Tension Over Taiwan

MARGARET WARNER:

To explore this, we turn to two former National Security Council officials who dealt with China and Taiwan. Douglas Paal was the NSC's senior director for Asian Affairs during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, he's now president of the Asia Pacific Policy Center, a non- profit organization promoting investment and security ties in the region; and Kenneth Lieberthal held the same NSC job in the Clinton administration, he is now a professor at the University of Michigan. Welcome, gentlemen.

Ken Lieberthal, is this a change in policy?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

Certainly what the president said to ABC News is a statement that no previous president has made in that he went beyond what previous presidents have tried to do. In the past, presidents have said to the Mainland, if you use military force against Taiwan, you cannot assume that we will stand idly by. We've said to Taiwan, if you engage in strongly provocative action, you cannot assume that we will support you.

And the objective here has been to keep the Mainland from using military force and keep Taiwan from being very provocative. The initial statement the president made clearly went beyond that studied ambiguity. Now the administration subsequently tried to walk that back. But frankly when you're at a very sensitive time, right after the announcement of arms sales and the president goes on national television with a statement that marks a significant change from earlier administrations, I think it's very hard to erase that memory or for others to say, well, nothing has changed here. So I think this effect will linger. I do think it does have an impact.

MARGARET WARNER:

Do you see it as a change?

DOUGLAS PAAL:

I think that the statements reflect the kind of nuanced change that comes with a new administration that has throughout the campaign for the presidency said that it wanted to have a tougher approach to protecting Taiwan and that it would follow through on that. But that it did not want to dismantle the architecture of U.S.-China relations. The president's first remarks to ABC News I saw as correct but incomplete. And when he subsequently was interviewed by further people such as John King from CNN, he made a more balanced statement of the two sides that Ken Lieberthal was just talking about.

MARGARET WARNER:

But he didn't try to reinstate the ambiguity about defending Taiwan, did he? I mean, he added what he hoped for from China and so on.

DOUGLAS PAAL:

There's not much sympathy for ambiguity on this issue. I think the United States wants clearly to send two messages: One, we will, in most circumstances, defend Taiwan if China launches an unprovoked attack. On the other hand, he also said that we want Taiwan to understand that we were based on a one-China policy framework and that independence is not an option that will win our support.

MARGARET WARNER:

But I mean why, I guess what I'm trying to understand here is why would the president decide that it was time to end the ambiguity now, the kind of ambiguity that Ken Lieberthal just described?

DOUGLAS PAAL:

Well, I think the context is really important. The president was doing a sequence of interviews with general journalists, not foreign policy specialists. He thought he would be talking about education and tax bills and foreign policy crept into it and he gave a shorthand answer in the first instance which had to be amplified subsequently.

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

I think it's important to appreciate that the Chinese, by all evidence, have in recent years assumed that if they use military force against Taiwan, they faced a very high probability that the U.S. would come in on the other side. So I don't think the statement increased the deterrence of China in any meaningful fashion. So you really have to ask what it did accomplish. I think that if it had any effect it was to limit the president's flexibility, should some crisis arise, because people will now say your credibility is on the line if you don't resort to military force. And there's a question as to whether others in the region who are already nervous about a deteriorating U.S.-China relationship will see this as having gone too far without adequate consultation. So I think on balance it would have been better had he stuck with the more carefully drawn script.

MARGARET WARNER:

So you're saying, in other words, that all along both players over there knew or thought they knew that the U.S. wouldn't stand idly by and so therefore removing the ambiguity doesn't really change anything for China. But what about for Taiwan — what's the impact on Taiwan likely to be?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

Well, the issue there, the administration will say that giving Taiwan stronger support gives them the confidence to negotiate with the Mainland. The Mainland feels that given Taiwan's stronger support will give greater confidence to those who never want to negotiate with the Mainland and want to hide behind an American shield.

MARGARET WARNER:

You mean they'll sort of figure they've got a get out of jail card now. They can go ahead and talk about independence or anything else?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

Basically yes or it can try to work on irritating the relationship with China and draw the U.S. into a firmer and firmer commitment because that's the druthers of the administration in the first place.

MARGARET WARNER:

Do you think that's a danger, Doug Paal?

