Opportunities, Risks, and the Issue of Taiwan by Thomas J. Bickford

Introduction

Key Points

* China is primarily interested in concentrating on trade and economic development and therefore wants an international environment conducive to continued economic growth.

* Even with recent defense budget increases, China’s ability to project power beyond its borders will be extremely limited for a long time to come.

* There is a real risk of conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan, and U.S. policy needs to be aimed at avoiding such a conflict.

In many respects there has been a marked improvement in U.S.-China relations since the EP-3 spy plane incident of April 2001. The Bush administration views China as an important partner in the Six-Party Talks with North Korea, and the United States and China share an interest in a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. The Bush administration also sees China as a strategic partner in the global war on terror. For example, China has recently joined the U.S. Container Security Initiative, and starting this summer, China and the United States will begin periodic senior-level dialogues on global issues of mutual concern. The Pentagon has even expanded its program of military-to-military contacts and exchanges between Chinese and U.S. military academies in a sharp reversal of the policy of four years ago. Economic relations have expanded greatly since China joined the World Trade Organization, and despite occasional trade tensions, most U.S. economists and businesspeople regard economic ties as mutually beneficial and rewarding.

However, some Americans view the rise of China as a long-term economic and security concern. As its military capabilities improve, China is increasingly seen as a threat to Taiwan and other U.S. interests. For example, the Pentagon worries that China may be beginning to acquire the means to project power beyond its immediate borders. Economic anxieties about loss of jobs and competition from China are also increasingly linked to political and security issues. China is seen as competing for economic and political influence in Latin America and elsewhere. Even business mergers can have a security aspect; the recent controversy over the proposed purchase of Unocal by a Chinese company is a case in point. There is, therefore, an interesting paradox in U.S. views of China; relations have never been better, yet the two countries could go to war at any time.

In a sense, both views are correct. China’s military power is growing, and there is a very real risk of conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan. On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that a stronger, more prosperous China may, as the annual Pentagon report states, “choose a pathway of peaceful integration and benign competition.” China’s 2004 white paper on defense emphasizes economic development, and this focus is reflected in China’s relations with other countries. Economic dynamism is very important to Chinese leaders, and they seek an international environment that is conducive to commercial growth. Accordingly, in addition to cooperating on issues of mutual concern with the United States, China has expanded its economic, political, and security cooperation with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN); developed closer ties with Central Asian states; and improved trade relations with India, the European Union, Brazil, and many other countries. China has increased its involvement in a number of international organizations and in 2004 contributed more personnel to UN peacekeeping operations than Britain, France, Russia, or the United States.

China’s military power has grown substantially but needs to be put in a proper context. The country has been modernizing its military for two decades, and its armed forces are now smaller but much better trained and equipped. China continues to buy advanced weapons systems from Russia, including the SU-30MK2 maritime strike aircraft, S-300 SAMs, Kilo-class submarines, and Sovremenny-class destroyers. It is also developing new weapons systems of its own, including tanks, submarines, and a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

However, it is important to note that China’s military modernization program is far from complete. Beijing still has only 20 ICBMs (each armed with a single warhead) capable of hitting the United States, and despite a growing defense budget, China’s ability to project conventional military force beyond its borders will remain very limited for the foreseeable future. Chinese military strategy focuses on meeting potential enemies at or just beyond China’s borders, and the emphasis is on active defense of Chinese territory, not expansion or projection of military force.

Since China behaves as a satisfied power focused on better economic and political cooperation, it is difficult to envision a credible scenario in which the country’s improved military capacity poses a threat to anyone but Taiwan. Beijing regards Taiwan as Chinese territory and has always reserved the right to use force against Taiwan if necessary. That possible use of force is now codified in the Anti-Secession Law of March 2005. How Washington views relations between Taiwan and Beijing is crucial to whether future U.S.-China relations improve or worsen.

Problems with Current U.S. Foreign Policy

Key Problems

* The balance of power in the Taiwan Strait is shifting in China’s favor. Washington fears that this trend may tempt Beijing to seek a military solution.

* Domestic politics in Taiwan are exacerbating strains between the United States, China, and Taiwan.

* The Bush administration has failed to take a sufficiently active role in reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

There are two key developments aggravating the risk of a conflict over Taiwan. The first is a shift in the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait in favor of China. The second is the continued strength of Taiwanese political parties seeking to change Taiwan’s status. Both developments undermine Washington’s long-term goal of maintaining the status quo until Taiwan and China can peacefully resolve their differences. These developments also pressure Washington to abandon its policy of deliberate ambiguity and clearly commit to Taiwan’s defense.

