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The U.S.-Japan Security Alliance and the PRC
The Abandonment-Entrapment Dynamic, the Balance of Threat and National Identity in the Trilateral Relationship
Vincent A. Pace
Enosinian Honors Senior Thesis Program
Elliott School of International Affairs
George Washington University
May 3, 2003
2. The Taiwan Strait Crisis
In an effort to pressure Taiwanese voters to reject pro-independence presidential candidate Lee Teng-hui, the PLA carried out a three-stage exercise code-named Strait 961. On March 5, 1996, Xinhua news agency declared the first stage: "From March 8 to 15, 1996, the Chinese People's Liberation Army will conduct ground-to-ground missile launching trainings in a sea area," giving coordinates placing the targets of these tests about 50km west of Taiwan at the south end of the straits and the other about 20km off the shore of northeast Taiwan.7 While there were previously two missile tests in the Taiwan Strait, one on July 21, 1995 and the other on August 16 of the same year, none had attempted to come as close as these in 1996.8 On March 8, the Second Artillery Division, the PRC's nuclear missile division, fired two unarmed M-9 missiles from the Huanan Mountains in Southern China. The first landed about 44 nautical miles from the southern port city of Kaohsiung and the other about the same distance from the northern port city of Keelung, which also happened to be within 60km of the Japanese island of Yonaguni.9 Later in the same day, they fired a third unarmed M-9 missile into the area off Kaohsiung.10 On March 12, the PLA launched a fourth and final missile that also landed near Kaohsiung.
On March 9, Xinhua announced the second stage: "From March 12 to 20, 1996, the People's Liberation Army will conduct naval and air force exercises with live ammunition"11 in a 6,000 square mile area off the southwest coast of Taiwan, approximately 100km southwest Kaohsiung, and warned that ships and aircraft should stay clear while the exercises are in progress.12 PLA warplanes approached the wartime dividing line of the Taiwan Strait and Taiwanese planes were dispatched, coming within 112 kilometers of enemy contact.13 Taiwan's Defense Ministry said that it had tracked deployments of PRC military aircraft, including Jian-7 fighters, Qiang-5 fighter-bombers, Reconnaissance-6 planes, Hong-6 bombers, and Russian-made Su-27 fighters.14 On March 15, the PRC announced the final round of exercises to go from March 18 to March 25.15 These exercises involved both air and naval forces as well as the army, and included at least 150,000 troops and a wide variety of air and naval weapons. The exercises ended as scheduled, marking the end of the crisis and leaving diplomacy to repair any damage done.
US reaction to this is largely divided between political and military. The political reaction, which included both diplomatic salvos and Congressional activity, began immediately. The exercises were denounced in Washington as "both provocative and reckless."16 The US lodged an official protest from the embassy in Beijing. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake warned that the PRC would be held accountable for any accidents and that an attack on Taiwan would result in "grave consequences."17 The administration even threatened that the US "one-China" policy could be threatened by Beijing's provocative moves. Congress passed a resolution urging the administration to defend Taiwan from any PRC attack. The US also began an economic effort to get Japan to halt aid to the PRC, expected to be about $6 billion that year, which likely contributed to the LDP's refusal to give grant aid to the PRC in 1996.18
The military response became apparent shortly thereafter. The Pentagon dispatched US surveillance planes and navy ships to the area, to which the PRC responded that it would bury invaders in a "sea of fire."19 The guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill, equipped with an Aegis weapons system, was close enough to observe the missile flights in the south. An Air Force RC-135 rivet joint spy plane gathered informational from the technical data transmissions from the missiles. The Independence carrier battle group - led by the carrier USS Independence and including the guided-missile cruiser USS O'Brien, a guided-missile destroyer and two frigates - was also in the area from the time of the first missile launches.20 On March 11, President Clinton ordered a second aircraft carrier battle group - led by the carrier USS Nimitz and including several warships, about 70 warplanes, and a pair of nuclear submarines armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles - into the area. Also on March 11, the destroyer USS Hewitt and the guided-missile frigate USS McClusky joined up with the Independence carrier battle group. The groups remained in the region through the duration of the PRC exercises.