DOUGLAS PAAL:

I think it's a hypothetical danger. I think the reality is that we're in constant conversations with Taiwan leadership and the leaders of the people who are not in the ruling party in Taiwan. And they know the United States won't be tolerant of a provocative approach by Taiwan. The Americans show a lot of understanding to the Taiwanese who are looking across the street at a China going through a domestic political transition is not in any real shape to start talking. We're in a period where both sides are just keeping their powder dry for the outcome that follows China's internal political reshuffle.

MARGARET WARNER:

When I asked you why now, one of the things people in the administration are saying is that there is this build-up of offensive weapons that China is doing along its coast, missiles, in fact. Do you think that's a factor? Should that be a factor? Was there more of a reason to send a public signal to China or do you agree with Ken Lieberthal that China always knew where things stood on that?

DOUGLAS PAAL:

I think the Chinese have a pretty good sense. The questions in the people's minds in the U.S. is whether the Taiwanese understand because it's not as clear to people who don't travel and visit with Taiwanese leaders how clearly they do understand this. This is the posturing that goes in Taiwanese politics. I think the danger is, as I said earlier, are more hypothetical than real.

MARGARET WARNER:

Do you think, Ken Lieberthal, that this statement by the president will make it more or less likely that China and Taiwan will start to address this issue between them in a peaceful way?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

I would be delighted if it did… If it were to make it more likely. I don't anticipate that that would be the result. I would love to see this administration begin to place more emphasis on laying the groundwork for a cross-strait dialogue. We want a peaceful resolution. The only way you can have a peaceful resolution is if the two sides are talking to each other. I agree very much with Doug Paal that the domestic politics in both China and Taiwan make that kind of dialogue unlikely for the coming few months. But after this December, after the legislative elections in Taiwan, I think that becomes considerably more possible. And we ought to be out there at least making clear that we think that that's the right way to go if the pieces can be put in place.

MARGARET WARNER:

Are you suggesting the U.S. do more than just express support for the idea? Their incentives….

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

I think that there are. We can't leverage either side into a cross strait negotiation. But we can both encourage that, privately even more than publicly, and we can also facilitate it in terms of being a conduit for them to help set up a secret negotiation that could set the terms for public negotiation. So that everyone is comfortable that the public negotiation will, in fact, reduce tensions and take place under conditions that will increase stability across the strait. I think that's quite feasible over time.

MARGARET WARNER:

What do you think are the prospects for any kind of real dialogue?

DOUGLAS PAAL:

The prospects for some more constructive signaling between the two sides are real and in the relatively near future. The prospects for a real dialogue I think are maybe two years out because of the transitions going on in both societies. It doesn't mean a lot can't be done through the signaling and softening of rhetoric and the like. It's also important to remember that we have a new president. There's a perception abroad and in the United States that we have not been as strong behind Taiwan as we need to be in light of the continuing buildup of Chinese forces opposite Taiwan.

I think if you look at this in a staged fashion, my personal hope would be having established credibility with Congress where criticism has been strong of the previous administrations, treatment of Taiwan and China, establish credibility with the Chinese by showing the president is willing to put very substantial amounts of equipment in Taiwan's hands if he deems it the right thing to do. He will then be in a position to talk to the Chinese leaders about saying, look, this is not in the final analysis, a military problem but should be a political problem. You're taking it down a military route. We're being forced to respond. Let's find a better way out.

MARGARET WARNER:

Let me finally ask — go back to what the president said yesterday. The Washington Post editorialized today saying if the bottom line here is it's a given, that if China attacks Taiwan, we're going to step in militarily or assist militarily, that that should have been said in a clear policy statement by the president, not in a series of TV interviews. What do you think of that?

KENNETH LIEBERTHAL:

Well, I think the reality is that anyone who looks carefully at this issue knows that an all-out Chinese attack on Taiwan has a well under 1% possibility. The issue is whether China begins to use military muscle to intimidate Taiwan in various ways. And you don't want to set an either/or kind of situation for that. You want to be able to respond flexibly, economically, diplomatically in bilateral relations and multi-laterally and if necessary through military engagement or shows of force or military engagement. So to say that if China attacks we will use military force kind of misses where reality is going to be which is well in between that.

MARGARET WARNER:

Somewhere in between. Does it reduce flexibility for the president?

DOUGLAS PAAL:

As I said earlier this was an in the context of a 100-day review of his overall policy. He made the short-handed remark. If you want to find the nuances of the policy wait until he makes a speech that has a nuanced element to it on the China policy itself.

MARGARET WARNER:

Well, Ken Lieberthal, Doug Paal, thank you both.