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Current US-China Relations
By
Henry C.K. Liu
Part I: A Lame Duck-Greenhorn Dance
Part II: US
Unilateralism
This article appeared in AToL on July 1, 2006
State
policies or actions are
deemed “unilateral” if they have significant impacts on people in other
states but undertaken by a single state without the mandate of
bilateral or multilateral treaties or in violation or defiance or
rejection of such treaties.
US unilateralism did not start with
the Bush administration. Its moralistic root traces to Christian Right
influence on US foreign policy after WWII, especially over US policy on
China. It was the ideological basis for the Cold War with a
self-righteous Superpower leading subservient allies who did not have
the wherewithal to resist it. It has continued after the end of the
Cold War even as allies attempt to assert increasing independence with
the disappearance of perceived Soviet threat. The huge power
differential between the US as the sole remaining superpower and its
former subservient allies gave the US a natural claim and de facto
privilege to unilateralism.
President Clinton’s
decision to use military force to enforce moral imperialism in the
Balkans was based on the view that “US citizens and interests are
threatened in many arenas and across a wide spectrum of issues.” These
perceived perils as interpreted by US cultural preference range from
regional conflicts and insurgency to terrorism and ethnic unrest are
viewed as direct threats to US national interests raised to the level
of clear and present danger. The interest of the US in maintaining
geopolitical stability is predicated on its being a superpower with
global economic interests. The US aims to act unilaterally by
maintaining a force structure that can conduct simultaneous
expeditionary military operations in widely separated theaters around
the world against multiple adversaries who may not even be natural
allies. This is done by revising its Cold War alliances such as NATO
from defensive to offensive regional military assets that the US can
deploy at will to achieve US global geopolitical objectives.
The Clinton Doctrine
The
Clinton Doctrine subscribes to the proposition that the best way to
maintain stability in core regions of US interests such as Western
Europe and Japan is to combat instability in periphery regions before
it can intensify and spread. It was expressed in Clinton’s February 26,
1999 speech in San Francisco: “… the true measure of our interests lies
not in how small or distant these places are … The question we must ask
is: what are the consequences to our security of letting conflicts
fester and spread … where our values and our interests are at
stake, and where we can make a difference, we must be prepared to do so.”
Neoconservative
commentator Charles Krauthammer wrote on March 29, 1999 critically
about the Clinton Doctrine: “The Clinton Doctrine aspires to morality
and universality. But foreign policy must be calculating and particular
… … The essence of foreign policy is deciding which son of a bitch to
support and which to oppose. One has to choose. A blanket anti-son of a
bitch policy, like a blanket anti-ethnic cleansing policy, is soothing,
satisfying and empty. It is not a policy at all but righteous
self-delusion.”
China is the key SOB nation that US
neoconservatives choose to oppose preemptively before it gets too
powerful.
Clash
of Civilizations
There
were other views. Barely two decades after the Cold War, Harvard
historian Samuel P. Huntington writes in an article, The Lonely
Superpower in the March 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs:
“The unipolar moment has passed. Even old allies stubbornly resist
American demands, while many other nations view US policy and ideals as
openly hostile to their own. Washington is blind to the fact that it no
longer enjoys the dominance it had at the end of the Cold War. It must
relearn the game of international politics as a major power, not a
superpower, and make compromises. US policymaking should reflect
rational calculations of power rather than a wish list of arrogant,
unilateralist demands.”
Yet Huntington writes in the Summer 1993
Foreign Affairs about the Clash of Civilizations
that “the next pattern of conflict … … in this new world will not be
primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among
humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural.
Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs,
but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between
nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of
civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between
civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”
It is
common after 9:11 to focus Huntington’s clash of civilizations theme on
Islam-Christian conflict. Yet Huntington has a lot to say about Asia in
general and China in particular. He quotes MIT political scientist
Lucian Pye that China is “a civilization pretending
to be a state.” He
credits common culture as “clearly facilitating the rapid expansion of
the economic relations between the People's Republic of China and Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and the overseas Chinese communities in other
Asian countries. With the Cold War over, cultural commonalities
increasingly overcome ideological differences, and mainland China and
Taiwan move closer together. If cultural commonality is a prerequisite
for economic integration, the principal East Asian economic bloc of the
future is likely to be centered on China. This bloc is, in fact,
already coming into existence.”
Further on,
Huntington writes: “With the Cold War over, the underlying differences
between China and the United States have reasserted themselves in areas
such as human rights, trade and weapons proliferation. These
differences are unlikely to moderate. A “new cold war,” Deng Xaioping
reportedly asserted in 1991, is under way between China and America.”
Thus the recent speech by President Hu Jintao at Yale during his summit
visit to the US on the peaceful attributes of Chinese civilization will
fall on deaf ears in the US.
Huntington
pits the West against a coalition of “Confucian-Islamic states”. He
sees the conflict between the West and the Confucian-Islamic states
focusing “largely, although not exclusively, on nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons, ballistic missiles and other sophisticated means
for delivering them, and the guidance, intelligence and other
electronic capabilities for achieving that goal.” Contrary
to evidence, Huntington claims “the West promotes nonproliferation as a
universal norm and nonproliferation treaties and inspections as means
of realizing that norm. It also threatens a variety of sanctions
against those who promote the spread of sophisticated weapons and
proposes some benefits for those who do not.” He adds however that “The
attention of the West focuses, naturally, on nations that are actually
or potentially hostile to the West.”
Huntington
goes on: “The non-Western nations, on the other hand, assert their
right to acquire and to deploy whatever weapons they think necessary
for their security. They also have absorbed, to the full, the truth of
the response of the Indian defense minister when asked what lesson he
learned from the Gulf War: “Don't fight the United States unless you
have nuclear weapons.” Nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and missiles
are viewed, probably erroneously, as the potential equalizer of
superior Western conventional power. China, of course, already has
nuclear weapons; Pakistan and India have the capability to deploy them.
North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Algeria appear to be attempting to
acquire them. A top Iranian official has declared that all Muslim
states should acquire nuclear weapons, and in 1988 the president of
Iran reportedly issued a directive calling for development of
“offensive and defensive chemical, biological and radiological weapons.”
Huntington
identifies the sustained expansion of China’s military power and its
means to create military power as centrally important to the
development of counter-West military capabilities.
According to
Huntington, a Confucian-Islamic military connection has thus come into
being, designed to promote acquisition by its members of the weapons
and weapons technologies needed to counter the military power of the
West. The Huntington clash-of-civilizations world view defines the
West’s enemies not by what they do, but by who they are. Such a view
does not lead to world peace unless all non-Western civilizations are
wiped off the face of the earth.
