Taiwan Arms Sales & the Erosion of US-Sino Diplomacy
September 26, 2019
Decades ago, Washington abandoned its carefully negotiated commitments to
Beijing out of political expedience, setting the stage for current dangers
in the Taiwan Strait, says Ambassador Chas W. Freeman.
Taipei skyline. (Wikimedia Commons)
By Chas W. Freeman, Jr
ChasFreeman.net
Chas FreemanThe U.S. approach during the Reagan administrations handling of
the Taiwan arms-sales controversy epitomized deep diplomacy, that is, the
rearrangement of circumstances to induce others to conclude that they should
do things that serve our interests not to please us, but to secure their
own interests.
The negotiations illustrated how a dangerous impasse born of very different
perspectives rooted in domestic politics could in the common interest be
set aside for future resolution. The talks showed the value of mutual trust
between individual negotiators as well as the importance of well-timed
direct communication between leaders. The arms control agreement the talks
produced yielded the results the U.S. negotiators had hoped it would for a
solid decade before it fell victim to the exigencies of American politics.
Ultimately, this showed the danger of bottling up problems with military
deterrence rather than pursuing their resolution through patient diplomacy.
As George Kennan observed, History does not forgive us our national
mistakes because they are explicable in terms of our domestic politics. . ..
A nation which excuses its own failures by the sacred untouchableness of its
own habits can excuse itself into a complete disaster.
The politically expedient abandonment of solemnly negotiated commitments to
China concerning the Taiwan question devalued our word as Americans. It has
left a legacy of Chinese distrust that continues to hobble Sino-American
relations today. A reputation for reliability, once lost, is almost
impossible to restore.
What is the Taiwan Question?
(Wikimedia Commons)
Simply put, the Taiwan question is what the political relationship between
Taiwan and the rest of China is or should be.
Until 1895, Taiwan was a province of China. In that year, the Japanese
empire forcibly annexed it. Five decades later, at the end of the Second
World War, Japan surrendered Taiwan to the then-Chinese government. Within
China, the end of Japans 14-year-long rampage through China rekindled the
struggle between Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist Party and Mao Zedongs
Communist Party over which would rule China.
In 1949, Maos Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) defeated Chiangs army and
replaced his KMT regime in most of China. Chiang and roughly 2 million of
his troops withdrew to Taiwan. The PLA prepared to bring the Chinese civil
war to an end by conquering Taiwan. As 1950 began, the United States, which
continued to maintain diplomatic relations with Chiangs government,
declared that it did not consider Taiwan strategically significant enough to
intervene to save it.
But in mid-1950, north Korea stormed over the 38th parallel to unify all of
Korea under its rule. Two days later, the United States placed the 7th
Fleet between Chiangs forces and the PLA. The stated purpose of this U.S.
intervention was to preclude the expansion of the war in Korea to other
parts of Asia.
Washington demanded that each side in the Chinese civil war cease attacks on
the other. U.S. intervention effectively suspended but did not end their
war, which is in abeyance but unconcluded to this day.
Mao Zedong declares the founding of the modern Peoples Republic of China on
October 1, 1949. (Orihara1, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
By October 1950, as all of Korea was about to fall to General Douglas
MacArthur, Chinese forces intervened to preserve north Korea as a buffer
state. The Korean conflict became an undeclared war between the United
States and the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Mutual hostility
escalated. In 1954, Washington concluded a defense treaty with Chiang
Kai-sheks rump Chinese government, placing Taiwan under American protection
as the United States sought to isolate, contain, and overthrow the communist
regime on the China mainland by both fair means and foul.
For the next 20 years, American diplomats worked hard to sustain the legal
fictions that there was only one China; that its government was in Taipei,
not Beijing; that this government could and should represent China
internationally; and that it was not a government in exile because Taiwan
was part of China. I took part in our defense of these propositions. It
worked until 1971, when the international community rebelled and rejected
Taipeis preposterous continuing representation of China in the UN.
Two decades of success at enforcing Beijings ostracism is proof that, at
our best, American diplomats can work miracles in the service of grand
strategy, including nullifying unwelcome realities. This is worth
remembering because, as has become obvious, we can also be utterly
ineffective when there is no strategy to match resources to realistic
objectives or to guide diplomatic tactics.
