Saturday, November 13, 1999
TAIPEI -- The president of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui, has embarked on a campaign that has two phases, first to urge President Clinton not to betray Taiwan and then to persuade the United States to favor Taiwan over China in the intensifying strife between them.
If compelled to make that choice, Clinton would find himself in a classic dilemma, forced to decide between the principle of self-determination and the demands of "realpolitik."
The first would prescribe siding with the Taiwanese so they could decide their own future while the second would prescribe an accommodation with China, the emerging power of Asia.
Conversations with Taiwanese officials, opposition politicians, scholars and Western representatives showed that President Clinton, more than Beijing, was the target in July when Lee abandoned the 25-year-old principle of "one China" in favor of what he called "special state-to-state relations" between Taiwan and China.
That maneuver was a delayed response to Clinton's statement in China in June 1998, when Clinton appeared to accept Beijing's claim to sovereignty over Taiwan. Before that, the U.S. had acknowledged only that both sides claimed the island. Beijing was elated.
Taipei was dejected but Lee began a deliberate, secret process to determine how to dissuade Clinton from his position. That effort included dispatching an envoy to Germany to consult with former Chancellor Helmut Kohl about how West Germany had handled relations with East Germany before the Berlin Wall was demolished in 1989.
Kohl emphasized to the envoy that a key to working relations and to getting American and international support was to negotiate only on a basis of equality in "state-to-state relations," a stratagem that Lee adopted.
Lee's second move was an article in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, which has been used before to deliver public messages between political leaders. Lee pressed his case by asserting it is "pernicious fiction to assert that the People's Republic of China has any right or imperative to claim sovereignty over Taiwan."
Andrew Yang, secretary general of the Council of Advanced Policy Studies, which often reflects the thinking of Lee's ruling party, said, "President Lee wants the Americans to make a choice between China and Taiwan. You are facing a very important choice in the very near future."
LEE laid out that choice in Foreign Affairs: "Taiwan is already a full-fledged democracy, while the Chinese mainland remains under authoritarian rule. Taiwan has long been a market economy; the Chinese mainland is mostly a planned economy closely controlled by the state."
These moves are the latest in an effort that started in 1991 in which Lee has taken incremental steps intended to have Taiwan recognized as an independent nation and his administration as the legitimate government of the nation, despite PRC claims that Taiwan is a province of China.
The current round began in June 1998, when Clinton said during a visit to Shanghai, "We don't support independence for Taiwan, or two Chinas, or one Taiwan-one China. And we don't believe that Taiwan should be a member of any organization for which statehood is a requirement." That was widely seen as acquiescing to Beijing's claim to Taiwan.
To figure out a response, Lee convened a group of advisers who deliberated out of the public eye for several months; the envoy to Kohl reported back late in 1998. But Lee, who often keeps his own counsel, was silent about his intentions as he watched relations between Washington and Beijing slide downhill last winter.
ALLEGATIONS of Chinese spying on U.S. nuclear laboratories, accusations of illicit contributions to the Democratic Party, and botched negotiations over China's entry into the World Trade Organization soured relations between Washington and Beijing. When the United States accidentally bombed China's embassy in Belgrade in May, relations hit bottom.
Meantime, Lee learned that President Jiang Zemin of China planned a strong statement during the PRC's celebration of its 50th anniversary on Oct. 1. He would note that Britain's colony in Hong Kong had been returned in 1997 and Portugal's colony in Macau would be returned in December this year. Taiwan would be next.
Lee decided to deliver his response to Clinton and to preempt Jiang with the same stroke. In an interview with a German correspondent on July 9, Lee uttered his "special state to state" formula. That was followed by Su Chi, chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council that effects policy toward Beijing, who said the "one China" policy was invalid.
In response, Beijing hurled invective at Lee and threatened to use military force against Taiwan unless Lee recanted. Then the earthquake in September, which killed more than 2,200 people, caused Beijing to calm down.
Lee's words in July and November were also aimed at Japan, other Asian nations, and at international leagues such as the WTO, World Health Organization, and the United Nations, into which Taiwan seeks entry. Lee appealed in Foreign Affairs to governments around the world to revise their "perceptions of what has taken place on Taiwan," especially in democracy, and to accord Taiwan "the international status and role it deserves."
Richard Halloran, a former Asia correspondent for the
New York Times, is a writer based in Honolulu.
