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Two Chinas (One Big Problem)

The twentieth century is littered with diplomatic agreements that did little more than set up the next war. The Versailles Treaty at the end of World War One created the conditions to spawn Hitler and the Nazi party. The Yalta agreement between Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill split Europe into two halves and set the stage for the Cold War. The Balfour Declaration set into motion the diplomatic machinery to bring Israel back into existence and a persistent state of war in the Middle East.

Similarly, the diplomatic fiction regarding China appears to be boiling as we enter the twenty-first century. The west has been ambiguous regarding its defense of the Republic of China (ROC) vis-à-vis the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). A little history is in order.

Fifty years ago there was effectively a civil war in China. Arrayed on one side were the forces that eventually became communist China led by Mao Zedong (PRC). The Nationalist forces retreated from the mainland to Taiwan—an island one hundred thirty kilometers from the mainland (ROC). A state of war has existed off and on for the last fifty years with each side declaring they will ultimately reunify China under a single banner.

There are a couple of realities that come into play. During World War Two General Douglas Macarthur elected to by pass Taiwan during his island hopping campaign to defeat Japan. With six hundred ships at his disposal he assessed Taiwan to be too difficult of an objective. The point is that amphibious assault whether by air or sea is not a trivial undertaking.

There is also little chance that an island nation with a population of 22 million people can or will defeat the mainland hosting 1.2 billion people. The raw number imbalance is simply too great to overcome. Except for the occasional saber rattling and bombardment of Taiwan’s closer islands the two Chinas satisfy their angst with insults.

America provides an ambiguous wild card in the form of the Seventh Fleet and a nebulous foreign policy. A direct assault on Taiwan (ROC) by the mainland (PRC) would result in an immediate and tragic response from the United States for one very basic reason. Eighty percent of all motherboards for all computers come from factories surrounding Taichung on Taiwan. The west has evolved into an information economy and the west has proven it will set aside its differences to fight any nation that threatens her economic stability—the most recent example being 1991 and Iraq.

None of this would be very interesting except for recent facts:

1.China has pilfered America’s most precious secrets regarding nuclear and satellite technology.

2.The ROC just elected a pro-independence candidate president. As long as the former regime spoke of reunification a macabre stability existed. Succession changes the equation between the PRC and the ROC.

3.Beijing has made the some of the most bellicose announcements regarding America since the depths of the Cold War in the mid sixties. Such peaceful statements like incinerating 200 million Americans with nuclear weapons.

4.The PRC’s stated goal of emerging in the early twenty-first century as the single undisputed superpower.

Of course, such problems form the grist for writers as myself. Hopefully, the extent of our conflict with the two Chinas will be confined to the pages of techno thrillers and spy novels. Failing that, then the gallant men and women in the Seventh Fleet will indeed sail into harm’s way.

Douglas De Bono / DouglasDeBono.Com Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota E-Mail readermail@DouglasDeBono.Com