Sixty years of Washington-Beijing-Taipei Relations
1. Strategic Ambiguity in Historical Perspective
1.5 F-16 Arms sales and Taiwan Strait crisis
In return, the Chinese envoy suggested that both parties signed a “three stops” agreement (三停 止) that would prevent military, commercial or political confrontations, and hold direct negotia-tions on the unification question.
1.5 F-16 Arms sales and Taiwan Strait crisis
U.S. President George H. W. Bush’s decision of selling 150 advanced aircrafts (F-16) to Taiwan in September 1992 had serious consequences to cross-strait relations, as well as Sino-American relations throughout the 1990s.
The decision itself lied in the President uphill battle for re-election in 1992 and the importance of the State of Texas, where General Dynamics produced the advanced F-16 fighters that Tai-wan had been seeking to buy for a decade.27
According to Alan D. Romberg, however, the decision itself was highly political as it changed ten years of American policy towards Taiwan. “The political dimension of the sale was clearly manifest in the decision to build new planes over a period of several years, rather than immedi-ately supply existing aircrafts, even as a temporary measure, to fill any alleged fighter gap.”28 The consequences were as follow. Following the F-16 sale, Washington and Beijing both lost a measure of confidence in the commitments previously made. The Chinese saw the U.S. treating the August 17 strictures as disdain – since whatever American commitment to China, Washing-ton could carry on with a sale anyway – while WashingWashing-ton felt that it could “get away with”
such behavior – since China “had little choice.”29
The F-16 sale had also an important consequence on Taiwan’s mainland China policy as it bol-stered Lee Teng-hui’s position in any future negotiations with China.30 Although Lee’s success-ful secret diplomacy strategy led to the important “unofficial” meetings between the PRC and ROC senior public figures, Wang Daohan (汪道涵) and Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) in Singapore in April 1993, the very foundations of Taiwan-China relationship were also shaken.31
27 James Mann, Op. Cit., p. 254.
28 Alan D. Romberg, Op. Cit., p. 151.
29 Ibid., p. 153.
30 James Mann, Op. Cit., p. 254.
31 For a discussion on the Koo-Wang meeting of April 1992, see Huang Tian-cai [黃天才], “Longing for the river to clear and create a win-win situation” [期盼雙贏俟河之清] in Plum Flower Overcome Winter Cold:
Koo Zhen-nan Memoirs [勁寒梅香：辜振南人生紀實] (Taipei: 聯經 [Linking Group], 2005), pp. 270-283.
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Beijing’s response to the F-16 arm sales came without delay in August 1993, with the PRC’s first Taiwan White paper. The document was directly related to the American decision to sell the warplanes to Taiwan. It also aimed at Taipei’s “pragmatic diplomacy” campaign to increase its international space both in bilateral relations with other countries and in broader international community.32
Also, Clinton’s China policy review of September 1994, designed to fine tune the ground rules governing day-to-day dealings with Taiwan, was another milestone on the impact of Washing-ton’s strategic ambiguity on the cross-strait stalemate. The review further suggested to increase dialogue between Taipei and Washington as the U.S. aimed to work “more actively” to support Taiwan’s participation in international organizations — the United States would still withhold support for Taiwan’s membership in organizations such the United Nations (UN), which admits only states.
The review also made clear that the arms sales to Taiwan, based on requirements of the TRA and on adherence to the 1982 Communiqué were to continue, while Taiwan’s top leaders — that is the president, vice-president, premier and vice-premier were allowed “normal transits” in the United States. But, no public activities were allowed to the top leadership during their transit.33 According to Alan D. Romberg, “Clinton administration [still] strongly opposed attempts by the Congress to legislate visits by top leaders of the Republic of China to the United States.”34 The scholar quotes Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord as saying that “such legislation would remove one of the most important commitments at the highest levels of the U.S. government over many administrations.”35
But it was already too late. Lee Teng-hui was determined to overturn the U.S. administration’s position. He then orchestrated a broad-based, well-financed campaign not only in Congress but also throughout the United States to allow him to visit his Alma matter University in 1995.
Through the help of the Washington Lobby firm Cassidy and Associates, Lee was awarded a visa, which President Clinton endorsed on May 22, 1995, just eight months after the release of the Taiwan policy review.
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Following President Lee Teng-hui’s Cornell visit in June 1995, Beijing undertook various ac-tions which all displayed its strong disagreement with Washington. China also recalled its am-bassador in Washington and conducted significant military exercises involving missiles launch-es and live-fire tlaunch-ests in August 1995 and March 1996.
1.6 ‘Three noes’ policy vs. ‘State-to-state’ theory
In the round-up to the Clinton-Jiang October 1997 meeting, where Washington and Beijing tried to mend their differences following Lee Teng-hui’s visit to Cornell University. Beijing success-fully pressed for a comprehensive statement of U.S. policy toward Taiwan.
Washington then announced publicly, officially, and for the first time that it did not support Taiwan independence.36 At the same time, Washington also emphasized that it is important for the U.S. that the issue between China and Taiwan be resolved peacefully.
Later, in Shanghai in June 1998, Clinton reaffirmed the past principles of U.S. policy and as-serted that the United States does not support “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan,” it does not support Taiwan independence, and, it does not support Taiwan’s membership in internation-al organizations for which statehood is a prerequisite.37
Even tough the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were able to move forward with an informal round of Koo-Wang talks in October 1998, in Shanghai, Lee Teng-hui made an important statement regarding the ROC-PRC relationship in July 1999. He stated that since the amend-ments of the ROC constitution in 1991, the ROC-PRC relationship was of a “state-to-state” na-ture, which set off another hail of recriminations in China.38
“ If peace and stability are to be maintained in the Taiwan Strait area, the perceptions underpinning policies involving Taipei and Beijing must be more firmly grounded in reality than in ideological wishful thinking. Only then can the international communi-ty faithfully take into account the full significance of democracy on Taiwan.”39
36 Wang Ming-yi [王銘義], Dialogue and Confrontation: Taiwan and China Political Bickering [對話輿對抗：
台灣輿中國的政治較量] (Taipei: Tian Xia Culture [天下文化], 2005), p. 210.
37 Richard C. Bush, Untying the Knot: Making peace in the Taiwan Strait (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2005), p. 247.
38 Alan D. Romberg, Op. Cit., p. 187.
39 Lee Teng-hui, Understanding Taiwan: Bridging the Perception Gap. Foreign Affairs (November/December 1999).
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國立 政 治 大 學