Bush Unilateralism
Critics
have cited US decision under the Bush administration to withdraw from
the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Treaty, to violate commitments to the
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), to reject the Kyoto Protocol, to invade
Iraq without UN approval and to make other hegemonic
military-geopolitical-economic moves as evidence of US unilateralism,
i.e., a general lack of support for multilateral arms control and
global warming agreements, and a blatant disregard for the UN and other
multilateral institutions or international consensus.
The
cool reception Bush received during his September 2004 address to the
59th session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly was a
reflection of how unpopular US unilateralism had become among the
international community. US military invasion of Iraq without UN
authorization was viewed by many in the international community as a
defiance of international law and the unilateral action solicited
strong opposition from many governments around the world, including
traditional US allies. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called on the
world to respect UN authority during his address on the same day as
Bush’s. Annan, in an interview with the BBC unambiguously pointed out
that any decisions on military action in Iraq should have been made by
the UN Security Council and not made unilaterally by a single country.
He also criticized Bush’s unilateral policy on Iraq by saying that the
war violated the UN Charter and was illegal.
The
Kyoto Protocol, opened for signature on December 11, 1997, was signed
by 141 nations, including all European and all other developed
industrial nations except the US and Australia. The pact went into
effect on February 16, 2005, and will expire in 2012. Vice President Al
Gore was a main participant in putting the Kyoto Protocol together in
1997. President Bill Clinton signed the agreement in 1997, but the US
Senate refused to ratify it, citing potential damage to the US economy
as required by compliance, and because it excluded certain developing
countries, including India and China, from having to comply with new
emissions standards immediately. Bush made campaign promises in 2000 to
regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. However, as one of the first
acts of his presidency Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto accords,
dismissing it as too costly, and described it as “an unrealistic and
ever-tightening straitjacket.” Lately, the White House has even
questioned the validity of the science behind global warming, and
claims that millions of jobs will be lost if the US joins in this world
pact, ignoring the larger economic loss from pollution-related health
costs and reduction in life expectancy.
China, despite being in the pollution-intensive phase of transitional
industrialization, signed the Kyoto pact on May 29, 1998. Chinese
Premier Zhu Rongji announced on September 3, 2002 at the World Summit
on Sustainable Development that China has approved the Kyoto Protocol
to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The
Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations deposited the instrument of
approval of the Kyoto Protocol with the UN secretary-general on August
30.
US policy officially acknowledges that multilateralism is “a
core principle in negotiations in the area of disarmament and
non-proliferation with a view to maintaining and strengthening
universal norms and enlarging their scope” -- as stated in UN General
Assembly resolution 56/24 T which also underlined the fact that
“progress is urgently needed in the area of disarmament and
non-proliferation in order to help maintain international peace and
security and to contribute to global efforts against terrorism.” Yet
the US asserts that although maintaining international peace and
security is its primary goal and overall purpose, in the final analysis
preserving national security is equally necessary and essential.
“Mutual advantage” is a key factor, for any arms control treaty must
enhance the security of all States Parties. Richard Haass, president of
the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, former US State
Department Policy Planning Head under Colin Powell, described Bush
administration support of certain multilateral regimes and
organizations but not others as “multilateralism a la carte.”
The
five-year review conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT) held from May 2-27, 2005 at the UN in New York
produced a contentious and unproductive outcome. Most participant
governments wanted the agenda to mention the decisions taken in the
Year 2000 Review Conference, including “the unequivocal undertaking by
the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their
nuclear arsenals.” (Point 6 of the “Thirteen Steps”) However, the US
after 9:11 2001 unilaterally considers the Year 2000 commitments as
inoperative relics of a foregone past and refuses to agree to any new
agenda mentioning total nuclear elimination.
Nuclear
Terrorism
Nuclear terrorism has until recently been a theme only for sensational
movies. The possible
ways that terrorists could obtain nuclear weapons through
manufacturing, purchasing, or theft were difficult and involved
formidable challenges and risks, as well as financial and technical
resources beyond the reach of typical terrorists who were more likely
to employ simpler means. Nevertheless, preventing terrorists
from acquiring nuclear material or other radioactive material from
power plants, research facilities, hospitals, industry, or from
insecure nuclear weapons facilities has become a top priority for all
governments. Responding to this threat, the IAEA Board of Governors in
March 2002 approved an Action Plan to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. A
number of States pledged specific sums of money, including Australia
($100,000), Great Britain ($350,000), Japan ($500,000), the Netherlands
(EUR 250,000), Slovenia (EUR 14,000), USA ($1 Million), to a special
fund set up to support a plan designed to upgrade worldwide protection
against acts of terrorism involving nuclear and other radioactive
materials. This amount is a fraction of what is needed to make a
top-budget movie.
In approving the plan, the IAEA
Board recognized that the first line of defense against nuclear
terrorism is the strong physical protection of nuclear facilities and
materials. A number of other member states announced in-kind support to
the plan, including Finland, France, Germany, India, Romania, and
Turkey. Other countries expressed hope to finance or provide support to
the plan in the near future. During the Preparatory Committee Sessions
for the 2005 NPT Review Conference and at the Review Conference, many
states parties and the representatives from the IAEA emphasized the
importance of strengthening safeguards of nuclear materials given the
increase in the perceived threat of nuclear terrorism. Such concerns
are not reflected in the meager funding.
Technological
imperative ordains that terrorists would eventually acquire highly
enriched uranium and use this fissile material to make simple, portable
nuclear explosive devices. In this context, IAEA
highlighted the importance of ensuring comprehensive and effective
physical protection of nuclear material. The Convention on the Physical
Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM), opened for signature at Vienna
and at New York on 3 March 1980, covers physical protection during
international transport, and other IAEA-issued standards provide
countries with guidelines on ways to voluntarily secure their nuclear
and radioactive materials. However, mandatory and legally binding
international standards for the physical protection of nuclear material
within a state do not exist. In July 2005, parties to the Convention
agreed on major changes to make it legally binding for states parties
to protect nuclear facilities and material for states’ peaceful use,
storage, and transport. In order to bring the changes into effect,
ratification by two thirds of the states parties is required.
The
US ratified the Convention on December 13, 1982. China acceded to the
Convention on January 10, 1989. On July 12, 1994, China formulated the
“Regulations Governing the Protection of Nuclear Materials in Kind
During International Transportation,” pursuant to its obligations under
the Convention. The regulations came into effect on 15 September 1994.