The balance of power shift from Taipei to Beijing stems from Chinese military modernization, increased diplomatic leverage, and a long-term decline in Taiwanese defense spending. The Pentagon estimates that China has 650-730 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan with about 100 being added every year. The accuracy of these missiles has improved, and they could be used against a variety of military and political targets in Taiwan. China already has a quantitative edge over Taiwan in air and naval assets, and the acquisition of new weapons systems means that China will soon have a qualitative edge as well.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s defense spending has declined in real terms over the past ten years reducing its ability to maintain an effective deterrent. It does not appear that this trend will be reversed in the near term. In 2001, the Bush administration offered a $20 billion arms package designed to enhance Taiwan’s anti-submarine and anti-missile defense. Taiwan has balked at its share of the cost and has yet to approve a reduced ($15.3 billion) arms package consisting of Patriot PAC-III air defense systems, P-3C Orion anti-submarine aircraft, and diesel-electric submarines.

China’s rise as a diplomatic and economic force enables Beijing to increasingly apply political pressure to isolate Taiwan, although it still lacks the ability to launch a full-scale invasion of the island. Policymakers in Washington are concerned that the increased capabilities may prompt China to use force against Taiwan, precipitating a crisis with the United States. A weaker Taiwan is more dependent on the United States for security, and this places pressure on Washington to make a stronger and less-ambiguous commitment to Taiwan’s defense. No U.S. president wants to be seen as abandoning a democracy. Yet a stronger commitment to Taiwan would cause an immediate and severe deterioration in U.S.-China relations and could increase the likelihood of armed conflict.

Concerns over the changing balance of power are further complicated by the current state of domestic politics in Taiwan. There is a highly partisan split between the “blue” parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) and the People’s First party (PFP), which favor the status quo and some form of eventual integration with China on a democratic basis, and the “green” parties, President Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), which assert a separate Taiwanese identity and lean toward eventual independence. Although President Chen has stopped short of advocating Taiwanese independence, Beijing fears that President Chen’s plans to reform the constitution and other policies are leading to “de-sinicization” and eventual Taiwanese independence. If anything, these suspicions have hardened since Chen’s re-election. More ominously, many hawks in Beijing believe that the Bush administration secretly supports the idea of Taiwanese independence. China will not hesitate to use force if it thinks its fears are about to be realized, and there is a constant risk that “green” politics may eventually provoke a Chinese attack.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the KMT and PFP have met with Chinese leaders and have signed agreements with the Chinese Communist Party. Though this has improved relations between China and the blue parties, it has exacerbated Taiwan’s already highly partisan politics, isolating Chen from China and holding up much-needed defense appropriations from Washington. Beijing is currently more involved in Taiwanese domestic politics than ever before, and President Bush’s arms sales policy to Taiwan is being skewed by partisan politics between the KMT and the DPP. The problem for Washington is that Taiwanese domestic politics largely determine the likelihood of conflict between the United States and China. Washington must take the initiative in improving cross-strait relations if U.S.-China relations are not to be held hostage to internal Taiwanese politics. A conflict over Taiwan is in no one’s interests. The United States and China have several foundations on which to build a constructive relationship, and that potential should not be jeopardized by Taiwan’s political squabbles. Washington can and should do more to lower the risks of a conflict over Taiwan by encouraging a more positive relationship between Beijing and Taipei.

Toward a New Foreign Policy

Key Recommendations

* The United States has multiple interests throughout Asia, including points of mutual interest with Beijing. U.S. policy toward Taiwan must be balanced against these other interests.

* Washington must maintain exchanges between Chinese and U.S. armed forces and continue to support confidence-building measures by emphasizing issues of mutual interest.

* The Bush administration should make greater efforts to get talks going between Taiwan and China. The longer negotiations are delayed, the greater the risk of armed conflict.

During the past four years, the United States has understandably been focused on the problems of terrorism and Iraq. However, it is important that Washington start paying more attention to its relations with Asian countries in general and with China in particular. The political, economic, and security environment surrounding the Taiwan issue is changing, and Washington needs to adjust its approach accordingly. The United States has multiple interests throughout Asia, including points of mutual interest with Beijing. U.S. policy toward Taiwan must be balanced against these other.

The United States should expand its current military-to-military exchanges with China and broaden discussions on security issues of mutual concern. Both sides harbor lingering suspicions of the other, and such exchanges will improve communication and reduce uncertainty about the other side’s intentions. It is important that Washington clarify that it is still committed to a one-China policy. Simultaneously, the United States should continue its efforts to discourage the European Union from lifting its ban on arms sales to China even though this creates friction with Europe and China. European arms sales to China would not represent a direct threat to the United States, but they would certainly improve China’s ability to use force against Taiwan.