Japan's first public reaction to the crisis came on the day the missile firing began. Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said, "There may be no legal problems since the testing took place in international waters. But I think it is in an unfortunate direction." He then went on to say, "Although there is no way of stopping exercises conducted on open seas, we will think of appropriate measures," indicating a de facto wait-and-see approach.21 Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiroku Kajiyama expressed concern that the proximity of the tests to Japanese territory could affect Japanese shipping, fishing and air traffic in the area22 and that Japan would be keeping a "careful watch" over the situation.23 LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Taku Yamasaki denounced the missile tests as "a very dangerous act."24 On March 11, Ryozo Kato, head of MOFA's Asian Affairs Bureau summoned PRC Counselor Zheng Xiangling to express Japan's desire for PRC restraint.25 Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda lambasted the exercises as counterproductive to the PRC's own stated goals.26
The SDF positioned the Chikuzen, a large 3,800-ton helicopter-carrying cutter, about 50km north of Yonaguni, Japan's southernmost island, which is about 150km east of Keelung.27 Hashimoto made moves to set up a contingency plan, including how to evacuate Japanese from Taiwan, coastal safety measures, and rear-area support for the US armed forces.28 In addition to Japan's own monitoring of the situation, Hashimoto requested and received real-time information from the US on the PRC exercises.29 Despite these actions suggesting a unity of purpose with the US, regarding US ship deployments, Secretary Kajiyama said, "Military instability in the Taiwan Strait is not desirable but this is a spontaneous action by the United States. We are not in a position to approve or disapprove," essentially delinking Japan from the US.30
As the Taiwan Strait crisis strongly added to Japan's perception of threat from the PRC, it was also a major influence in the enhancement of the US-Japan security relationship in the 1990s. The major embodiment of this relationship was the Guidelines for US-Japan Defense Cooperation, which provided a new framework for the security alliance that included "areas surrounding Japan that have an important influence on Japan's peace and security."31 Some of the momentum for the move toward this can be seen in the immediate reaction to the Taiwan Strait crisis. For instance, it was in reaction to the PRC's ratcheting up of tensions in the Taiwan Strait that Yamasaki suggested that the LDP should look into applying the acquisition and cross-servicing agreement (ACSA) with the US.32 This was just one of the security arrangement between the US and Japan that was strengthened in the wake of the Taiwan Strait crisis, also including the Guidelines and joint missile defense development.
As Barton Gellman correctly suggests, this was a turning point in the PRC-US relationship from rising confrontation to the "strategic partnership" that the Clinton administration turned to in the years following the crisis.33 Nevertheless, it was actually just one of many turning points throughout a period of roughly a dozen years following the Tiananmen Square massacre within which the PRC-US relationship could best be characterized as a wave, ranging from highs to lows depending on which way events sent the relationship reeling. The difference between this and most of the other low-points in the relationship was that there was a very real threat of military confrontation that forced both sides to pause and reanalyze their stance vis-à-vis the other. This led to a willful effort on both sides to improve the relationship.
The PLA exercises were undoubtedly a ham-fisted attempt to influence the Taiwanese presidential election to the detrimental of Lee Teng-hui that in the end backfired for the PRC hawks who managed to push the idea for maneuvers through to realization as Lee won in a position stronger than previously expected. Nevertheless, the PRC demonstrated the ability to significantly disrupt air and sea transport to Taiwan with just exercises, with obvious implications for a potential blockade. It retrospect, it is fairly clear that the PRC did not intend to actually open hostilities with Taiwan, but instead was merely attempting to intimidate through a show of force. At the time of the tests, however, the pattern of troop and weapon movements would not allow a discounting of the possibility that a full invasion was planned.
The US reaction was designed to prevent hostilities from breaking out between the PRC and Taiwan. The most obvious reason for this is the treatyless yet real US commitment to protect Taiwan from unprovoked PRC hostilities. This ties into the US desire for stability in East Asia and its commitments to its treaty allies in the region. Moreover, if the US were not to stand up to PRC hostilities against Taiwan, it would loose significant clout with other allies who might question its commitment to them. This commitment to Taiwan is also a serious contributor to fears of entrapment in Japan.
Another less obvious reason for the muscular US reaction was the PRC nuclear threat. Had hostilities actually broken out, there was a very high probability that the US would have confronted the PRC militarily. In January 1996, PLA General Xiong Guangkai had said to Assistant Secretary of Defense Charles Freeman, Jr., that the US would not threaten the PRC with a nuclear attack because "in the end, you care a lot more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei."34 The administration could not rule out the possibility that Xiong's attitude was prevalent enough to make such an implicit attack a reality. Thus, the Clinton administration saw it in US interests to prevent any initiation of hostilities whatsoever through deterrence.
There was a distinct split in the public statements of the various members of the LDP, with Kajiyama's statements clearly distancing Japan from the US while Yamasaki's statements called for closer cooperation. This reflected the debate among elites within Japan and more specifically within the LDP. On the one hand, Japanese economic ties with the PRC and risk aversion raised the fear of being dragged into a conflict between the US and the PRC. On the other hand, the risk of being perceived as not supportive of the US could encourage the US to disengage from Japan, a possibility that was being debated among US elites at the time. In the end, Japan was not able to resolve this debate quickly enough, resulting in a hodge-podge of reactions that nevertheless tended towards support of the US. Japan's ultimate public reaction to the Taiwan Straits crisis consisted of nothing more than a mild berating of the PRC's actions while monitoring the situation and encouraging a peaceful resolution, revealing Japan's unwilling to stand out with the US over Taiwan. Nevertheless, behind the scenes the Hashimoto administration was preparing for a worst-case scenario with plans to militarily support the US suggest that, had push come to shove, Japan would have had no qualms about whose side it was on.
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Table of Contents | 1. Introduction: Theory and Methodology | 2. The Taiwan Strait Crisis | 3. The Senkaku Islands Crisis | 4. The EP-3E Incident | 5. The War on Terrorism | 6. The PRC in the US-Japan Relationship
List of Acronyms | Bibliography
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