The regulations include provisions on: requiring that the competent
state authorities approve all international transportation of nuclear
materials; instituting a licensing system, under which without state
approval no one can possess, transfer, or transport nuclear materials;
requiring that the competent state authorities approve any passage and
transportation of nuclear materials in China; investigating any
unauthorized acceptance, possession, transfer, replacement, and
disposal of nuclear materials; making illegal the stealing or acquiring
of nuclear materials through fraud and extortion. The regulations also
cover the responsibilities, management, protection categories and
measures, and legal responsibilities of the relevant Chinese bodies in
charge of nuclear transportation. On April 9, 1996, China ratified the
Convention on Nuclear Safety while the US did so three years later on
April 11, 1999.
Increasing security
concerns over nuclear terrorism demand more international cooperation.
The “G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons of Mass
Destruction” adopted at the Gleneagles Summit in June 2005 renewed the
pledged $20 billion over a period of 10 years to 2012 to secure nuclear
and radioactive materials around the world, initially in Russia. States
parties to the NPT have generally supported this initiative. Moreover,
UN Security Council Resolution 1540 adopted in April 2004 requires
states parties to criminalize proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and their delivery systems by non-state actors as an
essential undertaking to reduce the dangers of proliferation of WMD to
terrorist groups.
Since the NPT was primarily designed to deal
with states, it has very little capacity to deal with the new threat
coming from non-state actors using nuclear weapons, or material and
technology to develop improvised nuclear explosive devices. To prevent
and respond to this new threat more promptly, states parties to the NPT
are advised to pursue unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral
counter-terrorism measures to augment the NPT regime.<>
Nonproliferation
and Unilateral Proliferation<>
The
US, as the mainstay of the nonproliferation regime, nevertheless has
unilaterally broadened its own strategy for unilateral use of nuclear
weapons and is moving toward unilateral development of new weapons.
Together with unilateral missile defense development and unilateral
moves toward weaponization of space, the US message to the
non-nuclear-weapon countries is that it does not rely on the
multilateral NPT for security, but instead on its own new star-war
weapon systems and unilateral adoption of pre-emptive offensive
strategy, which then raises questions on the need for and the
effectiveness of the multilateral NPT. Multilateral nonproliferation
has since been sustained only by inertia rather than forward movement.
Global nonproliferation has come to mean nonproliferation only in the
rest of the world outside the US and only in states that the US view
with displeasure. At any rate, US security is no
longer directly tied to nonproliferation which has been transformed
into a US geopolitical pretext for aggression, much like the defense of
democracy. Several states that the US considers as safe allies, such as
Israel, South Africa until the end of Apartheid and possibly Japan,
have been granted stealth status on the nonproliferation screen, with
India now selected as a preferred candidate for US geopolitical
exceptionalism. Selective proliferation is now a device to enhance US
security.
All Nuclear
Programs are Secret
Every
country that had
successfully developed nuclear weapons did so in secret, not only from
other governments but from other legitimate branches of their own
governments. The US Manhattan project was carried out in secret without
Congressional debate, nor was its use on Japan decided by broad
consensus. Nuclear arms and strategy are extraterritoriality to US
democratic processes. Both France and the United Kingdom launched their
nuclear programs with limited cabinet involvement and no parliamentary
debate. The Soviet and Chinese programs were initiated under direct
secret orders from the highest level in the Party and government. India
announced their program with a nuclear test in 1974 that was a surprise
even to many in its own government; Pakistan similarly in 1998; Israel
still refuses to officially confirm its program exists; South Africa
dismantled its secret weapons program only after the end of Apartheid.
Programs in Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, South Korea and
Taiwan are conducted in great secrecy while the existence of such
programs is treated as open secrets to secure maximum geopolitical
effect.
Today Japan is known to have a large stock of weapon-usable plutonium
(45,000 kg and growing) as well as the most advanced missile
technology. This is the result of deliberate policy established in the
late 1960’s. Poised to be able to cross the technical threshold of
actual weapons production and missiles assembly on short notice, Japan
has already become a de facto nuclear-weapon state, with the capability
of producing deliverable nuclear weapons within a matter of months if
not weeks. Chinese caution on pushing the US militarily from East Asia
is predicated on the prospect of a nuclear-armed Japan coming out from
under the US nuclear umbrella. Militarists in Japan would welcome such
a development as they argue that the US nuclear umbrella in the final
analysis is designed to protect only US national interests which would
be inevitably and increasingly incongruent with Japanese national
interests as time moves on. Arms control for a non-nuclear Japan is one
of the key convergence points in US-China national interests.
North Korea
and Iran
North Korea
and Iran, the two
remaining members of the Axis of Evil now that regime change has been
accomplished in evil Iraq with US occupation, have emerged as key
issues in the survival of the 38-year-old NPT regime. For achieving US
objectives on both “rogue” nations, US-China cooperation is one of the
basic prerequisites for success.
The North Korea situation is historically tied to Taiwan. A
quarter of a century after the US normalized its relations with China
on January 1, 1979, US-China relations are still plagued by residual
Cold War issues of war and peace that were created five decades ago at
the beginning of the Korean War. Among these are the linked problems of
Taiwan and Korea - two unfinished civil wars in Asia into which the US
injected itself at the beginning of the first large-scale armed
conflict in the Cold War and linked as key elements in its policy of
global containment of communist expansion. The Taiwan issue was created
by the US in response to an escalation of the Korean civil war. It is
not surprising, therefore, that the recurring crisis over renewed
Chinese war warnings on escalating Taiwan maneuvers toward independence
is also linked to a mounting crisis over the North Korean
nuclear-weapons program. (See: US-CHINA: QUEST FOR PEACE - Part 2: Cold
War links Korea, Taiwan - http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FA07Ad03.html).
Taipei Times Washington correspondent Charles Snyder reported that the
Pentagon has developed a comprehensive operational plan to defend
Taiwan in case of an attack from the Mainland. The plan, officially
designated “Oplan 5077-04,” is run by the US Pacific Command
headquartered in Honolulu. It includes provisions for the possible use
of nuclear weapons, involving not only US Pacific forces, but also US
troops and equipment worldwide, with potentials for a global conflict
that may inevitably involve Russia which sees US control over China as
a direct threat to its own security.