Washington should also continue to assist Taiwan in building its defense capabilities. An arms race in the Taiwan Straits is not desirable, but it is important that Taiwan have sufficient means to deter a Chinese attack. If there is a conflict, the longer Taiwan can defend itself, the more time the United States has to consider how it will respond. This means improving the survivability of Taiwan’s command and communications systems as well as building its anti-submarine capabilities and air defense.

It should be acknowledged, however, that the United States pays a high political cost for helping Taiwan, and it is important that future arms sales to Taiwan be balanced against such costs. The arms package currently being considered by Taiwan is a good example of such a balance. If Taiwan’s defense spending continues to decline in real terms, the United States should not be expected to compensate by increasing its commitment to Taiwan. As Ted Carpenter of the Cato Institute has suggested, Americans should not take Taiwan’s security more seriously than do the Taiwanese. Under no circumstances should Washington abandon its current policy and make an explicit guarantee of military intervention in the event of a conflict. Such a move would guarantee Chinese hostility for decades and undo all the positive developments in
U.S.-China relations.

Washington simply cannot wait for China and Taiwan to enter negotiations to finally resolve their differences. A negotiated settlement has always been the best option for the United States and is essential to ensuring that China is integrated into the international system as a peaceful power. This means that Beijing needs to talk with President Chen and the DPP rather than only with the blue parties. Even without U.S. intervention, any Chinese attack on Taiwan would be very costly, and it is in China’s interest to find a peaceful solution. The longer Taiwan waits to enter into negotiations with China, the weaker its bargaining position will be and the greater the risk that China will lose patience and opt for a military solution. So it is also in the interests of all Taiwanese political parties to enter into talks with Beijing, the sooner the better.

Washington wields plenty of political capital with both Taipei and Beijing and should use it to coax these two governments into negotiations. The United States has a lot of potential leverage over the DPP; meanwhile, the KMT and PFP are already committed to talks with Beijing. Trade between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland is growing at double-digit rates, and nearly one million Taiwanese (about 4% of the island’s citizens) now live and work on the mainland. This provides a very strong foundation on which to build some kind of political agreement, and Washington should press the two sides on this. U.S. economic ties and political cooperation with China could be used as a hook to persuade Beijing to show more flexibility regarding negotiations with Taiwan. Beijing is far more likely to engage in constructive dialogue with Taipei if it knows that it will be rewarded by better relations with the United States and other countries.

There is, of course, no guarantee that negotiations will result in a successful agreement, but the United States needs to push for dialogue and conflict resolution. The balance of power in the Taiwan Strait is changing, Taiwanese politics are changing, and Washington needs to take a proactive role in engaging the two sides or face the prospect of a war not of its choosing. The only alternative is to abandon the democratic government of Taiwan. The United States should not let itself be forced into making such a choice.

Iran - Hezbollah - Syria Axis

Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria have come together. Read and listen to Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria. They have similar perspectives and understandings on terrorism and threats. They have also positioned their perspectives and understandings of Islam as the frontlines for Muslims. The axis is up and running. Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria fear democracy. They are totalitarian. Counter attack against democracy and the democratization of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon the three have come together. Iran is the Jihadi Superpower. Hezbollah is the Terrorism Superpower. Syria is the bridge between Iran and Hezbollah.

Lebanese Security Forces Arrest Fundamentalist Muslim Cleric Omar Bakri by Joseph Panossian

Lebanese police have arrested Omar Bakri, the Islamic fundamentalist cleric who is being investigated in Britain for his remarks on the London bombings, security officials said Thursday.

The officials refused to say when and where Bakri was arrested. But the local Future TV channel reported that he was arrested Thursday as he left after giving an interview at its building in western Beirut.

The station said Bakri was told that the General Security department wants to question him about "information regarding his entry into Lebanon."

In London, the Foreign Office said there was no British connection to the detention and no warrant for Bakri's arrest.

Britain's Home Office declined to say whether it had lodged an extradition request. However, such a move was considered unlikely as the government had been considering how to deport or bar Bakri from Britain.

Bakri is regarded as an Islamic extremist in Britain, where he has lived for 20 years. He left on Saturday and flew to Lebanon to see his mother.

"Enjoy your holiday – make it a long one," British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said Tuesday when asked about Bakri at a news conference.

Bakri had told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he plans to return after six weeks, but he would not return if the government told him he would not be welcome.

"Good," Prescott said when told that.

