Playing with fire

Lee Teng-Hui has a knack for lighting political fires. His allies say the 11-year President of Taiwan is simply a determined nationalist following the wishes of the vast majority of his electorate. But domestic critics call him a loose cannon, and his adversaries in Beijing regard him as a truly dangerous provocateur. While he likes to talk and often does so injudiciously, Lee is a shrewd politician consciously engaged in a high-risk game of chicken with China.

So Lee knows that in the delicate triangular relationship linking China, Taiwan and the U.S., the subtlest of words and actions can spark a conflagration. When he persuaded Washington to let him visit his alma mater, Cornell, four years ago, the first-of-a-kind trip by a Taiwanese leader since the U.S. dropped diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in 1979, the incident seemed trivial. But China literally went ballistic. In the midst of Lee's campaign for re-election, the People's Republic, which regards Taiwan as a "renegade province," staged ominous military exercises in the narrow waterway separating the island from the mainland, firing test missiles. Washington responded by dispatching two carrier battle groups to the region, and the world trembled at the possibility of armed conflict between the great powers.

Last week Lee sent another shudder through the tangled relationship. In a carefully calculated statement, he cut away the political fiction that has kept the three parties at peace for nearly three decades. Taiwan, he said, no longer subscribed to the deliberately ambiguous "one China" formula that deemed the Chinese mainland and Taiwan two parts of the same country. From now on, declared Lee, Taiwan intended to operate on a "state-to-state" basis with the mainland, demanding that Beijing treat the island as an equal. This "clarification" to Beijing's ears seemed touchily close to a declaration of independence. China, which has always vowed to keep hold of Taiwan by force if necessary, responded with a verbal fusillade. Warned Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao: "Don't underestimate the courage and force of the Chinese people to oppose Taiwan independence."

Such anger over a few words that don't sound like much to get excited about. They even reflect reality. Nevertheless, the impact is certain to be profound. In any other part of the world, the new phrasing could be swept aside as a niggling shift in semantics. But for two belligerents, each bent on prevailing, and for a U.S. government caught in the middle, Lee's words had the potential of sparking a diplomatic crisis--or worse. Nor is it now merely an academic exercise for Americans to ask, Would we go to war for Taiwan?

Here's why you should worry. Despite the end of the cold war, virtually everyone in Beijing, Taipei and especially the U.S. Congress still presumes that if China attacks, the U.S. will fight for Taiwan. "One China" may sound like diplomatic fuzz, but it was a brilliant conceptual notion that let Taiwan, China and the U.S. pursue their separate interests without coming into conflict over who owned the island. The useful formula had its roots in the 1972 Shanghai Communique that opened relations between the People's Republic and the U.S. In the years since, the three parties agreed that one day the island and the mainland would reunify but left unstated whose flag would fly. China need not give up its dream of absorbing the nationalist enclave, while Taiwan could fashion itself into a de facto, but not officially separate, state. As long as both adhered to the one-China formula, the U.S., whose strategic interests lie with the mainland even though its moral ties are to the island, was not forced to choose sides.

All that began to unravel after Lee became the first Taiwanese-born President in 1988. The authoritarian Kuomintang nationalist leaders, who fled to the island when the communists prevailed in 1949, gave way to democrats comfortable with party politics and a spirited press. The island gunned its trading economy into the world's 14th largest by adopting the practices of the free market. Taiwanese came to feel the world--and Beijing--should accept the reality that the Republic of China, as they call themselves, deserved to be treated as a sovereign state and political equal. That didn't necessarily mean independence now--a Taiwan poll shows fewer than 20% of the respondents are ready to take that drastic step--but it has meant that Taiwan resents being treated like a subservient local government.

Lee's rhetorical shot was no doubt aimed partly at domestic politics. Presidential elections are scheduled for next year, and even though Lee can't run again, his remarks are intended to co-opt the independence platform of the opposition. But the President may also have been trying to set an indelible stamp on Taiwan's future. By dismissing the one-China rubric, he has created a new status quo, and whoever succeeds him will be constrained by it. "He is intentionally playing the bad cop, trying to gain more bargaining chips for Taiwan," says Lo Chi-cheng, a political scientist in Taipei. "It's risky, but sometimes you have to take risks to make any gains."