Nonproliferation
Challenges Facing China and US
At its
inception on July 1,
1968, the NPT reflected the international consensus that the spread of
nuclear weapons to more states was contrary to the promotion of
international peace and security. The Treaty, entering into force with
the deposit of US ratification on March 5, 1970, obligates the five
then acknowledged nuclear-weapon states (US, Russia, UK, France, and
China) not to transfer nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive
devices, or their technology to any non-nuclear-weapon state.
Non-nuclear-weapon states parties undertake not to acquire or produce
nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices.
In
1992, China acceded to the NPT on March 9 and France acceded on August
3. In 1996, Belarus joined Ukraine and Kazakhstan in removing and
transferring to Russia the last of the remaining former Soviet nuclear
weapons located within their territories, and each of these nations has
become a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the NPT. In June 1997 Brazil
became a state party to the NPT. Today, the number of states known to
possess usable nuclear arsenals is only three more than the original
five of the NPT. Those three additional nuclear-weapon states – India,
Pakistan and Israel – are now also the only states in the world not to
have joined the NPT. Cuba’s recent accession brought in the last
non-nuclear-weapon state; North Korea joined but withdrew from the NPT
on January 10, 2003 and now claims to also possess nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the arsenals of the US and Russia have shrunk from their
combined Cold War peak of 65,000 warheads to under 20,000, with that
number set to shrink further under the Moscow Treaty on Strategic
Offensive Reductions entered into on May 24, 2002 by President Bush and
President Putin, calling for reduction of the combined strategic
nuclear warheads of the two nations to a level of 1700-2200 by December
31, 2012, a level nearly two-thirds below current levels.
In
its December 2003 White Paper on Non-proliferation Policy and Measures,
China states that “China stands for the attainment of the
non-proliferation goal through peaceful means, i.e. on the one hand,
the international non-proliferation mechanism must be continually
improved and export controls of individual countries must be updated
and strengthened, and, on the other hand, proliferation issues must be
settled through dialogue and international cooperation. … …
Unilateralism and double standards must be abandoned, and great
importance should be attached and full play given to the role of the
United Nations.”
The document pointed out that China
“will constantly increase consultations and exchanges with
multinational nonproliferation mechanisms, including the Nuclear
Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), the
Australia Group, and the Wassenaar Arrangement [on Export Controls for
Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies]” dropping
previous criticism of these export control arrangements for their
exclusive and discriminatory nature. The 2003 document increased the
level of transparency of China’s export control system, detailing the
process and criteria for China’s export control decisions, and
specifies the role and responsibilities of key institutional
participants within the process.
Chinese arms control
advocates have since become frustrated at the Bush administration’s
reluctance to publicly acknowledge improvements in China’s
nonproliferation behavior; and the continuing use
of
sanctions by the US as a method of coercing Chinese entities to refrain
from proliferation transfers, particularly with regard to North Korea
and Iran. The 2003 white paper aimed to illustrate the progress made in
China’s attitude and behavior, notwithstanding the record of relentless
US anti-China policy on global dual-use technology sanctions not only
from itself but also from its reluctant allies in the EU, and its
blatant unilateral abuse of the multilateral nonproliferation regime to
further its own national geopolitical advantage.
Focus on
Missile Defense
Two years
later, China’s State
Council on September 1, 2005 issued a new white paper titled: China's
Endeavors for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, in which
opposition to US “unilateralism” was deleted. In it
place is a more positive statement: “The international community is in
favor of maintaining multilateralism.” The emphasis shifted to a new
focus: “China does not wish to see a missile defense system produce
negative impact on global strategic stability, bring new unstable
factors to international and regional peace and security, erode trust
among big powers, or undermine legitimate security interests of other
countries. China is even more reluctant to see some countries cooperate
in the missile defense field to further proliferate ballistic missile
technology. China believes that relevant countries should increase
transparency in their missile defense program for the purpose of
deepening trust and dispelling misgivings. As the Taiwan question
involves its core interests, China opposes the attempt by any country
to provide help or protection to the Taiwan region of China in the
field of missile defense by any means.” This is a
direct reference to the US-proposed US-Japan-Taiwan theater missile
defense (TMD) system.
Many
reports on the waste and futility of efforts to develop a missile
defense system by technical and strategic experts have appeared in
print. Technologically, the system’s difficulty, to shoot a speeding
bullet with another bullet, or to shoot a shower of smart bullets that
can turn corners and release decoys with a counter shower of smarter
bullets, appears to be technically insurmountable and economically
inefficient even if the technological hurdles could be overcome
theoretically in controlled test conditions. The
complexity ratio faced by the defense in overcoming the continually
up-gradable offense is exponential so that the offense will always have
the advantage of out-maneuvering the defense. And success in defense
depends of total effectiveness while success in offense requires only a
statistical advantage. If only one missile out of a
thousand slips through, the game is lost. On a common sense level, the
concept borders on pure stupidity. Any child who watches Western movies
knows that in a gun fight, the aim is to shoot the shooter, not the
bullet from his gun. For the US, the missile
shooter in the Taiwan Straits Theater is China. When
Bush proclaims that the US would defend Taiwan “by any means
necessary”, it can only mean an attack on the Chinese mainland over an
issue that China considers its own internal affair, a view shared by
Nixon and Kissinger in the Shanghai Communiqué of February 1972.
For
China, Bush’s hostile and belligerent posture over Taiwan is not a good
basis for peaceful bilateral relations.
The whole missile
defense issue, a component of the full nuclear nonproliferation issue,
is shaping up to be a game of non-existent weapon systems in the hands
of “rogue” states becoming real in the mind of the US political
leadership, with the fantasized threat to be neutralized by a
non-operational defense system in the hands of science-fiction
superpower super-hawks. It is a fear-mongering game of political shadow
boxing, pitting fantasized threats against a fantasy technology to
conduct a ritual dance of psychological chicken for geopolitical gain.
The
US aims to make the world safe from nuclear weapons that would take
alleged rogue nations another decade to produce with a defense system
that would take the US another decade to perfect. In the meantime, the
US will knock off a few unarmed “dictators” for good measure in the
name of freedom, along with a few hundred thousand innocent civilians
as unavoidable but acceptable collateral damage. The
scale is fast tilting as to who would end up killing more Iraqi
citizens, the Saddam regime during it allegedly evil rule or the
open-ended US occupation in the name of freedom.
US as
Proponent of both Nonproliferation and Proliferation
Yet the US
has been and
continues to be a leading proponent of the international
nonproliferation regime that it unilaterally is making irrelevant fast.
