China's Available Military Options and its Relations with the U.S.
August 16, 1999
SUMMARY
Last week saw an intense campaign by China to warn anyone who would
listen that it was going to take some sort of military action against
Taiwan. We tend to believe them. We do not think that there will be an
invasion, but several other military options present themselves. Given
the public threats it has made, China must take some action. Beijing's
credibility is now on the line. The United States says that it will
intervene, while simultaneously claiming that China will not take
action. On Saturday, a U.S. State Department official met with the
Dalai Lama, China's mortal enemy. The U.S. is now committed to
defending Taiwan, having said on record that the Chinese are bluffing
and having publicly met with the Dalai Lama in the middle of all of
this. China believes that the United States is trying to "Kosovo" it.
Meanwhile, Johnny Chung is saying that the Democrats Counsel on the
Government Reform and Oversight Committee gave him advice on how to
take the Fifth Amendment. Things are, as they say, getting
interesting.
ANALYSIS
China launched an intense and very public campaign last week designed
to convince the world in general - and Taiwan and the U.S. in
particular - that it intends to take military action against Taiwan in
response to its stance on statehood. Newspapers throughout the world
were filled with reports of statements made by Chinese diplomats and
journalists to the effect that China was committed to taking military
action against Taiwan in order to punish it. The Communist Party
newspaper in Hong Kong reported, for example, that the "military
situation was a lot more serious than what the outside world was aware
of," and that China had identified 200 military targets on Taiwan.
Troops were ostentatiously put on alert. Chinese warnings of
inevitable military action against Taiwan were delivered to the U.S.
as well.
We take these warnings seriously. We are reminded that many years ago,
just prior to China's intervention in the Korean War, Chinese
diplomats and journalists delivered warnings in several venues about
the consequences of UN forces moving close to the Yalu. Moreover,
given the level of public visibility that the Chinese have given to
their warning, it will be difficult for China not to act.
As we stated last week, we do not think that an invasion of Taiwan
itself is possible at the moment. Therefore, the question is what sort
of military options are available to China?
One option, already discussed by us has apparently been floated by
Chinese officials, is the seizure of two islands, Quemoy and Matsu,
that are just off the mainland of China but are controlled by Taiwan.
The islands were frequently shelled and threatened during the Cold
War. Their seizure would be a high-profile, low-risk operation within
the amphibious capabilities of China.
A second strategy (or additional dimension to the Quemoy/Matsu move)
is the launching of rockets and missiles against Taiwan. Such an
attack could consist of anything from a symbolic attack with a small
number of missiles against an unpopulated area, to an all-out attack
against Taiwan's air and naval forces designed to reduce Taiwan's
ability to defend itself against a follow-on amphibious assault. Now,
there are two risks to this strategy. The first is in its
effectiveness. As the U.S. discovered in Kosovo, there are limits to
the effectiveness of air campaigns. To attack and fail is worse then
not to attack at all. There is also the risk of Taiwan or U.S.
counterstrikes against Chinese installations. If these were effective,
the net effect of the campaign on China's strategic position would be
disastrous. How confident is China in its aerospace forces?
A third option is a campaign against Taiwan's shipping. A full
blockade is not possible, but intermittent attacks against merchant
vessels (recall the tanker wars in the Persian Gulf) might be possible
using missiles, as well as aircraft and submarines to carry out direct
attacks and lay mines. The problem with this strategy is that it could
strike at the shipping of third powers, such as Europeans. In
addition, Taiwan and the U.S. could retaliate by striking at
China-bound shipping and mining China's ports. In a geographical
sense, China is somewhat more vulnerable in this strategy than Taiwan.
We should add here that If the U.S. participated in such a blockade of
China, the ability of the Chinese to create problems at the Panama
Canal would suddenly become an important variable.
