negating non-intervention

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Michael Pollak wrote:

>Not to sound like George Friedman, but my pet fear, I have to admit, is
>not intervention so much as heightened military tensions with China.  If
>Rice has an idea in her head, it's that: contain China.  China also
>happens to be the one country in the world that could actually threaten us
>with missiles that could actually be stopped.

*****   Since 1994, the Clinton administration's "China Policy" has 
gradually revealed clear political orientation, namely engagement and 
enlargement, more simply referred to as a policy of engagement.<15> 
The fundamental premise is that the Beijing regime is daily becoming 
a more powerful and less stable non status-quo country.  Given the 
present Asia-Pacific security environment and structural situation 
built upon hegemonic stability and collective self-defense, the 
United States has the best chance of bringing China into regional and 
international society as a country satisfied with the status quo if 
it can broaden the range of exchange with China and provide 
sufficient incentives.

The term "engagement" has already become something of a magic word in 
U.S.-China bilateral relations, setting the direction and content of 
current relations between the two countries as they develop.  In 
American policy pronouncements and security research regarding East 
Asia and China, phrases related to engagement are often almost too 
numerous to count: conditioned engagement, constructive engagement, 
comprehensive engagement, pragmatic engagement, and so on.  Based on 
the Clinton administration's engagement and enlargement policy, the 
United States and China have opened a so-called "strategic dialogue," 
systematizing mutual official visits by the two heads of state, 
members of the American Congress, and other high-level officials, 
while strengthening military dialogue and transparency on issues of 
economics, trade, culture, and security.  Though the policy of 
engagement has been the official language in describing the 
U.S.-China relationship, it is impossible for the U.S. and China to 
bury their considerable strategic differences and build a 
relationship of "strategic partners."<16>  Therefore, Republican 
presidential candidate George W. Bush criticized the current policy 
of constructive engagement and used the term "strategic competitors" 
to describe the current U.S.-China relationship.  However, even the 
new term still implies certain elements of engagement between the two 
countries, as David Shambaugh points out that "[t]he current state of 
strategic relations between the U.S. and China is, in fact, mixed - 
with elements of cooperation and competition.  There remains an 
opportunity for the United States and its allies and security 
partners to work to establish a strategic relationship that enhances 
the elements of cooperation with China."<17>

One of the recent examples of U.S.-China military engagement bears 
noting here.  Following the bombing of the Chinese embassy in 
Belgrade by American warplanes, China halted all exchanges and 
engagement of a military nature with the United States.  This 
moratorium held until the two countries completed an agreement 
regarding China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 
November 1999; only then did Beijing agree to carry out joint 
military exercises in the waters off Hong Kong.  These exercises have 
shown that even though military exchange and engagement between the 
United States and China is still limited to initial mutual 
confidence-building measures, the two countries have so far been able 
to make the exercises practical and not simply a matter of formality. 
<http://taiwansecurity.org/TS/Yang-1000.htm>   *****

>Protecting Taiwan, which
>has warmed the cockles of the right since before the cold war, is the only
>part of that war still left. They'd love to put a sea-based missile shield
>around it, i.e., around China.

*****   As far as the executive branch of the American government is 
concerned, Taiwan's strategic importance now is no longer what it was 
at the beginning of the Cold War, and U.S. economic interests in 
Taiwan are now subsumed by those of the so-called Greater China 
economic circle.  Congress and American domestic public opinion, 
however, regard Taiwan's democratization as a concrete realization of 
American values.  Add to this the diplomatic efforts expended by 
Taiwan toward the United States, and it becomes clear that any ruling 
political party in the United States will have to focus on 
maintaining the importance of Taiwan's security and stable 
cross-straits relations.  This is why U.S. presidential candidates 
across the board almost unanimously promise to strengthen relations 
with Taiwan and guarantee its security during any given presidential 
election.  Yet making Taiwan's security a high priority does not 
necessarily mean sending troops to the island's defense.  Thus most 
newly elected American presidents quickly abandon their strong 
campaign rhetoric, and settle for emphasizing a formulaic policy of 
peaceful resolution to the cross-straits problem.

As a result, in the current U.S.-led Asia-Pacific security 
environment, "peace" and "self-defense" are two basic principles of 
cross-straits relations and Taiwan security.  Key to the idea of 
"peace" is peace of the status quo.  Thus "peaceful resolution" is 
nothing more than a policy expectation; maintaining the peace and 
security of the status quo, though, is still important.  As Andrew 
Nathan argues, that "the United States has no vested interest in the 
outcome of the Taiwan issue so long as the resolution is arrived at 
peacefully."<11>   <http://taiwansecurity.org/TS/Yang-1000.htm> 
*****

>And as the last couple of years have
>shown, anti-China feelings can easily warm the popular heart as well.

Yes, but not as easily as ideologues hope.  Most Americans probably 
yawned when they heard the news of the "Chinese nuclear spy"; they 
didn't give a damn about the PNTR question either.

Popular sentiments may change if a coming recession ends in a hard 
landing, however.

Yoshie