The cleric founded the now-disbanded radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, which came under scrutiny in Britain, particularly after some of its members praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Bakri caught public attention recently when he said he would not inform the police if he knew that Muslims were planning attacks such as the July suicide bombings in London that killed 56 people, including four attackers. He claimed that Islam prohibited him from reporting Muslims to the British police.

A spokesman for Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said Thursday that prosecutors were looking at Bakri's recent remarks to assess whether he could be charged with solicitation of murder or incitement to withhold information known to be of use to police. A spokesman dismissed reports that charges of treason were being considered.

Bakri is from Syria, but his wife's family is Lebanese and he holds both Syrian and Lebanese nationalities.

United States Project BioShield

United States Project BioShield now has a basic network of biosensors. United States Project BioShield must increase and accelerate the development and deployment of systems and biosensors to quickly, productively, and effectively detect biological, radiological, or chemical attacks.

United States Project BioShield must also use technology that is evolved and adaptive to prevent and resolve biological, radiological, or chemical attacks:

Aethlon Medical, Inc. has developed the Hemopurifier. A device able to clear pathogens and toxins from circulation in the body.

Roaming Messenger has developed Roaming Messenger. A messenging software and messenging service that allows corporations and government agencies to deliver information in a secure, productive, and effective method.

Stout Solutions, L.L.C. has developed FirstWatch. FirstWatch is integrated with Roaming Messenger. FirstWatch is a database software and network software designed to analyze data for abnormalities, patterns, and calls that indicate biological, radiological, or chemical attacks, and/ or emerging public health and safety threats. Once attacks and/ or threats is detected, FirstWatch automatically dispatches Roaming Messenger Alerts, which track down the appropriate responders by way of wired or wireless devices, providing real time information and response capabilities.

Intelligence VS. Politics, Institutional Thinking, and Conventional Wisdom (Operation Able Danger)

Operation Able Danger shows that the United States military intelligence community had intelligence on four of the September 11, 2001 Attack terrorists as potential threats about a full year before September 11, 2001 Attack. The information from Operation Able Danger and the United States military intelligence community was viewed as unlikely by the rest of the United States intelligence community and did not fit with the rest of the United States intelligence community. As often the case, when intelligence does not conform to politics, institutional thinking, and conventional wisdom, omissions are made. At the same time, there is no infallibility in seeking to understand terrorist organizations and terrorists. The truth is, what is known, even to any intelligence community, is generally out of date and sketchy at best. This does not mean intelligence is not a good guide and that intelligence should not be gathered, rather this means intelligence conformed to politics, institutional thinking, and conventional wisdom result in omissions. Operation Able Danger should be humbling for everyone involved in the United States intelligence community to realize how little we know, how much we get wrong, and how much we guess.

Four in 9/11 Plot are Called Tied to Al-Qaeda in 2000 by Douglas Jehl

More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green card holders may not be singled out in intelligence collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency.

A former spokesman for the Sept. 11 commission, Al Felzenberg, confirmed that members of its staff, including Philip Zelikow, the executive director, were told about the program on an overseas trip in October 2003 that included stops in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But Mr. Felzenberg said the briefers did not mention Mr. Atta's name.

The report produced by the commission last year does not mention the episode.

Mr. Weldon first spoke publicly about the episode in June, in a little noticed speech on the House floor and in an interview with The Times Herald in Norristown, Pa. The matter resurfaced on Monday in a report by GSN: Government Security News, which is published every two weeks and covers domestic security issues. The GSN report was based on accounts provided by Mr. Weldon and the same former intelligence official, who was interviewed on Monday by The New York Times in Mr. Weldon's office.

In a telephone interview from his home in Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon said he was basing his assertions on similar ones by at least three other former intelligence officers with direct knowledge of the project, and said that some had first called the episode to his attention shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The account is the first assertion that Mr. Atta, an Egyptian who became the lead hijacker in the plot, was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat before the Sept. 11 attacks. Among the 19 hijackers, only Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had been identified as potential threats by the Central Intelligence Agency before the summer of 2000, and information about them was not provided to the F.B.I. until the spring of 2001.

Mr. Weldon has long been a champion of the kind of data-mining analysis that was the basis for the work of the Able Danger team.

The former intelligence official spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he did not want to jeopardize political support and the possible financing for future data-mining operations by speaking publicly. He said the team had been established by the Special Operations Command in 1999, under a classified directive issued by Gen. Hugh Shelton, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to assemble information about Al Qaeda networks around the world.

"Ultimately, Able Danger was going to give decision makers options for taking out Al Qaeda targets," the former defense intelligence official said.

