Whatever it Takes

President George W. Bush's detractors frequently allege that he has only a dim grasp of the subtleties of foreign affairs. So, when he stated (on April 26) that the United States would do "whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself" in case of an armed attack by Mainland China, his critics launched. Senator John Kerry (Democrat of Massachusetts) suggested that "without any consultation with Congress," Bush was "changing a policy that has been in place for 30 years now." Bill Press, co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," told Senator Rick Santorum (Republican of Pennsylvania) that the president's remarks were "No. 1, a major change, you have to agree. And No. 2 shooting from the hip, no?" The president's "inattention to detail has damaged U.S. credibility," intoned Senator Joseph Biden (Democrat of Delaware), "words matter." And E.J. Dionne wrote, "it would be useful for [Bush] to have a Clinton-like reputation as a keen student of policy who conveyed his thoughts with some precision."

In fact, if President Clinton had made the statement, it would have caused no ruckus precisely because everyone would have assumed that, as usual, words didn't matter to him. By contrast, President Bush's statement was a sincere, unscripted, unambiguous, and direct expression of his values and his perception of U.S. interests. "Whatever it takes" was an unapologetic assertion of moral confidence and strategic determination. Public statements like that deserve applause not admonishment.

The Background
Since 1979, Washington has recognized Beijing as the "sole legal government of China." China, of course, claims that Taiwan is a rebellious province. Washington will say only that it "does not challenge" the view that there is only one China, and it therefore cannot recognize Taiwan as an independent state, an act that would be a casus belli to China. In this way arises the "strategic ambiguity" in Washington's China policy.

East Asia and China With the same ambiguity, the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979 does not explicitly commit the United States to the military defense of Taiwan but states the following as the policy of the United States: (1) to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States; (2) to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character; and (3) to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.

In theory, then, the Taiwan Relations Act is sufficiently flexible that U.S. could stand by and allow China forcibly to annex the island. But certainly the United States is not forbidden from taking action. And nothing President Bush said or could say would change that situation, because nothing a president might say could change the legal situation set forth by the TRA.

What President Bush did, then, was simply to state which of America's legal options his administration will exercise, namely, the option of defending Taiwan. And that, contrary to the president's critics, is not a change. The military defense of Taiwan has been de facto U.S. policy for fifty years, according to a logic that President Bush explained in some detail: If the two sides can settle their differences and unify peacefully, so be it—that is up to them. But should Taiwan choose to remain outside the Mainland Chinese sphere, the United States will honor that choice and defend it, using force if necessary.

This is as it should be. The country of Taiwan is a product of the United States. It would not exist without U.S. military and economic assistance. The U.S. Navy covered the retreat of the Nationalists to Formosa in 1949 and has patrolled the Taiwan Straits since. When China has threatened Taiwan with force, the United States has consistently responded. During the Cold War, Taiwan was an anti-Communist outpost, like West Berlin and South Korea. And it, too, became a case study of what free people can accomplish when given the opportunity. Formerly autocratic and revanchist, with no economy to speak of, Taiwan is now a flourishing liberal democracy. The 22 million people who live on what was recently a sparsely inhabited and undeveloped island have established an identity separate from the Mainlanders. They have a per-capita income four times that of China and generate a total trade volume of $49.9 billion per year with the United States, which on a per capita basis is 47 times U.S.-Chinese trade.

The Stakes
Why, then, are America's China hands upset with President Bush? What could be wrong with announcing America's intent to defend a vibrant democracy and major trading partner whose people have achieved a high degree of civil and economic liberty? The answer lies not with what U.S. policy is but with what they would like it to become.

Many American businessmen want to sell their products in China, and they are afraid that a U.S. defense of Taiwan will cause Beijing to strike back at Washington by preferring non-American businessmen.

But that does not provide sufficient grounds for U.S. policy toward China. A more disinterested argument says that the United States should maintain trade relations with China as part of a policy of "constructive engagement," an instrumental policy according to which free trade will bring about democratic reform and thus a less threatening attitude toward the United States. Those who take this view on draw on the history of the French Revolution: a bourgeoisie arose in an authoritarian state, and, when an economic contraction occurred, they liberalized the political system. (Of course, they also got Napoleon and a global war.) In any case, partisans of constructive engagement say the maintenance of U.S.-Chinese trade relationships are central to U.S. strategic interests and Taiwan is a sideshow.

Now, those who question constructive engagement as a political argument are eager to be proved wrong. But, unlike their opponents, they believe America should not test the theory of constructive engagement if it means sacrificing Taiwan's 22 million people to Beijing. In short, what is at issue is not strategic ambiguity but ethical ambiguity.

For make no mistake: the People's Republic may no longer be a communist state but it remains a totalitarian oligarchy. It has abandoned many aspects of Stalinist central economic planning, but all large-scale enterprises and banks are controlled by high-ranking Communist party members. Freedom of conscience does not exist. People who openly profess religious faith—whether Christian, Tibetian Buddhist, or Falun Gong—are jailed. Journalists, authors, and poets who criticize the government are harassed, censored, or imprisoned. Democratic reformers face similar fates. Judicial procedures are based on the exigencies of the Party, and police torture is commonplace. For example, in May 1998, police tortured to death Zhou Jiangxiong, a 30-year-old farmer, for not revealing the whereabouts of his wife, who was suspected of being pregnant without permission. According to Amnesty International, police "hung him upside down, beat him with wooden clubs, burned him with cigarette butts, branded him with soldering irons, and ripped his genitals off." Anecdotes like this help clarify the values of the Beijing regime and what they would mean to the people of Taiwan.

Thucydides wrote that a great power requires a moral core if it is to survive. Its policies will be an expression of its interests, yes, but its interests will be informed and shaped by its values. Taiwan is a concrete expression of freedom's ideals, long nurtured and protected by America but ultimately put into practice by Taiwan's own people. To state openly and plainly that the United States would defend Taiwan in case of aggression, as President Bush has, is to affirm those values in the most meaningful possible way.

Words matter, as Senator Biden said. But values matter more. And actions are the gold standard against which both are tested.

— James S. Robbins

James S. Robbins is a writer living in Alexandria, Virginia.

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