Recognizing Beijing
In 1969, clashes broke out along the Sino-Soviet frontier. President
Richard Nixon, who had already come to the conclusion that no world order
excluding China could be stable, feared the geopolitical consequences of a
Soviet military conquest or humiliation of China. He switched U.S. policy
from using Taiwan to contain the PRC to enlisting the PRC to contain the
U.S.S.R. Doing so required addressing Chinese demands that the United
States recognize Beijing rather than Taipei as the capital of an undivided
China, that we withdraw our military presence from Taiwan, and that we
terminate our defense treaty with it.
In 1972, Nixon dramatically visited Beijing, the capital of a then-hostile
government America did not recognize. He finessed the Taiwan question by
acknowledging that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain
there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China, adding that the
United States Government does not challenge that position. He announced a
U.S. interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the
Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, he affirmed the ultimate
objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations
from Taiwan. In the meantime, he pledged to progressively reduce [U.S.]
forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area
diminishes.
This was artful language. Uniquely for a diplomatic document, it was
preceded by several pages of candid recitations by both sides of profound
disagreements about Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Japan and Kashmir. This
was Zhou Enlais diplomatically inventive proposal. Reaffirming such
Sino-American differences reassured our respective security partners that
rapprochement between the PRC and the United States did not imply a sell-out
of their interests. Candid statements of disagreements have a place in
diplomacy.
Nixon privately assured Mao and Zhou that he would recognize the PRC in his
second term. Watergate then struck him down. Gerald Fords accidental
presidency was too politically precarious for him to implement Nixons
pledge. The U.S. commitment to Taiwans defense was beginning to change
from a strategic expedient to a matter of national honor.
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toast, Feb. 25,
1972. (White House/Wikimedia Commons)
Normalization Left to Carter
It was left to President Jimmy Carter to normalize relations with the PRC.
As 1978 faded into 1979, Carter did so with Deng Xiaoping. Carters purpose
was to intensify pressure on the Soviet Union. For his part, Deng wanted an
opening to the United States both to de-Sovietize Chinas domestic political
economy and to put Moscow off balance as he used force to convince Hanoi not
to ally with the U.S.S.R. to encircle China because this would cost Vietnam
vastly more than it could ever hope to gain.
To normalize diplomatic relations with Beijing, Washington had to
abnormalize them with the rival Chinese government in Taipei it had
previously championed. While retaining substantive, nominally unofficial
ties to Taiwan, the U.S. transferred formal recognition and relations from
Taipei to Beijing and withdrew its forces and installations from Taiwan.
The Chinese declared their determination to make best efforts to reunify
their divided country by peaceful rather than violent means. The president
gave the one-year notice needed to terminate the U.S. defense treaty with
Taipei and suspended further weapons sales throughout 1979, while the treaty
was expiring. But he informed the Chinese that sales of carefully selected
defensive weapons on a restrained basis to Taiwan would resume in 1980.
Not surprisingly, they registered strong objections to this and reserved the
right to raise the issue for resolution later. Nevertheless, they went
ahead with normalization.
In Ronald Reagans 1980 presidential campaign, he pledged to restore
official relations with Taipei and to upgrade Taiwans military capabilities
against the PRC through unrestricted arms sales. But when he entered
office, he became aware of the extent of clandestine Sino-American
cooperation against the USSR.
Since 1980, the U.S. and PRC had jointly operated major intelligence bases
on Chinese soil. These more than replaced the capabilities of those lost to
the Islamic revolution in Iran the year before. China had its own covert
program in support of the Afghan resistance, but it was also supplying the
U.S. with many hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of weapons each year
for the much larger U.S. effort to dislodge the Soviets from Afghanistan.
And China was providing the U.S. with tens of millions of dollars-worth of
MiG-21s and other Soviet-designed, Chinese-manufactured equipment to enable
our armed forces to train against the Soviet threat.
Ronald Reagan campaigning with Nancy Reagan in Columbia, South Carolina,
October 1980. (Ronald Reagan Library via Wikimedia Commons)
New Generation of Aircraft to Sell
Reagan abandoned his proposed restoration of official relations with Taipei.
But he held fast to the idea of selling Taiwan a new generation of aircraft
the so-called FX. Beijing reacted by redoubling its conciliatory offers
to Taiwan, expressing mounting fury at what it saw as a renewed American
invasion of Chinese sovereignty and internal affairs, and audibly reducing
its overt alignment with the U.S. against the U.S.S.R.
