In the words of Justin Raimondo, from his 2011 article, “How decision-makers react to events beyond our borders is decisively shaped by domestic political considerations.” This theory of foreign relations, libertarian realism, eschews the typical narrative of mysterious collectivist forces that drive events. It thus places blame firmly where it belongs when things, as they so often do, blow up in everyone’s faces: politicians catering to domestic political constituencies, the focus being on their own careers and not a fictitious “national interest.”
Using the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995-96) as an example, one can see how just such another crisis could easily erupt. It is clear from analyzing events that the domestic political considerations of all three presidents involved—Bill Clinton, Lee Teng-hui, and Jiang Zemin—were paramount.
Already looking ahead to the highly consequential 1996 Taiwanese presidential election, in the words of longtime U.S. diplomat and historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Lee “knew that minor adjustments in arms sales provisions or contacts with American officials…would not galvanize voters. In this first round of fully democratic direct balloting, something more dramatic would be needed.”
As detailed in Tucker’s book Strait Talk, a history of relations between Washington and the regime on Taiwan, Lee felt politically threatened by the appeal of the energized opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). As a means of cutting into their base of support among the Taiwanese, Lee had already begun the process of transforming the KMT from a party of mainland Chinese, whose pretensions to mainland rule had only recently been abandoned, to a Taiwanese party—placing hitherto unheard of emphasis on Taiwanese dialects rather than Mandarin, and creating a history curriculum for schools that was taught from the perspective of Taiwan rather than mainland China.
Like the strategy of democratization itself, this strategy of indigenization was meant to secure the regime on Taiwan.
Along with these efforts were moves by Lee to use various forms of international recognition of Taiwan to boost his own domestic standing. Apart from pushing to get Taiwan membership or observer status at institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Lee and his team set out to get the Taiwanese president onto American—soil something no leader of Taiwan had accomplished since derecognition in 1978-79.
This would have been a serious coup, and everyone involved knew it—even if, on the part of Washington decision makers, they underestimated the reaction from Beijing.
For his part, the last thing Clinton wanted was a fight—especially one over Taiwan, which had received a low priority from his foreign policy team, who were mostly grateful east Asia was peaceful and prospering. After all, his early administration had already been buffeted by foreign policy difficulties in Somalia, Haiti, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Domestic stonewalling by congressional Republicans, who had historically swept to power in the 1994 midterms, had Clinton skittish of anything like another crisis that might further undermine him in the runup to his own reelection campaign.
Lee, then, faced a two-fold problem: as noted by the aforementioned Tucker, when it came to the Clinton administration “Taiwan’s first hurdle was just to be noticed,” but beyond this was the need to get the administration to take a risk on its behalf.
There were reasons for Taipei to be optimistic, however. George H.W. Bush’s decision to use increased arms sales to Taiwan to boost his flagging electoral chances in 1992 had been popular and as governor of Arkansas Clinton had publicly come out in favor of the policy in the name of American manufacturing jobs. As The New York Times noted in 1997, reflecting back on Clinton’s decision to ultimately go ahead with Lee’s visit, “Taiwan has enjoyed a great deal of sympathy in America because it has succeeded in making the transition from a one-party dictatorship to a democracy,” and thus the “overwhelming congressional support for the Clinton administration’s decision in 1995 to allow President Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States.”
Yes, Clinton, ever alert to domestic political calculation, knew that if he said no, Lee could easily have gotten supporters in Congress to approve the necessary travel visa, and that any attempt by Clinton to go against Congress would result in the humiliating override of his veto. So he supported the desired visit by Lee to his alma mater Cornell in June 1995, where instead of giving the expected fond reminisces of his time at the school and other such trivia, Lee gave a staunchly nationalist address emphasizing Taiwan’s separateness and recent democratic achievements.
From the perspective of the new president of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Jiang Zemin, who had only taken the job in 1993, this was the latest in a series of moves by Taipei and Washington that seemed to directly violate the terms of previous agreements in both letter and spirit, and could not be safely brooked in the face of hardline opposition at home.
Following Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui’s speech, which Beijing denounced as separatist, the PRC launched a series of military exercises and missile tests in the Taiwan Strait beginning in July 1995. These actions were intended to send a clear message to both Taiwan and the United States that any moves toward Taiwanese independence would not be tolerated. The exercises included amphibious assault drills and missile launches near Taiwan’s coast. After decades of relative calm, the sudden and intense flare up created a climate of fear and uncertainty in the region.
Clinton, for his part, opted to initially sit back. His cabinet, including Secretary of Defense William Perry, had warned him Beijing was likely to respond furiously. Clinton, whose efforts to keep the visit low-key and in-check had failed, was annoyed with Lee and not looking to ratchet up tensions any further.
However, in March of the following year, just before Taiwan’s first direct presidential election, the PRC intensified its military activities, conducting missile tests close to Taiwan’s major ports and air routes. The goal was to intimidate the Taiwanese electorate and influence the outcome of the election by demonstrating the serious consequences of any pro-independence sentiment. However, the missile tests had the opposite effect, galvanizing support for Lee Teng-hui and hardening attitudes among Clinton’s cabinet and advisors, including the aforementioned Perry. Clinton, who had endured flak from Republican members of Congress and the press for not having upped the ante after Beijing’s initial reaction, now responded by deploying two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region, signaling a strong commitment to Taiwan’s security and a willingness to counter any potential aggression from the PRC—even at the acknowledged risk of a nuclear exchange.
Behind the scenes, frantic diplomatic efforts played a crucial role in diffusing the crisis, with Washington and Beijing engaged in intense discussions to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control. Beijing agreed to cease the drills while U.S. officials made it clear that while the United States supported Taiwan’s security, it did not endorse Taiwanese independence and remained committed to the One-China Policy, despite any apparent evidence of backtracking to the contrary. This diplomatic balancing act helped to reassure Beijing while also affirming U.S. support for Taiwan’s democratic process.
By March 1996, with Lee already safely reelected, the crisis began to subside. And while the crisis ended without armed conflict, it left a lasting impact on cross-strait relations and underscored the volatile nature of the Taiwan issue, particularly to the many novice members of Congress who had supported a belligerent policy without ever having really known much of anything about the issues in question.
Writing about the event after the fact, Tucker observed:, “The Clinton administration had been manipulated by a weak client state that had, not for the first time, used the American system against itself.” With “Lee’s larger ambitions and deep pockets, he had hired a Washington lobbying firm to help grease the wheels of Congress and led an unknowing American public to the brink of war with a nuclear armed power.
Unable to risk a confrontation with the U.S. Navy over Taiwan at that time, the large military buildup Beijing has undertaken since then has given it the area denial capability it lacked in the 1990s. Even optimistic war gamers who envision so-called victory over Beijing in a conflict over Taiwan reckon on tens of thousands of American casualties and high levels of material loss in planes and ships.
The Taiwan question should never be used as a political football in Washington. The stakes are simply too high, and in the event of a Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis there may be no room for anyone to feel like they can back down without fatally undermining themselves politically.
Such is almost certainly the case with Xi.
In Washington, then, the question is whether, having whipped up such an effective anti-China hysteria over the regime in Beijing, Republicans and Democrats will be able to resist using it against each other if the opportunity arises.
All past signs point to a doubtful future ahead.
