one or more of Taiwan's off-shore islands.

Taiwan island itself lies one hundred miles from China's coast at the narrowest point. Invasion would require a massive D-Day- style operation which is beyond China's present capability. But the offshore islands are those which the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan still holds on the People's Republic of China (PRC)'s side of the Taiwan Straits, often within sight of the China coast.

Two of these islands are well known since they were the issue in earlier Taiwan Straits crises in 1954-1955, 1958 and 1962. They were also a major dispute in the 1960 presidential campaign and debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, when Kennedy started out by dismissing the islands as indefensible, while Nixon insisted they must remain part of the free world.

One of those islands was Quemoy, now often referred to as Kinmen, within sight of the Chinese city of Xiamen. The other is Matsu, much further north but also very close to the coast of China's Fujian province.

During the 1950s there were several times when a PRC invasion of these two ROC islands threatened. On one occasion the U.S. Navy intervened to ensure that Quemoy and Matsu were kept supplied. For nearly twenty years, the artillery of both sides continued to shell the other, latterly in a ritualistic manner, as one side did the shelling on even days and the other on the odd days.

As it happened, last Monday Aug. 23, the Taiwan Minister of National Defense Tang Fei burned incense and placed wreaths at the Tawu Mountain Cemetery on Quemoy. He, plus other dignitaries and relatives of those killed, were commemorating the 41st anniversary of a day in the 1958 Straits crisis when the barrage was very real and China's artillery rained no less than 57,000 shells on the Quemoy islands in one two-hour period.

In little-noticed remarks, at the ceremony Tang hoped that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would never again engage in shelling and hoped that future cross-Strait differences would be resolved with patience and wisdom.

Quemoy and Matsu became well known, but there are evidently many more islands and islets held by the ROC on the PRC side of the Straits, with some sources saying as many as 80. (That figure may, however, include the Penghu Islands much nearer to the coast of Taiwan).

Some of these offshore islands are uninhabited and so could probably be repossessed by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at virtually no military cost.

Quemoy and Matsu, with their well-trained garrisons, would be another matter altogether. While they may not be as heavily defended as in times past, they would almost certainly put up a stout defense unless there was a preemptive Taiwan decision to withdraw.

Such a defense could prove politically as well as militarily costly for China's PLA, especially if such operations could not be brought to a quick conclusion.

It is not generally known that, in mid-October 1949, a substantial number of PLA troops (Taiwan claims 10,000) did land on Quemoy but were defeated by the defenders.

Yet even if China was now successful in capturing one or several of these offshore islands, it can be questioned whether that is the kind of victory that China really needs or even wants. The islands of Matsu, Big Quemoy, Little Quemoy and all the others -- these are the islands which link Taiwan to "One China" (caps oo cc), whatever the official formulations being made in Taipei.

It has been precisely President Lee's unwillingness to continue with the fiction of One China, of which Taiwan is already a subordinate part, that has led to the current row. So if China goes ahead and grabs an offshore island or two, then it would severely undercut China's own One China argument.

Conversely, if Taiwan lost some of those offshore islands, many Taiwanese, in and outside the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, which ultimately seeks Taiwan independence, would have increased grounds for pressuring for the realization of that goal. Like candidate Kennedy in 1960, they would call for retreat from the rest of the offshore islands and the creation, in effect, of Two Chinas.

Put another way, if China grabbed those offshore islands because it wanted to "punish" Taiwan for abandoning the diplomatic theory of One China -- then that very punishment would help to bring about the end of the One China ideology. So even a quick military victory for China would probably mean a certain political defeat.

Additionally, the distinct possibility exists that once Taiwan territorially detached itself from the mainland as a result of China's military aggression, then some foreign nations would look again at the question of recognizing Taiwan as a separate entity.

Ironically, those unnamed communist sources who today hint at taking some offshore islands by force are forgetting the thoughts of Mao Zedong. Mao, it appears, clearly saw that if the United States succeeded in pressuring Taiwan to abandon the offshore islands, then the last link to One China would be broken, and Two Chinas would be the inevitable result.

As historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker points out "Mao therefore concluded that the recovery of the small (offshore) islands should await the return of Taiwan itself to Beijing's control and in his Oct. 6, 1958 'Message to Our Taiwan Compatriots' made this position clear."

Meanwhile, in a separate development, on Aug. 20, the administrative head of Quemoy county Chen Shui-tzai suggested that the island could be neutralized and made into a peace zone. This is not an original idea -- even former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles briefly advocated it in the 1950s.

What Chen appeared to have had in mind was that Quemoy should become a bridge linking Taiwan and China, once direct exchanges between the two were officially permitted.

As of now, Hong Kong still profits greatly from the fact that Taiwanese going to China, and Chinese going to Taiwan, have to transit through the territory or through Macau. Obviously, county chief Chen, so near but still so far from the China coast, would like to repatriate that trade.

But in the current crisis atmosphere aroused by China it is most unlikely that this will happen anytime soon.