At the domestic level, the US is misapplying for geopolitical aim a
system of export control and licensing laws and regulations covering
transfers of nuclear technology or materials, including dual-use
technology that can contribute to nuclear weapons development. There is
also a vast maze of laws requiring sanctions for violations of
nonproliferation commitments, and sanctions against non-nuclear-weapons
states that obtain or test nuclear weapons. Yet, like free trade,
export control is only selectively applied to keep proliferation from
“unsafe” states.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT) was negotiated, signed by President Clinton in September 1997
and submitted to the Senate where it was vigorously opposed and failed
to be ratified. Despite the uncertainty introduced by US rejection of
the CTBT, steps toward ending the nuclear arms race and nuclear
disarmament continued, as called for in Article VI of the NPT.
Then
in January 2002, three months after the 9:11 terrorist attacks, the
Bush Administration released the results of its “Nuclear Posture
Review,” announcing that nuclear planning would no longer address the
“Russian threat,” as left over from the Cold War, but would develop
capabilities to meet a range of threats from unspecified countries.
China was on the top of such list before 9:11 and continues to be on
the list over the Taiwan situation. The redirection would be
accompanied by a large, unilateral reduction in deployed nuclear
weapons to a level not affecting US nuclear superiority. While the US
has reduced its arsenal of warheads from 150,000 to 10,300, the TNT
tonnage of destruction power with bigger warheads still commands the
equivalent of 120,000-130,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. The US nuclear
arsenal is designed not merely for massive destruction to win a war,
but total destruction of all opponents to rid the world of evil.
However,
the new policy also included development of a controversial missile
defense capability, and improving the nuclear weapons “infrastructure”
to allow resumption of testing and possible development of new weapons
at accelerated pace. The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) has been
a subject of discussion at the Geneva Conference on Disarmament for
some years, but little progress has been made. On July 29, 2004, the US
declared the FMCT “ripe for negotiations” and “reaffirmed” US
commitment to negotiate a legally binding treaty. However, a US policy
review concluded that “realistic, effective verification” of such a
treaty was not “achievable.”
Responding to
Pakistani nuclear expert Abdul Qadeer Kahn’s revelation that he had
headed a network that spread nuclear weapons technology and equipment
to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, President Bush on February 11, 2004
urged more and stricter controls on nuclear exports, demanding that
non-nuclear-weapons states renounce developing capacity to enrich
uranium and reprocess plutonium as part of commercial nuclear power
programs, while nuclear supplier nations ensure adequate fuel for
nuclear plants at reasonable prices. Bush also argued that IAEA’s
Additional Protocol for inspections regimes should be required of all
NPT signatories, and urged the Senate to consent to it on the part of
the US. On March 31 the Senate ratified the protocol (Treaty Doc.107-7,
Senate Executive Report 108-12). As a nuclear-weapons state, the US in
agreeing to IAEA inspections has the right to exclude any activities or
sites that it declares are of “direct national security significance.”
The
same exclusion by other nations, such as Iraq, Iran and North Korea,
has since been used by the US as pretext for preemptive attack,
invasion or threats of such.
In order to engage in
international trade in nuclear technology or materials (such as nuclear
fuel), US companies must obtain export licenses from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC). Before an export license can be applied
for, there must be in force a bilateral agreement for peaceful nuclear
cooperation between the US government and the government of the
importing nation. The conditions necessary for drawing up and approving
an agreement for cooperation, laid out in Section 123 of the Atomic
Energy Act, include a 90-day review by Congress. In many cases,
congressional review of an agreement for cooperation has been
controversial, being based on geopolitical rather than technical
considerations. Congress narrowly allowed an
agreement with China to take effect in 1997 only after extended debate
and extensive lobbying from the nuclear energy export sector.
In
addition to NRC’s licensing and regulation role, the Department of
Energy (DOE) also participates in export controls. DOE authorizes the
transfer of nuclear technology to countries having agreements for
nuclear cooperation with the US via “subsequent arrangements,” the
details of which are spelled out in Section 131 of the Atomic Energy
Act of 1954. In general, NRC deals largely with licensing hardware,
while DOE licenses information and knowledge, under regulations defined
in 10 CFR Part 810. Finally, the Department of Commerce also is
involved in regulating exports of dual-use, nuclear-related commodities
under the provisions of the Export Administration Act of 1979. That law
has expired since August 21, 2001 and successive Congresses despite
several attempts have not passed new legislation. In the absence of an
Export Administration Act, US dual-use export control system continues
to be dependent on the President’s invocation of emergency powers under
the International Emergency Economic Powers Act under which Commerce
continues to play a role in export regulation. The
US Department of Commerce has agreed with the Ministry of Commerce of
the People’s Republic of China on procedures to strengthen end-use
visit cooperation and help ensure that US exports of controlled
dual-use items are being used by their intended recipients for their
intended purposes. This understanding will enable increased US exports
to China of high-technology items. The US Commerce Department said that
this new end-use visit understanding provides an important example of
the US and China working together to solve practical problems to the
benefit of both their peoples.
US Nuclear
Export Policy
US nuclear
export policy has
undergone major transformations since 1945. An initial emphasis on
secrecy and criminality, highlighted by the 1946 Atomic Energy Act,
which while putting atomic weapons technology under civilian control
supervised by the Atomic Energy Commission imposed a criminal ban on
the release of atomic technology to other countries, even to allies
that had participated in US atomic research during the war. This served
to push countries such as the UK, which had supplied scientific
personnel and information to the Manhattan Project team, into
constructing their own nuclear weapons and started the first wave of
nuclear proliferation.
Julius and Ethel Rosenburgs
were executed for espionage under this act despite the fact that bomb
experts have since held that their peripheral knowledge of nuclear
technology did not allow them to give Soviet intelligence any
information it did not already have from other sources, such as Klaus
Fuchs, a German born British citizen who had security clearance to work
on the Manhattan Project under hydrogen-bomb hawk Edward Teller; and
Donald Maclean, one of the Cambridge Five who spied for the USSR on
ideological grounds, who served in the British Embassy in Washington
during war time. Post Cold War declassified Soviet documents showed
that Julius Rosenburg was a lower level asset of no scientific value to
Soviet intelligence and Ethel Rosenburg was not involved in espionage
in any way except that her brother, a sergeant in the US Army, was a
machinist at Los Alamo whose knowledge of the bomb was not central. Yet
the Rosenburgs were the only two American civilians to be executed for
espionage-related activity during the Cold War. In imposing the death
penalty at the urging of Roy Cohn, the young Jewish prosecutor and aide
to Senator Joseph McCarthy of McCarthyism fame, Judge Irving Kaufman,
the Jewish judge hand-picked by Senator McCarthy for the case, held the
Rosenburgs responsible not only for espionage but also for all the war
deaths of the Korean War. Many have since suggested that the
Rosenburgs, communists and Jewish, were sacrificed by the Jewish right
to prove Jewish American loyalty to a nation in the midst of
anti-communist hysteria to protect Jewish Americans from wholesale
persecution for the predominance of the pre-war Jewish left before the
McCarthy era.
