From: wag5@quads.uchicago.edu (john peter wagner)
Subject:  Taiwan, Bush & China
Reply-To: wag5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 18:18:06 GMT

	This is regarding Bush's policy of allowing defense contractors
to sell jets to Taiwan.
	I asked a graduate student in the Sciences who is from mainland
China what he thought about the matter.  His response was that the decision
by Bush was not a good one because it would worsen relations with China,
and would cause a sort of 'cold war' in the Pacific, whereby there would
be mutual escalation of military might.    His opinion on China, one which
I have found echoed by other Chinese, is that the people inside China
basically do not concern themselves much with the government; they just
try to stay out of its way and live their lives.  The peace talks
and diplomatic actions which have cooled the defensiveness of the
Chinese government has given the Chinese people a degree of increased
freedom.  In that sense, hopefully communism would in theory be defeated
or overthrown by degrees from within, as the people throw off its shroud
in daily activity.  Southern China is experiencing a great deal of
'capitalist' renovations.  When Hong Kong is absorbed it is expected
to be an added factor in the direction of the Chinese free-market.
	So, his argument is that the America should rock the boat as little
as possible, allowing a slow and unseen revolution from within.
	However, I would like to address these issues from another point
of view, and address some issues which netters have brought up.
	1)Bush's selling of jets to Taiwan is spending the governments
or increasing taxes or borrowing.  This is false.  Bush is merely allowing
the private companies that create these jets to sell to Taiwan.  No
governmental expenditure is involved.  What this means is that defense
contractors will not be completely reliant upon the U.S. defense
expenditure and will not be immediately laid off by teh cut in the
Defense expenditure.  By keeping the companies which create these
advanced technologies alive, the U.S. also keeps its technological
lead in the area of high-tech weaponry.
	2)Allowing Taiwan to buy Jets, or Taiwan increasing its number
of jets in no way poses a threat of invasion of mainland China.
The Taiwanese government is completely incapable of sending in an infantry
which can hold a ground area against the Chinese army for any length of
time.  Thus an increase in Taiwan's military might only decreases
the vast military advantage which China has over Taiwan.  This would
be a threat to China if China plans on invading Taiwan, reclaiming
Formosa.  Thus a threat to China in this sense is actually not a bad
thing.
	3)It is undeniable that this would have some effect upon
diplomacy with regards to China.  However, anything we do which
would increase the defensive capabilities of any of the Pacific
rim capitilist countries would hurt our relations with China to some
degree because it lessens Chinese military hegemony.  If the Chinese
hd the plan to inavde the U.S. and we stepped up defense production,
that would also hurt our diplomatic relations.
	4)Soon Hong Kong will be absorbed by China.  The Chinese
government realizes that some radical things will have to happen
when this happens.  Either the government will accept the notion
of private property completely, and go the road of decentralization,
or it will have to impose serious changes in Hong Kong's structure.
Nevertheless, the Chinese people have been 'corrupted' by the
free-market.  They look to their neighbors the South Koreans and
the Japanese and Hong Kongers and they might get jealous, or they
might get ideas.  In any case, a strong business-dominating central
government is dialectically opposed to a true free market(Japan notwithstanding
).  Thus, it is realized that the bourgeois will be opposed to the
Chinese government eventually, and will have the means and the people
to support it in a counter-revolution.  Thus it is a threat to the
present government.
	What could the Chinese government do to preserve its existence?
It would probably clamp down on the Hong Kong lightly at first.  Then,
when the Hong Kongers avoid the lightly imposed regulations, and the
Chinese begin flocking to Hong Kong for its freedoms and thus form
a threat, the government will have an excuse to clamp down very severely.
It will be seen as a threat to the state.  Such 'clamp-downs' are often
explained away as necessary behavior to unite the state when in time
of war.  Thus, Hitler could assume internal censorship during his
campaigns and have an excuse for it.  Thus the Japanese were put away
in detention camps during World War 2 in America, by FDR.  I think
it is very plausible that shortly after China assumes Hong Kong that
it will mount an invasion of Taiwan.  This is not as crazy as it may seem.
Formosa has, after all, been a piece of China and might be taken with
the same excuse that the Japanese want their islands from Russia or
that Germany wanted control of part of Czechoslovakia.  Given
such a war the Chinese government could impose martial law and the
associated justification for the Hong Kong clamp-down.  The clamp-down
on Taiwan after it is captured would be similar to any other communistic
clap-down after military capture.  The Chinese government would probably
not be able to clap-down on Hong Kong immediately because it was given
to the Chinese, rather than taken by the Chinese.  The Chinese would
want to minimalize intervention by the U.S. in its campaigns; angering
the U.S. would make an invasion of Taiwan much more difficult and
possibly impossible.  Thus there would have to be some semblance of an
excuse for its actions towards Hong-Kong, as I outlined above.
	So, to sum it up, I think that by allowing Taiwan to increase
it arms does not cause an arms race any more than Lichenstein buying
jets would cause an arms race with Germany, but it gives the Taiwanese
a better chance to defend themselves in a possible invasion which I would
guess would take place around the year 1999 AD.  Given 4 years of lukewarm
foreign relations, the country would be ripe for another Woodrow Wilson
in 1996 who might give the Chinese enough lee-way to invade Formosa.
Once the Chinese have controlled a joint, have troops down, so to speak,
it takes a bloody war to remove them, if that is even possible.  So,
Bush's policy 1)Preserved defense jobs, 2)Defended Taiwan, and
3)angered hegemony minded Chinese officials with invasionary plans.
I am happy.

				J. Wagner


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