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World Tibet Network News Monday, April 16, 2001

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6. Spy Plane Episode Sharpens Debate Over Taiwan Arms (NYT)

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By MICHAEL R. GORDON The New York Times
Sunday April 15 01:33 AM EDT

China is warning the United States that a sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan
would endanger relations that have already been strained by the spy-plane
collision.

SHANGHAI, April 14 As President Bush nears a decision on which arms to provide
to Taiwan, China is warning that a sale of advanced weapons would endanger
relations that have already been strained by the spy-plane collision.

"Arms sales to Taiwan are the biggest issue in our relations with the U.S.," Sha
Zukang, the senior official in charge of arms control for the Foreign Ministry,
said in an interview this week. "If the United States does not behave well, it
may destroy our relations."

China understands that it cannot stop all of the potential sales. So it is
concentrating on stopping three systems Aegis-equipped destroyers, Patriot PAC-3
antimissile systems and submarines or at least delaying them as long as
possible.

And China is hoping that the imbroglio over the collision of an American spy
plane and a Chinese fighter will ultimately make Washington more receptive to
its concerns.

But for now, relations have chilled. Today, a spokeswoman for China's Foreign
Ministry called recent American statements "irresponsible." She said top
American officials continue to "confuse right and wrong." [Page 10.]

The main issue now is not one of semantics, of whether Washington's statement
that it was "very sorry" about the loss of a Chinese pilot's life and the
landing of the Navy plane in China without permission constituted a formal
apology. It is whether the episode has made Washington more sensitive to China's
sense of sovereignty and security, or whether the Bush administration is
determined to make China sorry that it ever detained the crew.

A team of Taiwan officials is coming to Washington to hear the verdict on the
arms sales in just 10 days. And even given China's decision to free the crew of
the Navy EP-3E reconnaissance plane, Washington and Beijing seem headed on a
political collision course.

Even as he emphasized that China wanted smoother relations with Washington, Mr.
Sha portrayed the Bush administration's foreign policy as reckless and
surprisingly erratic for a team that came to office with a reputation for
professionalism.

"With the Russians, with the Koreans, with the Palestinians, with the Kyoto
protocols, right now with this kind of incident and the bombing of Iraq, my
gosh, we really don't know what they are up to now," he said. "They create such
a mess. I don't see that this is a responsible way to do the job. Very funny. We
have been told seasoned experienced people will come."

And Douglas Paal, a former National Security Council aide for Asia during the
administration of President Bush's father, said many in Washington are inclined
to see the relationship more as a test of wills than as an lesson in how to
overcome cultural misunderstandings.

"Attitudes at the top of the U.S. government have hardened as a result of this
episode," Mr. Paal said. "The political spectrum has palpably drifted right
regarding China."

China has a long history of resisting colonial powers, and the air collision
showed deep-seated Chinese anxiety about protecting its sovereignty and about
the presence of foreign militaries near its borders.

Both are at play in the Taiwan debate. Having reclaimed Hong Kong and Macau, and
having allowed them to flourish under a capitalist system, China's next
objective is to provide for the eventual reunification of Taiwan, an island of
23 million that became a redoubt of anti-Communism after the Chinese civil war
and now has a democratically elected government.

Chinese officials insist that they want a peaceful reunification but are deadly
serious about using force should Taiwan declare independence, which they fear
would not only mean the loss of Chinese territory but would also encourage
secessionist movements in Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang in western China.

So Chinese specialists say Beijing's strategy is to scare Taiwan from
proclaiming its independence and forestall the need for military action. The 300
short-range ballistic missiles China has deployed within striking distance of
Taiwan the Russian-made Sovremenny destroyers, Kilo-class submarines and SU-27
and SU-30 warplanes are a force for stability, they insist.

"China chooses to build up its armed forces to deter Taiwan's drift toward
independence," said Shen Dingli, the deputy director of the Center for American
Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "I believe that as long as Taiwan will
not openly seek independence, it is in the mainland's interest not to use force
to achieve national unification."

The sale of advanced American weapons, the Chinese contend, would be
destabilizing since it might persuade Taiwan that it can stand up to China's
military and also would violate the 1982 American-Chinese communiqué; in that,
Washington promised not to increase the quality and quantity of its arms to
Taiwan and even to reduce them over time.

For China, the sale of Aegis- equipped destroyers represents the greatest
threat, even though it could take eight years or more for the ships to be built
and integrated into Taiwan's fleet. The Aegis, they say, might eventually serve
as a platform for a regional missile defense.