The US secretive approach on nuclear
technology gave way in 1954 to the active promotion internationally of
peaceful uses of atomic energy, which only came to an end in 1974 when
the much criticized AEC was abolished following the Indian detonation
of a “peaceful nuclear explosion.” The US then adopted a nuclear export
policy emphasizing technology control. The event led to a major
revision in US policy on nuclear exports, moving nonproliferation
toward center stage on the US foreign policy agenda. The Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) was mobilized to set strict multinational
guidelines for the major nuclear exporting states covering the transfer
of nuclear fuel and sensitive technology. The NSG obligated its 45
members to pursue two sets of guidelines for nuclear and
nuclear-related dual-use exports. Central to the guidelines, which like
other aspects of NSG policy were adopted by consensus, was the
principle that only NPT parties or other states with comprehensive
(full-scope) safeguards in place should benefit from nuclear technology
transfers. The US worked hard to persuade the NSG to adopt the
principle of comprehensive safeguards as a condition for export. Under
the authority of amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act, the US
imposed half-hearted sanctions on Pakistan, cutting off economic and
military aid as a result of its pursuit of nuclear weapons in response
to the Indian bomb. The US suspended sanctions on Pakistan when Soviet
activities in Afghanistan and Soviet-Indian alliance made Pakistan a
strategically important “frontline state” and in the Afghan phase of
the current war on terrorism. At the height of the nuclear deterrence
phase of the Cold War when technological parity was necessary to
maintain stability, US intelligence purposely provided nuclear and
missile secrets to the Soviets to serve the dual purpose of maintaining
nuclear parity and to plant credible moles in the Soviet intelligence
system.
India-US
Joint Statement
The July 18,
2005 India-US Joint Statement (IUSJS) sets a new direction for US
nonproliferation policy. The
IUSJS requires the US to abandon the crucial principle of comprehensive
safeguards as a condition for export since India is not a signatory to
the NPT. The IUSJS necessitates a fundamental change in US nuclear
export policy with the promise by the US president that he will seek to
adjust US laws and policies, as well as international regimes, to
enable full US civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India, a
non-NPT state. These adjustments are necessary since India does not
have full-scope safeguards in place and is one of only four states
(along with Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea) that remain outside of
the NPT. By the Joint Statement Bush has in effect announced that
technology control is no longer the cornerstone of US nuclear export
and nonproliferation policy. Instead, it has given way to a strategy in
which geopolitics has primacy and regional security strategy and
international economic objectives override those of nonproliferation.
Although this shift is not the first time nonproliferation objectives
have been subordinated to other US foreign policy considerations, it
represents the most radical change in US nuclear export policy.
The unnamed target of the India-US Joint
Statement is of course China.
The
July 18, 2005 India-US Joint Statement “expresses satisfaction at the
New Framework for the US-India Defense Relationship … … to remove
certain Indian organizations from the Department of Commerce's Entity
List … ... The [US] President told the [Indian] Prime Minister that he
will work to achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India
as it realizes its goals of promoting nuclear power and achieving
energy security. The President would also seek agreement from Congress
to adjust U.S. laws and policies, and the United States will work with
friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil
nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India, including but not
limited to expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded
nuclear reactors at Tarapur.” GE, the only US
enterprise still in the nuclear business, built the nuclear plants at
Tarapur, it had been forced to leave in 1974 when India conducted its
first nuclear test.
William C. Potter,
director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Monterey
Institute of International Studies, thinks that the IUSJS reverses more
than a quarter century of US declaratory policy. The
Joint Statement suggests that the Bush national security team regards
nuclear proliferation to be both inevitable and possibly a useful
balance-of-power device in geopolitics. In light of the magnitude of
this policy shift and its potential to impact negatively on the NPT,
associated nonproliferation institutions, and even elements of the
president’s own nonproliferation initiatives, one would have expected
the policy announcement to follow a careful and systematic review of
the implications of the proposed change. A decision of such national
and international security concern would be expected to require input
from all major governmental players with nonproliferation
responsibilities, including senior officials in charge of
nonproliferation policy in the Departments of State and Energy. In
fact, however, Potter observes that the new policy appears to have been
formulated without a comprehensive high-level review of its potential
impact on nonproliferation, the deep engagement of senior
nonproliferation experts in and out of government, or a clear plan for
achieving its implementation. Indeed, the policy shift bears all the
signs of a top-down administrative executive directive specifically
designed to circumvent the inter-agency review process and to minimize
input from any remnants of the “nonproliferation lobby.”
US Selective
Proliferation Since 1964
Yet Potter
should know that
selective proliferation has been a US policy option since at least
1964. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 1: The
United States, China, and the Bomb - Document 7, As Explosive as a Nuclear Weapon: The
Gilpatric Report on Nuclear Proliferation, January 1965 - Source:
Freedom of Information Act request to State Department, reads as
follows:
“Largely
motivated by concern over the first Chinese atomic test in October
1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Wall Street lawyer and former
Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric to lead a special task
force in investigating, and making policy recommendations on, the
spread of nuclear weapons… … some senior officials thought that nuclear
proliferation was inevitable and, among the right countries,
potentially desirable. Thus, during a November 1964 meeting, Rusk
stated that he was not convinced that ‘the US should oppose other
countries obtaining nuclear weapons.’ Not only could he ‘conceive of
situations where the Japanese or the Indians might desirably have their
own nuclear weapons’, Rusk asked ‘should it always be the U.S. which
would have to use nuclear weapons against Red China?’ Robert McNamara
thought otherwise: it was ‘unlikely that the Indians or the Japanese
would ever have a suitable nuclear deterrent.’ … … according to [AEC
chairman] Glenn Seaborg’s account of a briefing for Johnson, Rusk
opined that the report was ‘as explosive as a nuclear weapon.’
Foot
note 2: Rusk thought it better that Asians use nuclear weapons against
each other rather than Euro-Americans using them against Asians.