I took charge of our infant embassy in Beijing in early July 1981 as this
controversy was just beginning. It rapidly intensified. By October, the
Chinese were signaling with ever greater urgency that, if the United States
did not agree to a schedule to end arms sales to Taiwan, they might
downgrade or even break relations with the U.S.
China had earlier downgraded relations with the Netherlands over submarine
sales to Taiwan, lending this threat a measure of credibility.
In late 1981, as both sides began to formulate negotiating positions, the
president asked the Joint Chiefs whether there was in fact a compelling case
for the sale of the FX to Taiwan. Around the same time, an effort to open
bilateral negotiations produced only a thundering diatribe by a Chinese vice
foreign minister, who spoke to newly arrived U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hummel
and me from a raised dais in the former Austro-Hungarian embassy in
Beijings Legation Quarter. Indirectly, we let the Chinese know that the
vice ministers haughty harangues would take us places neither side should
want to go.
Meanwhile, the JCSs worst-case analysis determined that Taiwan did not
really need the FX. In January 1982, Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asia and the Pacific Affairs John Holdridge arrived in Beijing to inform the
Chinese that we no longer planned to sell an advanced aircraft to Taiwan.
His visit enabled China to switch to a new and more congenial, though
equally tendentious, chief negotiator. Initial meetings with him also
gained no traction. After a few unproductive encounters, we proposed that
the chief negotiators each delegate the task of drafting a text to a select
group of subordinates.
Talks Over Lunches
These talks, four to a side, took place over lunches at my apartment. My
chef now my foster son served up superb Chinese cuisine for my guests,
creating an atmosphere conducive to informality and candor. As the great
British statesman, Lord Palmerston remarked: dining is the soul of
diplomacy.
My Chinese counterparts and my team knew each other well from numerous
previous diplomatic interactions. They were tough professionals whose word
could be relied upon. Like me and my American colleagues, they operated
under very tight instructions and floated no proposal without assurances
from the very highest level of their government that trade-offs based on it
might prove acceptable.
The Chinese had the advantage of being on their home ground, with direct
access to their superiors. We in the American embassy were 7,000 miles from
Washington and Reagan. There were no secure phones or email in those days.
We were dealing with issues that were politically explosive and tightly
compartmented back home. To protect the privacy of our communications with
the very able team supporting us in Washington, we wrote them in romanized
Chinese, not English. There were no leaks.
Slowly, the two side began to build a text based on I think I could
persuade my government to say this if your government would say that. All
agreements over the dining table were tentative and ad referendum to
internal policy processes personally overseen by Reagan and Deng Xiaoping.
Occasional formal meetings at the ambassadorial level were convened to nail
down trade-offs that had been found to be mutually agreeable. Both sides
understood that nothing was final until everything was final.
Setting Objectives
On the U.S. side, we understood our objectives to be:
the restoration of an overt entente (limited partnership) with the PRC
against the Soviet Union;
the enhancement of prospects for a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan issue
between the Chinese parties;
a linkage between peace in the Taiwan Strait and any reduction in arms
sales to Taiwan;
the avoidance of any schedule to end such arms sales;
the preservation of a credible bargaining position for Taipei vis-à-vis
Beijing; and
setting aside the Taiwan arms sales issue as an obstacle to expanded
cooperation with the PRC.
For their part, the Chinese negotiators sought an outcome that:
fixed an early date for the complete end of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan,
thereby putting pressure on the island to seek terms for its reunification
with the rest of China;
avoided any commitment to use only peaceful means to end the Chinese civil
war and reunify China;
removed the Taiwan arms sales issue as a domestically insuperable political
obstacle to expanded cooperation with the United States;
affirmed respect for
sovereignty and territorial integrity and
non-interference in each others internal affairs as the guiding principles
of Sino-American relations; and
left open the possibility, mutatis mutandis, of eventual rapprochement with
the neighboring U.S.S.R.
Both sides shared an interest in putting the Taiwan arms sales issue behind
us. The question was how to do this in a way that could withstand the
inevitable political backlash from opponents of compromise in both
countries. Each side had to make its own judgments about what might do that
for it.
