President Bill Clinton raised his hand to indicate no more questions as he and Chinese President Jiang Zemin held a joint news conference in 1997 in Washington, D.C. Clinton confirmed that he agreed to lift the export ban nuclear power technology to China.
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Joyce Naltchayan / AFP via Getty Images
President Bill Clinton raised his hand to indicate no more questions as he and Chinese President Jiang Zemin held a joint news conference in 1997 in Washington, D.C. Clinton confirmed that he agreed to lift the export ban nuclear power technology to China.
Joyce Naltchayan / AFP via Getty Images
SEOUL – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plane landed in Taiwan Tuesday night local time. Her visit has sparked warnings from mainland China, and the risk of a fourth crisis in the area known as the Taiwan Strait.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory, and the visit by Pelosi – the highest-ranking elected US official to visit the island since Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich 25 years ago – as a violation of its sovereignty. It also sees this as a violation of Washington’s commitment to the “one China policy”, which recognizes Beijing as China’s sole legitimate government.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi protests in Washington for a statement Third, say that their betrayal of China “on the Taiwan issue is undermining their national credibility.” Both the US and China have stepped up military activity in the region ahead of the visit, with China’s Eastern Theater Command begin joint air and sea operations in all directions around Taiwan minutes after Pelosi landed in Taipei.
How a crisis might unfold is still a matter of speculation, but it is unlikely to be unprecedented. In fact, this would be the fourth Taiwan Strait crisis, following similar incidents in 1954, 1958 and in the mid-1990s.
Protesters hold signs and banners outside the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel in Honolulu, where Chinese President Jiang Zemin attended a luncheon with the mayor of Honolulu in 1997. The protesters chanted “Taiwan Yes, China No” as the presidential motorcade passed.
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Protesters hold signs and banners outside the Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel in Honolulu, where Chinese President Jiang Zemin attended a luncheon with the mayor of Honolulu in 1997. The protesters chanted “Taiwan Yes, China No” as the presidential motorcade passed.
George F. Lee / AFP via Getty Images
Past crises “involve the same actors but the issues involved are somewhat different,” said the political scientist at the National University of Singapore. Ian Chong.
During the first conflict, shortly after the end of the Korean War, Beijing attempted to prevent the Eisenhower administration from signing a mutual defense treaty with KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek, who had fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war to Mao. The Communists of Zedong. The United States and Taiwan signed a defense treaty in 1954.
Meanwhile, the United States had been trying to prevent communist forces from seizing the Taiwan-held Kinmen and Mi islands just off China’s southeast coast, which were bombarded by Chinese artillery.
“But what they also wanted to do,” Chong said, “is to prevent Chiang Kai-shek from trying to retake the mainland” with a counterattack.
A second conflict resulted in more shelling of the islands in 1958. US Army planned The use of nuclear weapons against China to prevent a mainland takeover of the Kinmen and Tantric islands held by Taiwan, but President Dwight Eisenhower rejected the idea.
Finally, two settled fell into an uneasy stalemate, in which communists and nationalists shot each other on alternate days. This ritual of protecting the face continued intermittently for about two decades. US Secretary of State at that time was John Foster Dulles featured the bombardment alternated throughout the day as a propaganda ploy “psychological and designed to create the impression they [China] are the masters. “
Young militiamen from China’s collective Fengtai commune protesting US military aid to Taiwan, 1958.
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Young militiamen from China’s collective Fengtai commune protesting US military aid to Taiwan, 1958.
Keystone-France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
The third crisis broke out in 1995 for the President of Taiwan Lee Teng-hui’s visit his alma mater, Cornell University. The Clinton administration initially opposed the idea but was forced to abandon the congressional opinion Resolution to support the visit.
China has responded with months of military exercises, including launching missiles into the waters off Taiwan and rehearsing amphibious assaults on the island. Beijing views Mr. Lee’s visit to the US as another betrayal of Washington’s commitment to the “one China policy”.
Similarly, regarding Pelosi’s current visit to Taiwan, “Beijing believes that the US is gradually scrapping its one-China policy” and is trying to draw a line in the sand to deter Washington, saying Qi Ley, a military commentator in Taipei and the author of a book on the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.
Beijing’s military move was also intended to prevent Taiwanese voters from voting for Lee in the 1996 presidential election.
The plot backfired. The US has sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the waters near Taiwan. And Taiwanese voters chose Lee with a 54% majority, in the island’s first direct presidential election.
Susan Shirk, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state at the Office of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said: “The two sides are really excited and sober as they come close to a major military encounter. “. crisis. “And so both sides really put a lot of effort into putting a layer below the relationship to prevent that from happening again.”
Shirk, author of Overreachon US-China relations, added, “If China didn’t de-escalate, if they had responded, by attacking or harassing the aircraft carrier strike group – that would be very dangerous.”
The United States and China eventually stabilized relations, culminating in a high-level visit by then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin to the United States in 1997. However, the risk of a conflict between the United States, China and Taiwan are very high.
Now, a quarter of a century later, as the United States and China confront Taiwan again, relations between Washington and Beijing are far more strained than they were in 1996.
“You have this kind of mutually reinforcing dynamic going on between two parties, where they assume the worst of the other and they don’t believe what they’re saying,” Michael Swaine, director of the East Asia program at the Quincy Legislative Institute for Accountability. “It’s a kind of strategic rival that can easily get out of hand.”
Another thing this time, Chong noted, is China’s leader. Xi Jinping’s ambition, he said, is to complete the “rejuvenation of China” and restore the country to a dominant position in the region, including reunification with Taiwan.
Mr. Chong said: “Personally he is more attached to Taiwan policy than his predecessors. So anything that doesn’t go in the direction he wants could affect his position, or at least his reputation.”
And Mr. Xi commands a military far more powerful than China has possessed in any past crisis. That includes three aircraft carrier. Whether China will deploy them or not, with some US warships already maneuver around the area, is a difficult question to answer. Analysts say Beijing is both trying to project military might while avoiding provoking military escalation.
“If China lets Pelosi happen and doesn’t do anything, China risks looking weak, but at the same time, Mr. Xi really needs stability at the moment, and that’s why he is. nor really have the option of going to war, because war would be the biggest risk to stability,” Wen-Ti Sung, a professor of political science at the Australian National University. “Looks like he’s stuck in a bit of a Catch-22.”
And if anyone has learned from past crises in the Taiwan Strait, Chong said, it’s the people of Taiwan, who “seemed like nothing else” before the latest animations.
So if Beijing “wants to send a message” to an island that is increasingly unthreatened, Chong said, “it has to keep increasing its threat all the time, until it has to actually do it.” present that threat, or be deceived. called.”
