‘One China’: Best Hope for Peace

Taiwan’s abrupt abandonment of the “one China” policy that has shaped its relations with the mainland government for more than two decades has infuriated Beijing, disturbed Washington and ominously clouded the prospect for continued strategic stability in East Asia.

The United States, appealing for restraint and dialogue, has reaffirmed its support for the inconclusive but diplomatically useful formula that has defined American policy since 1972: There is a single China, and Taiwan’s future “is a matter for the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to resolve.”

Washington’s call for calm has so far failed to moderate Beijing’s rhetoric. Taiwan, it warns, is courting a “monumental disaster” as a result of President Lee Teng-hui’s announcement that contacts with China henceforth must be made on a state-to-state basis, a reformulation that hints at Taiwan’s claim to a distinct national identity.

Beijing has always insisted that Taiwan is simply a rebellious province with no legitimate claim to statehood. But 50 years of political separation from the mainland and the growing ascendancy of a Taiwan-born population without memories of the Chinese civil war have made independence an attractive possibility to many. Beijing has threatened war if Taiwan chooses to take that path.

Why Lee made his provocative comments now can only be guessed at. He might have been trying to influence next year’s presidential election on Taiwan, which will pit the candidate of Lee’s Nationalist Party--he cannot succeed himself--against the candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, which leans toward formally declaring Taiwan’s independence. Perhaps he calculated that the chilly state of U.S.-China relations made this an opportune moment for a bold policy shift.

The one-China policy is a diplomatic fancy whose main aim has been to keep the Chinese civil war from re-erupting while waiting for evolutionary political changes to decide whether the mainland and Taiwan will peacefully reunify or peacefully go their separate ways. As a force for stability it is a policy worth preserving. The message Washington must make emphatically clear to Taiwan is that it is standing by its policy not because it wishes to please China but as a matter of national interest and that it won’t let itself be drawn into a confrontation in the Taiwan Strait.