Quotations from memorandum of conversation by Herbert Scoville, ACDA,
‘Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons- Course of Action for UNGA -
Discussed by the Committee of Principals’, November 23, 1964, National
Archives, Record Group 359, White House Office of Science and
Technology, FOIA Release to National Security Archive.”
Thus
the option of arming Japan and India with nuclear weapon against China
took shape immediately after China’s first nuclear test.
Potter
wrote in an August 25, 2005 article that the convergence of US and
Indian national security interests as two nations most impacted by the
rise of China is advocated by Robert Blackwill, US ambassador to India
during the Bush first term. Ashley Tellis, former Senior Policy Advisor
to Blackwill, in a report issued by the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace four days before the Joint Statement by President
Bush and Prime Minister Singh, points out that it would be a mistake to
attempt to integrate India “into the nonproliferation order at the cost
of capping the size of its eventual nuclear deterrent” for potential
use against a rising China to protect US interests in Asia. Tellis
openly acknowledges the fundamental danger to the global
nonproliferation regime posed by the shift in US policy but believes
the risk of proliferation manageable and is justified by US
geopolitical interests that transcend the benefits of nonproliferation.
This
approach is not surprising for if the defense of democracy could be
compromised by Cold War geopolitics with US support of dictators, why
is nonproliferation different? Potter observed that
this new US policy toward India have antecedents in which
nonproliferation considerations in South Asia also took a back seat to
other foreign policy and national security objectives, as in the case
of Pakistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It also can
be discerned after 9:11 in the less-than-forceful manner in which the
US pressed Pakistan to reveal the full scope of the A.Q. Khan network.
Prior to the July 18, 2005 India-US Joint Statement, however, the
trade-offs between pursuing global nonproliferation objectives and
those of regional security were never linked as directly or publicly.
What made the difference was US attitude toward China as a long-range
threat beyond the war on terrorism and the selection of India as a
counter balance.
The
India-US Joint
Statement indicates more clearly than ever before that Washington is
not opposed to the possession of nuclear weapons by some states,
including those outside of the NPT, only some other states. This new
policy of nonproliferation exceptionalism is far more explicit and
pronounced than prior routine efforts by the US and its allies to
deflect criticism of Israel’s nuclear policies. Unlike the Clinton
administration which “had an undifferentiated concern about
proliferation,” the Bush administration is not afraid to distinguish
between friends and foes. Nuclear weapons, once given, cannot be
removed easily, thus such selective policy has a tendency to lock the
definition of friends and foes into long time-frames if not
perpetuality.
More May Be
Better
Some
25 years earlier, Kenneth N. Waltz developed the idea that nuclear
proliferation could be a positive geopolitical strategy in his The
Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better (Adelphi Paper 171;
London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1981).
Waltz
advanced the view that the spread of nuclear weapons may promote
regional stability, reduce the likelihood of war, and make wars harder
to start. It was an expansion of the superpower nuclear deterrence
doctrine to regional geopolitics. The main flaw in Waltz’ argument is
that it was easy to predict superpower rational behavior because each
superpower had much to lose by making the wrong move, whereas some
smaller powers may operate irrationally from a desperate position of
having nothing or little to lose and start a nuclear chain-reaction
conflict that no one wants but none can stop.
Non-nuclear-weapons
states can be expected to reconsider their nonproliferation commitments
in light of the new US proliferation posture toward India. A similar
reassessment of the security value of the NPT may be undertaken by
states that have not actively pursued a nuclear weapons option, but
made explicit the conditionality of their NPT membership on assurances
that the international community would not tolerate any additional
nuclear-weapons states.
Japan is a critical state on the
nonproliferation issue. While Japan has been vocally critical of all
Asian nuclear weapons programs, militarism has been on the rise in
Japan. Japanese militarism revival skirts post-war Japanese pacifism by
arguing that war is more likely to be forced on Japan unless Japan
rearms, including the nuclear option. The assurances Japan received in
joining the NPT have been rendered empty by US proliferation policy
toward India. Decision-making about nonproliferation has become a
dynamic process that does not end with accession to the NPT, but will
change over time and according to US policy whims.
Iran and
India
On
February 11, 2004, President Bush gave a major address at National
Defense University in which he outlined a new nonproliferation strategy
with reference to Iran. He called on the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)
to tighten its export control guidelines by prohibiting the export of
enrichment and reprocessing technology and equipment to countries that
do not already operate enrichment and reprocessing plants, such as
Iran. The new strategy also aimed to fend off attempts by Russia in
recent years to create a special nuclear export exception for India.
After the Bush speech, Russia reluctantly halted in late 2004 nuclear
fuel shipment for two reactors at Tarapur because of new NSG
constraints. The July 2005 India-US Joint Statement commits the US to
do for India what it prevented Russia from doing just a year earlier.
France and a number of other NSG states have long eyed nuclear market
opportunities in India. They can be expected to support the creation of
a special export regime for India under the NSG even if it means
establishing the principle of exceptionalism. Iranian nuclear
negotiators have pointed out the inconsistency of US efforts to deny
enrichment technology to Iran, a non-nuclear-weapons state party to the
NPT, while supporting nuclear trade with India, a non-NPT state that
has a dedicated and demonstrated nuclear weapons program. The
inconsistency the new US position is not lost on North Korea. The
India-US Joint Statement, cast in terms of geopolitics with regard to
China, is a double edge sword. A Congressional Research Service Report
for Congress observes that US-India nuclear cooperation could prompt
other suppliers, like China, to justify nuclear exports to Pakistan,
not to mention Iran and North Korea.
North Korea
and Taiwan Proliferation Links
On
January 5, 1950, three month after the founding of the People’s
Republic of China, President Harry Truman announced that “the United
States will not involve in the dispute of Taiwan Strait”, which meant
America would not intervene if the Chinese communists were to attack
Taiwan where the defeated Koumintang forces had retreated. However, on
June 25, 1950 the Korean War broke out, and two days later President
Truman reacted by declaring the “neutralization of the Straits of
Formosa” on June 27. The Seventh Fleet was sent into the Straits under
orders to prevent any attack on the island from the Mainland, and also
prevent the Kuomintang forces on Taiwan to attack China, as suggested
by General Douglas MacArthur. From that point on, Taiwan has been
placed under non-stop US military protection.
