The 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation: Coercion, Credibility, and the Use of Force

The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation Robert S. Ross Coercion, Credibility, and the Use of Force On May 22, 1995, the White House approved a visa for Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States in early June to attend his graduate school reunion at Cornell University. The decision to allow Taiwan’s most senior leader to enter the United States reversed more than twenty-ªve years of U.S. diplomatic precedent and challenged Clinton administration public policy statements and private reassurances to Chinese leaders that such a visit was contrary to U.S. policy. Equally important , the visa decision followed a three-year evolution of U.S. policy toward Taiwan. In 1992 the Bush administration, in violation of its pledge in a 1982 U.S.-China arms sales communiqué to reduce the quantity of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, sold Taiwan 150 F-16 warplanes. In 1994 the Clinton administration revised upward the protocol rules regarding U.S. “unofªcial” treatment of Taiwan diplomats, which had for the most part been in effect since 1981. Then the next year, the administration allowed Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States. From China’s perspective, Washington seemed determined to continue revising its Taiwan policy, thus encouraging Taiwan’s leaders to move closer toward a declaration of sovereignty from mainland China. Given China’s credible forty-ªve-year commitment to use force in retaliation against Taiwan independence, such a declaration would likely lead to war. During the ten months following Lee’s visit to Cornell, the United States and China reopened their difªcult negotiations over U.S. policy toward Taiwan. The negotiations reached a climax in March 1996, when China displayed a dramatic show of force consisting of military exercises and missile tests targeted near Taiwan, and the United States responded with an equally dramatic deployment of two carrier battle groups. The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait confrontation was the closest the United States and China had come to a crisis since the early 1960s. It was a critical turning point in post–Cold War U.S.-China relations and International Security, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Fall 2000), pp. 87–123© 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 87 Robert S. Ross is Professor of Political Science, Boston College, and Research Associate, John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University. A later version of this article will appear in Coercive Diplomacy: Lessons from the Early Post–Cold War World, Robert Art and Patrick Cronin, eds. (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace [USIP] Press, forthcoming). The author is grateful to USIP for its support of research travel to China and to Robert Art, Patrick Cronin, Joseph Fewsmith, Steven Goldstein, Ronald Montaperto, Barry Posen, Alan Romberg, Robert Suettinger, and Allen Whiting for their helpful comments. in the development of the new regional order. The confrontation continues to inºuence Chinese and American security policies and the bilateral relationships between the United States, China, and Taiwan. Many scholars have argued that China’s use of force in 1996 coerced the Clinton administration into reversing the trend toward improving U.S.-Taiwan relations and into opposing Taiwan independence. They have also argued that the United States needs to adopt a stronger posture against Chinese policy toward Taiwan.1 This article challenges these views. It argues that both China and the United States achieved their strategic objectives as a result of the confrontation . The Taiwan Strait confrontation reºected the interaction of Chinese coercive diplomacy and U.S. deterrence diplomacy. China used coercive diplomacy to threaten costs until the United States and Taiwan changed their policies.2 The United States used deterrence diplomacy to communicate to both Chinese and regional leaders the credibility of its strategic commitments. Washington used force not to defend its Taiwan policy, but to defend its strategic reputation by inºuencing perceptions of U.S. resolve.3 International Security 25:2 88 1. See, for example, John W. Garver, Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan’s Democratization (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997); and Arthur Waldron, “How Not to Deal with China,” Commentary, Vol. 103, No. 3...