Each action has the possibility of a dangerous reaction. China must
measure its actions against reactions. Chinese newspapers were full of
bravado in the past week. Declaring victory before the war is
dangerous, particularly when China cannot know whether they face
Taiwan alone or the United States as well. The U.S. did everything it
could last week to convince China that the U.S. was on auto-pilot in
its Taiwan policy. If Taiwan were attacked, the United States would
respond. U.S. Naval officers in the region made it clear that they
were prepared, in position and capable of dealing with any Chinese
threat. At the same time, in a move intended to infuriate China, a
U.S. State Department official met with the Dalai Lama of Tibet in New
York. Both the Taiwan and U.S. officials stated that it was their view
that China would take no action. National Security Council spokesman
David Leavy stated, "It's the United States government's judgment that
there aren't any extraordinary developments or signs that there is a
mobilization on the PRC's [People's Republic of China] part." The
official U.S. view, publicly stated, is that China is bluffing and
that its carefully circulated reports of mobilization and inevitable
action are untrue.
There are three possible explanations for what is going on:
1: U.S. intelligence has information that China not only can't invade
Taiwan but that it cannot take any effective military action.
Alternatively, the U.S. may be reading China as having the capability
but being unwilling to use it. U.S. intelligence may have information
that this really is a bluff.
2: The U.S. would welcome Chinese military action as an opportunity
for a devastating counterstroke against China. It is engaged in an
extensive strategy, going back to the bombing of the Chinese Embassy
in Belgrade, designed to provoke China into a rash military move for
which the U.S. is poised and ready.
3: There is a massive disconnect between Washington and Beijing
concerning the others' concerns, contentions and capabilities. This
sort of disconnect has happened numerous times before in U.S.-Chinese
relations. It may be happening again.
We choose number three. Let's look at the world from China's point of
view. U.S. action in Kosovo was a critical breaking point for them.
The U.S. had previously worked on a principle established in Haiti and
Somalia that it had the right to intervene militarily in sovereign
nations on humanitarian grounds. Embedded in that principle was the
idea that it would do so with the support of the international
community, meaning that there would be essential concurrence or at
least neutrality in the members of the Security Council. In Kosovo,
this was not the case. The U.S. intervened in the face of open
opposition from two Security Council members, China and Russia. In
Kosovo, the U.S. established the new principle that through NATO, it
could intervene unilaterally into the internal affairs of a sovereign
state and partition the country. Furthermore, should another country,
even China, use its facilities to provide support for the targeted
country, the U.S. was prepared to take direct military action even
against their embassy.
This told China two things. First, that the U.S. now regarded itself
as an independent arbiter of the fate of nations. Second, that China
would not be treated differently in any way from Serbia or Somalia.
After Kosovo, China saw itself in the cross-hairs of U.S. policy, for
several reasons:
1: China has two regional insurrections of varying levels underway.
One is among the Moslem population of Xinjiang province; the other is
in Tibet. China sees the U.S. as encouraging these insurrections.
Having established the precedent of invading Serbia on behalf of the
rights of the Kosovo Albanians, China sees the U.S. as having also,
logically, asserted the right to intervene in Tibet and Xinjiang if it
chooses.
2: Directly in the wake of the Kosovo crisis, Taiwan broke with fifty
years of precedent by declaring itself a separate state. China is
convinced that Taiwan would not have done this without tacit American
approval. They see the U.S. promise to defend Taiwan after the
declaration as proof of this proposition. This follows from the Kosovo
doctrine as well: the U.S. has the right to redefine the boundaries of
nations for moral or humanitarian reasons.
3: The U.S. harbored the leader of Falun Gong in New York. In Chinese
dynastic history, numerous insurrections have originated with
apparently apolitical sects generating hostility to the regime. In
fact, the Chinese are setting up a campaign against a new group, Xiang
Gong, which is said to have 30 million members. The Chinese government
does not regard the rise of internal opposition as accidental.
4: China sees the U.S. as taking advantage of China's economic
problems. This weekend, China's official People's Daily wrote, "An
appropriate adjustment in the exchange rate may after all be a policy
option if imports significantly exceed exports and push up a trade
deficit." China is still in economic trouble.
