Posted on: Sunday, August 8, 2004
THE RISING EAST
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By Richard Halloran
Amid a flurry of increasingly strident warnings from China over the fate of Taiwan, the commander of U.S. military forces in Asia and the Pacific has quietly cautioned the Chinese not to miscalculate American capabilities and intentions.
During a visit to Beijing, Adm. Thomas Fargo told Chinese political and military leaders that U.S. Pacific sea and air forces maintain a high state of readiness in contrast to the drain on ground troops from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers, sailors and Marines from the West Coast, Hawai'i, South Korea and Okinawa are either in the Pacific or on the way.
The admiral, according to U.S. officials, repeated President Bush's admonition that the United States expects neither China nor Taiwan to change the status quo either by force or unilaterally. In private but not in public, Fargo told the Chinese his command was prepared to use armed force to help defend Taiwan if the president so ordered.
In this running dispute, Beijing claims that the island off its coast belongs to China. Taiwan seeks to remain separated from China. Washington says the issue should be settled peacefully and with the assent of the Taiwanese.
Some Chinese scholars and military officers contend the United States will not help defend Taiwan.
In the past few months, Chinese leaders have repeatedly warned that they would launch an attack on Taiwan if the island nation's president, Chen Shui-bian, declared formal independence from China. The Chinese have asserted that their "one China" policy, with Taiwan submitting to Beijing, is the only solution to the issue.
Associated Press In this tension, Bush administration officials have not countered the Chinese in public, evidently because they are so preoccupied with Iraq.
There's not much new in the Chinese harangue except for its intensity. And the administration has no fresh ideas on China policy.
The immediate cause for Chinese belligerence are negotiations between Washington and Taipei over $18 billion worth of destroyers with advanced weapons, and diesel-electric submarines for use in the 120-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.
Missiles, including antimissile missiles intended to counter 550 Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan, would be in the package.
Bush has approved the sale, but Taiwan's legislature has yet to appropriate money and has been haggling over the cost. U.S. officials warn privately that Taiwan must do more to help itself if it is to retain American support and should not leave its defense to the United States.
Beijing's protests escalated last week when Chinese President Hu Jintao telephoned Bush to demand that the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan cease.
Hu told Bush the Taiwan issue was "very sensitive" and that China would "absolutely not tolerate Taiwan independence."
Earlier last month, the president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, got the same message when she visited Beijing. The Chinese Embassy in Washington, which rarely addresses the press, called in reporters to make the point. Fargo heard similar lectures in Beijing.
In addition, the government-controlled Chinese press has thundered that the Taiwan Relations Act under which the arms sales will be made was a "ridiculous law" that allows the United States to interfere with China's internal affairs.
In hostilities over Taiwan, the brunt of U.S. engagement would be borne by air and sea power, some based on Guam. Fargo pointedly stopped there on his way to China.
Air power would be projected by Navy carriers, of which six are in the Pacific fleet, and from Guam and possibly the Japanese island Okinawa.
Those carriers were among the seven exercising in five oceans in an operation called Summer Pulse intended to demonstrate U.S. naval air power to potential adversaries.
The United States frequently flies B-1 and B-52 bombers to Guam from the United States and in a change from its previous secrecy, makes sure the Chinese and the world know. In addition, Fargo has asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to shift another carrier to the Pacific from the Atlantic to permit his command to launch more air power if needed.
At sea, the United States has moved two nuclear-powered attack submarines to Guam from Hawai'i to put them closer to areas of possible operation. A third submarine is to be assigned there shortly.
Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia.
Knowledgeable American officials said Chen, who began his second term in May, has no intention of declaring independence. He realizes that would trigger a Chinese assault that could devastate Taiwan. Polls in Taiwan show that a solid majority prefers the status quo. And Chen has accepted cautions from Washington that he not push across a "red line" that would cause war.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, right, met with U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, Tuesday in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Stevens is co-chairman of an eight-member delegation of U.S. senators on an exchange program between the two countries' legislatures. Chinese leaders complained to the delegation that Washington isn't abiding by agreements to restrict its dealings with Taiwan and urged the repeal of the U.S. law requiring it to supply the self-ruled island with defensive weapons.