Shortly
after his inauguration on February 2, 1953 President Eisenhower lifted
the US Navy blockade of Taiwan which had prevented Koumintang force,
newly regrouped and re-supplied by the US, from counter-attacking
mainland China. During August 1954 Chiang Kai-shek moved 58,000 troops
to Quemoy & 15,000 to Matsu. Premier Zhou En-lai declared on August
11, 1954 that Taiwan must be liberated. On August 17, 1954 the US
warned China against attacking Taiwan, but on September 3, 1954 the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began an artillery bombardment of
Quemoy, and in November, PLA planes bombed the Tachen Islands. On
September 12, 1954 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recommended the
possibility of using nuclear weapons against China. And on November 23
1954 China sentenced 13 US airmen shot down over China in the Korean
War to long jail terms, prompting further consideration of nuclear
strikes against China. At the urging of Senator William Knowland, the
US signed the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Nationalist government on
Taiwan on December 2, 1954, joining one side of the Chinese civil war
by treaty.
On January 18, 1955 PLA forces seized Yijiangshan
[Ichiang] Island, 210 miles north of Taiwan, completely wiping out
Nationalist forces stationed there. The two sides continued fighting on
Kinmen, Matsu, and along the mainland Chinese coast. The fighting even
extended to mainland Chinese coastal ports. The US-Nationalist Chinese
Mutual Security Pact, which did not apply to islands along the Chinese
mainland, was ratified by the Senate on February 9, 1955. The Taiwan
Resolution passed both houses of Congress on January 29, 1955. The
Resolution pledged the US to the defense of Taiwan, authorizing the
president to employ US forces to defend Taiwan and the Pescadores
against armed attack, including such other territories as appropriate
to defend them.
On March 10, 1995 US Secretary of State John
Forster Dulles at a National Security Council (NSC) meeting states that
the American people have to be prepared for possible nuclear strikes
against China. Five days later Dulles publicly stated that the US was
seriously considering using atomic weapons in the Quemoy-Matsu area.
And the following day President Eisenhower publicly stated that
“A-bombs can be used...as you would use a bullet.” These public
statements sparked an international uproar, as NATO foreign ministers
expressed opposition to nuclear attacks on China. Nonetheless, on March
25, 1955 US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Robert B. Carney stated
that the president is planning “to destroy Red China's military
potential,” predicting war by mid-April. On April 23, 1955 China stated
at the Afro-Asian Conference that it was ready to negotiate on Taiwan,
and on May 1, 1955 shelling of Quemoy-Matsu ceased, ending the crisis.
On August 1, 1955 China released the 11 captured US airmen previously
sentenced to jail terms. This was the First Taiwan
Straits Crisis which lasted from August 11, 1954 to May 1 1955.
In
the first Taiwan Strait crisis of 1954-55 the USSR, the other nuclear
superpower, had been quite ambiguous in its support for China’s
campaign to liberate Taiwan, whereas the US had indicated that it was
willing to use tactical nuclear weapons in defense of the island.
During the crisis, it became evident that the USSR nuclear umbrella was
reserved exclusively for the defense of Soviet national interests. The
PRC called off its military operations against Quemoy to avoid a US
nuclear attack. The crisis solidified Chinese resolve to develop its
own nuclear weapons.
An article carried by Huanqiu Shibao
(Global Times) on 15 October 2004 recapped a detailed history of
Taiwan’s nuclear weapons programs since 1950 when the US and Taiwan
planned a nuclear attack on Xiamen. In the 1970’s
the US pressured Taiwan to end a nuclear weapons program started by
Chiang Kai-shek in the late 1960's under the auspices of the Chung Shan
Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST). The US again pressured
Taiwan to end a nuclear weapons program “secretly” restarted by Chiang
Ching-kuo in the 1980s after a nuclear scientist, Chang Hsien-i, a US
spy, defected to the United States with information on the project.
Huanqiu Shibao claimed that even during the Lee Teng-hui adminstration,
the words and actions of officials suggested that his administration
had resumed the nuclear weapons program. The Huanqiu Shibao article
concluded that although Chen Shui-bian has publicly committed to a
“nuclear-free home” and never developing nuclear weapons, Taiwan media
suspect Chen is playing word games and may want to develop nuclear
weapons to prevent unification.
In 1969, Taiwan purchased from
Canada a 40-megawatt research reactor and the Institute for Nuclear
Energy Research (INER) began work on a fuel-reprocessing facility with
equipment purchased from France, Germany and the US under NSG
exceptionalism. With 100 tons of uranium quietly
purchased from South Africa, INER by 1973 had a full Plutonium Fuel
Chemistry Laboratory functioning. In 1974, the CIA concluded that
“Taipei conducts its small nuclear program with a weapon option clearly
in mind, and it will be in a position to fabricate a device after five
years.” Taiwan president Chiang Ching-kuo responded cryptically to news
reports of missing weapon-grade plutonium: “we have the ability and the
facilities to manufacture nuclear weapons [but] we will never
manufacture them.”
It has been standing Chinese policy that
China will deploy a preemptive military option if Taiwan moves towards
independence, faces foreign occupation or take steps to acquire nuclear
weapons. When President Carter broke diplomatic relations with Taipei
to recognize the People’s Republic of China in 1979, the US feared the
termination of the US-Taiwan defense treaty could lead Taiwan “to
reconsider its nuclear option.” This concern was shared by China and
was a key reason for Chinese de facto acceptance of the Taiwan
Relations Act, a US domestic law that directly interferes with Chinese
internal affairs. The trade off was a freeze on Taiwan’s march toward
nuclear armament.
In 1987, CIA agent Chang Hsien-yi, deputy
director of INER, alerted his handler to a top-level Taiwan secret
order to start up plutonium reprocessing. President Reagan sent a
high-level envoy to Taipei with an ultimatum to deactivate the weapons
program. In July 1995, China launched missiles into
the Taiwan Strait halting all merchant shipping in one of the world's
busiest sea-lanes for a week. While US propaganda described the event
as provocative, Washington knew that it was a direct response to
pending Taiwan nuclear moves. Taiwan President Lee formally announced:
“we should re-study the question [of nuclear weapons development] from
a long-term point of view,” while repeating that Taiwan “has the
ability” to build a bomb “but definitely will not.” When a second
Chinese missile test closed the Straits again in March 1996, President
Clinton reassured Taiwan of Washington’s commitment to defend Taiwan
and dispatched two carrier battle groups with nuclear capability to the
region to get Taiwan to halt its nuclear weapons program. The
Korea nonproliferation issue is tied up directly with the Taiwan
nonproliferation issue, and in a less direct way, with nonproliferation
with regard to Japan.
Next:
Geopolitical
Dynamics of the Proliferation Crisis in North Korea
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