He said that he delivered the chart in summer 2000 to the Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and said that it had been based on information from unclassified sources and government records, including those of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"We knew these were bad guys, and we wanted to do something about them," the former intelligence official said.

The unit, which relied heavily on data mining techniques, was modeled after those first established by Army intelligence at the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center, now known as the Information Dominance Center, at Fort Belvoir, Va., the official said.

Mr. Weldon is an outspoken figure who is a vice chairman of both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee. He said he had recognized the significance of the episode only recently, when he contacted members of the military intelligence team as part of research for his book, "Countdown to Terror: The Top Secret Information That Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America and How the C.I.A. Has Ignored It."

Mr. Weldon's book prompted one veteran C.I.A. case officer to strongly dispute the reliability of one Iranian source cited in the book, saying the Iranian "was a waste of my time and resources."

Mr. Weldon said that he had discussed the Able Danger episode with Representative Peter Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and that at least two Congressional committees were looking into the episode.

In the interview on Monday, Mr. Weldon said he had been aware of the episode since shortly after the Sept. 11 attack, when members of the team first brought it to his attention. He said he had told Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, about it in a conversation in September or October 2001, and had been surprised when the Sept. 11 commission report made no mention of the operation.

Col. Samuel Taylor, a spokesman for the military's Special Operations Command, said no one at the command now had any knowledge of the Able Danger program, its mission or its findings. If the program existed, Colonel Taylor said, it was probably a highly classified "special access program" on which only a few military personnel would have been briefed.

During the interview in Mr. Weldon's office, the former defense intelligence official showed a floor-sized chart depicting Al Qaeda networks around the world that he said was a larger, more detailed version similar to the one prepared by the Able Danger team in the summer of 2000.

He said the original chart, like the new one, had included the names and photographs of Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, as well as Mr. Mihdhar and Mr. Hazmi, who were identified as members of what was described as an American based "Brooklyn" cell, as one of five such Al Qaeda cells around the world.

The official said the link to Brooklyn was meant as a term of art rather than to be interpreted literally, saying that the unit had produced no firm evidence linking the men to the borough of New York City but that a computer analysis seeking to establish patterns in links between the four men had found that "the software put them all together in Brooklyn."

According to the commission report, Mr. Mihdhar and Mr. Hazmi were first identified in late 1999 or 2000 by the C.I.A. as Al Qaeda members who might be involved in a terrorist operation. They were tracked from Yemen to Malaysia before their trail was lost in Thailand. Neither man was put on a State Department watch list before they flew to Los Angeles in early 2000. The F.B.I. was not warned about them until the spring of 2001, and no efforts to track them were made until August 2001.

Neither Mr. Shehhi nor Mr. Atta was identified by the American intelligence agencies as a potential threat, the commission report said. Mr. Shehhi arrived in Newark on a flight from Brussels on May 29, 2000, and Mr. Atta arrived in Newark from Prague on June 3 that year.

The former intelligence official said the first Able Danger report identified all four men as members of a "Brooklyn" cell, and was produced within two months after Mr. Atta arrived in the United States. The former intelligence official said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan Pakistan region in October 2003.

The official said he had explicitly mentioned Mr. Atta as a member of Al Qaeda cell in the United States. He said the staff encouraged him to call the commission when he returned to Washington at the end of the year. When he did so, the ex-official said, the calls were not returned.

Mr. Felzenberg, the former Sept. 11 commission spokesman, said on Monday that he had talked with some of the former staff members who participated in the briefing.

"They all say that they were not told anything about a Brooklyn cell," Mr. Felzenberg said. "They were told about the Pentagon operation. They were not told about the Brooklyn cell. They said that if the briefers had mentioned anything that startling, it would have gotten their attention."

As a result of the briefing, he said, the commission staff filed document requests with the Pentagon for information about the program. The Pentagon complied, he said, adding that the staff had not hidden anything from the commissioners.

"The commissioners were certainly told of the document requests and what the findings were," Mr. Felzenberg said.

Muslim Brotherhood: Public Relations VS. Intelligence

Certain academics and journalists have a lack of intelligence on extremist Islamic organizations. Certain academics and journalists also are reporting the public relations, programs, and promises made by extremist Islamic organizations with no examinations. Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, Muslim American Society, and Muslim Public Affairs Committee do not mention that they are an arm of Muslim Brotherhood in their public relations, programs, and promises. These certain academics and journalists have become public relations representatives for extremist Islamic organizations. Taking the public relations, programs, and promises made by extremist Islamic organizations with no examinations, these certain academics and reporters have helped and are helping to cover up Muslim Brotherhood.