The United States and Taiwan should behave with much more caution towards China. They are too complacent about the likelihood of China attacking Taiwan. For more than 40 years, mainland China has tolerated a situation under which it has had no control over Taiwan or the people who live there, largely because a fiction has been maintained that there is one China and that Taiwan is a mere rebellious province of it. The importance of maintaining that fiction should not be under-estimated.
For more than two decades, mainland China preferred isolation to recognition of Taiwan, demanding that nation recognise only one China. Eventually, its patient insistence paid off as nation after nation abandoned Taiwan in favour of the government in Beijing. The leaders in Beijing think that one day China will be reunified and that Taiwan will once again be part of a single China. It may seem fanciful or naive, but it is the reality of their thinking and the US and Taiwan must take it into consideration in their actions. They will not forsake easily what they see as the gains of 40 years.
At present the government in Taipei at least formally holds the position that one day there will be a unified China. This is a ground for not recognising Taiwan as an independent nation when otherwise general principles of international law would demand it. However, this may change after March 23 when Taiwan holds its first democratic presidential elections. The legitimacy engendered by the election may make it a prelude to dropping the pretence that there can be one China and a formal declaration of independence.
Despite its obvious sound foundation at international law, in the present climate this would be a dangerous provocation.
Ending the pretence could tip the balance, changing the mainland’s response from words to action. To date, the government in Beijing has done little more than huff and puff when anyone mentions the possibility of two Chinas or whenever the slightest diplomatic concession is given to Taiwan such as occasional US visas for so-called private visits by members of the Taiwanese government. Confronted by an actual statement of independence by Taiwan, the response might be different.
President Bill Clinton has said that the one-China policy will continue and that the US will give formal recognition only to the government in Beijing. However, that alone might to be enough to allay aggressive intentions.
Certainly Taiwan should go ahead with the election, but precisely because the election goes ahead, it and the US should refrain from further action that the government in Beijing would see as provocative. This is especially so in the present climate of instability caused by: the jockeying for leadership position in Beijing as the ageing Deng Xiaoping leaves a power vacuum; the delivery mid-year to Taiwan of US F16s and French Mirages which would tip the balance of military power; the handover of Hong Kong and later Macao to mainland China.
Whatever the legitimacy a democratic Taiwan would have to a claim for formal world recognition and independence, it would be silly to risk the actual independence for it. Better to wait a bit.