Taiwan conquest could be counterproductive

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.