The talks made progress, but tediously. In May 1982, Reagan sent his vice
president, George H. W. Bush to Beijing to convey letters from him to Deng
Xiaoping as well as Chinas premier and party chairman in the hope that this
might jumpstart progress. In his letters, Reagan stressed the importance of
bilateral cooperation, recognized the significance of Chinas willingness to
attempt a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue, and declared his
willingness to reduce arms sales to Taiwan if China maintained a peaceful
approach to the island. The leadership of both countries had now clearly
communicated a desire to put the Taiwan arms sales issue behind them and get
on with practical business.
This accelerated progress in the negotiations. So did personnel changes in
Washington, which removed the pro-deal Alexander Haig as secretary of state
and replaced him with the more skeptical George Shultz. This convinced the
Chinese that delay risked a relapse into rancor. By the end of July, after
intense deliberations in both capitals, the two sides agreed a compromise.
George Shultz, left, with President Ronald Reagan, December 1986. (Ronald
Reagan Library via Wikimedia Commons)
In a Joint Communiqué issued Aug. 17, 1982, China unilaterally strengthened
its commitment to a fundamental policy to strive for a peaceful solution to
the Taiwan question. The U.S. unilaterally stated that in light of this
Chinese policy, the United States did not seek to carry out a long-term
policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan [would] not
exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those
supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations
between the United States and China, and that it [intended] gradually to
reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan, leading, over a period of time, to a
final resolution.
The negotiations thus concluded with the Chinese having had to accept that
U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would continue indefinitely, though at steadily
declining levels. The contradiction between normal relations with Beijing
and continuing assistance to its adversary in the unconcluded Chinese civil
war was left unresolved. The U.S. was compelled to add awkward specifics to
its earlier undertaking to sell only carefully selected defensive weapons
on a restrained basis. Neither side had been able to obtain more than an
implied linkage between its own commitments and those of the other. As we
issued the communiqué, the negotiators on both sides figuratively held our
noses.
Positive Strategic Consequences
But the compromise the two sides had reached had positive strategic
consequences. Without Americans prescribing any particular course of action
to either party to the Taiwan dispute, we had created circumstances that
induced them both to set aside military confrontation in favor of some sort
of peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question between themselves.
Beijing knew that the progressive reduction in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan
depended on its visibly reducing its military threat to Taiwan. China thus
acquired an interest in proving its peaceful intent, which it proceeded to
do in both word and deed. Meanwhile, the prospect of steadily diminishing
American military assistance left the Chinese on Taiwan with no choice but
to consider realistic alternatives to military confrontation to manage
relations with Chinese on the mainland. Within a decade, Taipei responded
to Beijings repeated offers of political dialogue.
The realization by both Beijing and Taipei that rapprochement offered a more
promising approach than military posturing to the management of cross-Strait
relations took time to take root. But it did take root. For a time, it
even survived the abrupt U.S. abandonment of limits on American arms sales
to Taiwan a decade after we had agreed to them.
Leaders signing agreement to eliminate the U.S.S.R. and establish the
Commonwealth of Independent States, Dec. 8, 1991. (RIA Novosti archive,
iCC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
In September 1992, the collapse of the common Soviet enemy, the
deterioration in U.S.-China relations after the 1989 Tiananmen incident, and
a long-running campaign by proponents of military versus diplomatic
approaches to securing Taiwan came together. The expediencies of U.S.
election-year politics produced a massive sale of advanced fighter aircraft
to Taiwan the largest arms sale package to any single foreign purchaser to
that date. So much for the progressive reduction of U.S. arms sales to
Taiwan as an incentive for a sustained peaceful approach to reunification by
Beijing! Military deterrence had shoved diplomacy aside in Americas
handling of Chinese nationalism. This turnabout froze cross-Strait
rapprochement and encouraged Taiwan independence advocates to step up their
defiance of Beijing, while provoking the remilitarization of cross-Strait
relations.
And thats how the stage got set for us to arrive where we are. The
military balance in the Taiwan Strait now clearly favors Beijing. Were
back in the business of transferring advanced weapons systems to Taiwan.
This creates an increasing danger that the Chinese civil war could reignite,
leading to our first war with a nuclear power over where its borders lie.
Remarks to a master class in diplomacy of the Center for the Study of the
Conduct of Diplomacy, The Foreign Service Institute, Arlington, Virginia,
Aug. 19, 2019.
