This Job’s Not for Congress : Lawmakers are unwise to meddle with China policy

House Republicans should not be making foreign policy, especially in this time of tension between China and Taiwan. Nevertheless, they have chosen to introduce a resolution calling for explicit guarantees of a U.S. military defense of Taiwan should the island be attacked by China. The nonbinding resolution, the 40-member House Republican Policy Committee said, would express the sense of Congress. It would also break with Washington’s long-standing “one-China” policy, which has left ambiguous what the United States might do in a conflict.

The committee was not ambiguous. “The Republican majority in Congress is sending this message to Beijing: Back off,” declared California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach). A message with that tone is better left to the State Department and the White House. Indeed, when the State Department spoke Wednesday, 24 hours after the resolution was introduced, the tenor was more guarded. Spokesman Nicholas Burns said in commenting on China’s pending missile tests in waters off Taiwan: “We believe plans for these missile tests are irresponsible, and we have informed the Chinese government there will be consequences should these tests go wrong.”

The saber rattling has its roots in politics. In two weeks Taiwan will conduct its first direct presidential election, and Beijing is clearly showing its displeasure with an independence movement on the island. Washington’s one-China policy has proved to be a reliable if tricky defense of American interests in Chinese questions and in East Asia generally. The House Republican resolution takes aim at this policy of “strategic ambiguity.”

Do the House Republicans really want to torpedo this long-standing and so far successful policy? Or is the intent to politicize foreign policy on China in this American election year? Beijing is presenting a variety of challenges as its leadership jockeys under the prospect of a change of state power. This is precisely the time for steady policy rather than a call to arms.