The Chinese have similar worries about the sale of the Patriot PAC-3 antimissile
batteries, and they also believe that the sale of submarines would give Taiwan
an offensive punch. More generally, Beijing is worried that sophisticated
weapons could usher in a new level of cooperation between Washington and Taiwan.

"Any arms sale is bad, and Aegis is the worst," Mr. Sha said. "The sale of Aegis
or PAC-3 would imply a pseudo-kind of resumption of a military alliance. That
would damage the very basis on which we established diplomatic relations."

The steady growth of Chinese forces, however, is viewed very differently by
Washington, whose global reach is increasingly bringing it into conflict with
China.

After the cold war, United States interests began turning away from Europe, and
China was no longer needed as a counterweight to Moscow. In fact, Beijing is
getting most of its advanced arms from Russia.

As China's military power expands, Washington has worried about whether Beijing
will adhere to the principle that a reunification with Taiwan will occur only by
peaceful means.

When China test-fired short-range missiles near Taiwan in 1996 as a show of
force, the United States dispatched two aircraft carriers to the east coast of
the island in response.

Clinton administration officials urged Beijing to limit its deployment of
short-range missiles near Taiwan, saying such a step could reduce the need for
United States arms sales to Taiwan. China was not interested.

"How to deploy our missiles, our destroyers, our fleet, our aircraft, that is
our business," Mr. Sha said. "You cannot negotiate a sovereign right."

China's buildup has unnerved Taiwan. Taiwan's leaders are unclear as to what the
island's ultimate status should be. Many Taiwanese with long roots on the island
favor maintaining the fuzzy status quo as the next-best thing to independence.
Many others on the island, whose families came from China, want to gradually
negotiate formal links if China becomes more democratic.

Both camps in Taiwan believe the island needs a stronger military and close ties
with the American military to resist a direct Chinese threat.

"Some want to use the ties with the U.S. to continue to resist reunification,"
said Wei Yung, a professor of political science at National Chiao Tung
University in Taipei. "Others want American support for leverage to get a better
deal with the mainland on unification or integration."

Arms sales are not a magic answer for Taiwan. Its armed forces have a range of
deficiencies, including a shortage of pilots and lackluster military budgets,
that buying big- ticket weapons will not solve.

But with China building up its forces, the sale of new weapons is part of the
answer. And Taiwan has submitted a lengthy request for arms. In the area of
naval forces, it has asked for four Aegis-equipped destroyers, P-3 antisubmarine
planes and diesel submarines.

In terms of air-to-surface missiles, Taiwan has requested the HARM antiradiation
missiles that can home in on the radars of surface ships and on air defense
batteries on the Chinese mainland. And it has asked for JDAMS satellite-guided
munitions, the type of weapon used in the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade during the Kosovo war.

Taiwan has also requested M-1 tanks and Apache helicopters, equipped with the
Longbow missile. Those requests say more about the influence of the army within
Taiwan's armed forces than the island's military needs.

As for the Patriot PAC-3 system, Taiwan has not yet formally asked to buy it
because the development of its interceptor has yet to be completed. Taiwan
already has several batteries of the less capable Patriot PAC-2, which are
deployed near Taipei.

Given the broad range of requests, the Bush administration has a large menu to
choose from in making its decision.

Before the air collision, State Department officials reportedly opposed the
immediate sale of the Aegis, while Pentagon officials favored it. But even some
Taiwan officials say that the Aegis has been endowed with too much political
importance. Taiwan's foreign minister, Dr. Tien Hung-mao, indicated in an
interview that Taiwan would be prepared to defer the Aegis purchase for a year
if it was linked to a demand that China restrain its military buildup.

As a stopgap and a potential steppingstone for the possible delivery of the
Aegis almost a decade from now, the administration has been promoting the sale
of Kidd-class destroyers, among an array of other weapons

China's blustery campaign against the arms sale and its detention of the crew
may color the sales decision.

"Beijing tried to send a message," said Andrew Yang, one of Taiwan's leading
political analysts. "They played hardball and think they won a victory. But
tactically and strategically they have miscalculated

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Articles in this Issue:

1. From Our Correspondent: An End to the Karmapa Standoff? (AW)
2. Teenage Tibetan Monks in Battle for Black Hat
3. Truth About 1924 Expedition Sought (AP)
4. Tibetan Official Meets US Diplomat (PD)
5. GPS Technology Applied in Qinghai-Tibet Railway Survey (PD)
6. Spy Plane Episode Sharpens Debate Over Taiwan Arms (NYT)

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