Regimes cannot afford to appear to be weak, particularly when they
are. The issue here is how Beijing appears to the Chinese masses. That
means that quiet diplomacy that wouldn't give Beijing a public victory
is not going to happen. China sees the U.S. as having put into place
policies that, if followed logically, would result in U.S.
participation in the fragmentation of China. The one legacy of Mao
that all Chinese value is that he eliminated the foreign domination
and fragmentation of China that had existed for a century. Deng's
promise was that he could retain Chinese sovereignty while easing
China back into the international economic system. China is undergoing
the great test of Deng's doctrine: can China retain its unity,
territorial integrity and sovereignty while in economic decline, or
will that decline generate disunity, fragmentation and a loss of
sovereignty?
The central problem is this. The U.S. did far more than save the
Albanians. It redefined the region's geopolitics. This affected not
only Serbia, but all countries surrounding Serbia. It drew countries
like Bulgaria deep into the U.S. orbit at severe geopolitical cost to
the Russians. The intention of Kosovo might have been limited. The
outcome of Kosovo was a profound shift in regional alignments.
Further, China has come to see U.S. peacekeeping operations as covers
for expanding U.S. power. It also sees Kosovo as a blueprint for such
operations elsewhere in the world, including China. It sees the
bombing of the Chinese Embassy as a clear signal that the U.S. no
longer distinguishes China from Haiti, Somalia or Serbia.
Whether or not the U.S. intends to expand the Kosovo doctrine to China
is immaterial. The Chinese view is that every U.S. move signals that
the U.S. has a national interest in influencing human rights issues
within China's boundaries. China must assume that the U.S. intends to
carry that policy to its logical conclusion. If Taiwan is prepared to
assert state sovereignty and the U.S. is prepared to defend that
assertion militarily, then the U.S. is now prepared to redraw the map
of China as it did the map of Serbia.
China cannot permit that. It cannot now invade Taiwan, but it can take
other measures. It must do something to retain its credibility. A man
in Jiang Zemin's position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous.
Now, there is a complicating issue. Johnny Chung, fund raiser for the
Clinton campaign, has just stated that he received advice from the
Counsel for the Democratic minority on the Government Reform and
Oversight Committee prior to his testimony. The advice was about
taking the Fifth Amendment prior to congressional testimony. One does
not have to be Woodward and Bernstein to know that something stinks
here. Clinton has a major China problem. That problem will drive him
to be rigid and inflexible in order to protect himself from the charge
of being a pawn of China.
Now, are the military options for the U.S? The U.S. is far from
helpless against China, but there are clear limits to its ability to
engage China on its own terrain. China is not Serbia. Its ability to
project forces is limited; its ability to operate defensively is not.
Moreover, U.S. forces are scattered around the world. They are still
carrying out air strikes in Iraq under some policy no one can quite
remember. Aircraft and crews are being overhauled and rested from
Kosovo. Korea is perennially unstable. Draw downs in budgets are
showing themselves in countless ways.
Neither China nor the U.S. is ready for an extended and indecisive
encounter over Taiwan. It is not clear, however, that the Chinese are
in a position to avoid some action. It seems to us that Bill Clinton
cannot avoid responding. The danger here is not a short series of
unimportant counterstrokes, rapidly passing into history. The danger
is that both sides will get tangled in an extended, inconclusive and
bloody confrontation. We cannot help but think of the air crews
patrolling Iraqi airspace this weekend, eight years after Desert
Storm. Decoupling from foreign adventures is not the American strong
point. Ignoring challenges to national sovereignty is not the Chinese
strong point.
China thinks the U.S. wants to "Kosovo" it, to coin a term. The U.S.
knows this is ridiculous. The meeting with the Dalai Lama was a
courtesy. The Falun Gong leader's presence in New York was a
coincidence. Taiwan never consulted the U.S. on its sovereignty
statement. The U.S. has nothing to do with shipping arms into
Xinjiang. Bombing the Chinese Embassy was an accident. It has occurred
to no one in Washington to take advantage of China's economic
problems.
We're convinced. Now, somebody better tell the Chinese.
© 1998, 1999 Stratfor, Inc. All rights reserved.