![]() will, so China kept building its naval, air, and cyber forces-the new “circumstances” Washington must now confront in deciding whether to defend Taiwan. ![]() capabilities were not matched by clear U.S. America kept its Navy out of the Strait for the next decade-until Defense Secretary Rumsfeld directed the Navy to resume normal operations. Navy entered the Strait, it would face a “sea of fire.” Washington turned the ships around.īoth sides took lessons from the episode. But this time, Beijing threatened a fierce response: if the U.S. The Clinton administration also upped the ante, now sending two carriers and accompanying ships toward Taiwan. ![]() A PLA general also issued a blunt warning against American reaction: “You care more about Los Angeles than Taiwan.” officials indicated America would not defend South Korea.)īeijing decided it needed to test Nye’s strategic ambiguity doctrine, and as Taiwan’s election approached, it again began firing missiles across the Strait, this time straddling both sides of the island. (When asked later why he had given such an equivocal response, Nye said he wanted to avoid a replay of the situation that led to the Korean War after U.S. Nye gave this answer: “We don’t know and you don’t know. In a December 1995 meeting with Assistant Secretary of Defense Joseph Nye, they asked him point-blank what Washington would do if China outright attacked Taiwan. So, they decided to confront the issue directly with their American counterparts. gesture, unlikely to lead to follow-up action? government that Strait transits could only be made with Beijing’s prior permission. That gave it reason to question how seriously Washington was committed to defending Taiwan. The Clinton administration quickly offered the Chinese an “explanation” of the transit: bad weather had caused a diversion of the ships into the Strait.Ĭhina took this as an implied admission by the U.S. This was the first time the United States Navy had entered the Strait since President Richard Nixon pulled the Seventh Fleet out in 1972 as a good-will gesture prior to his historic visit to China.īeijing saw the move as adding injury to insult and protested vehemently to Washington at this violation of what they considered Chinese waters. President Clinton, unsure of how far China would go, deployed the USS Nimitz aircraft battle group into the Taiwan Strait to deter any Chinese escalation. It fired missiles across the Taiwan Strait and conducted live-fire exercises, closing the shipping lanes, disrupting air and maritime commerce, and sending insurance rates soaring. visit of such a high-level Taiwan official and Secretary of State Warren Cristopher, sensitive to Chinese concerns, assured Beijing that Lee would not be granted a visa.īut the uproar from American friends of Taiwan, particularly in Congress, caused the Clinton administration to reverse itself, Lee’s visa was granted, he gave his speech in Ithaca, and Beijing went ballistic, literally. Lee Teng-hui, the appointed president of Taiwan, was the Kuomintang Party’s candidate for Taiwan’s upcoming first direct presidential election in March 1996.Īn alumnus of Cornell University, he was invited to attend his reunion the previous July. One Asian affairs veteran of the Clinton administration called it “our own Cuban missile crisis-we had peered into the abyss.” It is worth recounting how the situation unfolded. (my emphasis)”Īmerican officials also saw the 1995-96 events as significant-and worrisome. Once such a capacity got acquired, the generals in Beijing believed that Washington would not dare to intervene on the side of Taipei. “The aim was to ensure that the PLA air, land, space, cyber and sea forces acting in unison had the capability to sink two carrier fleets. Navy ships was the key to seizing Taiwan: The Januissue of The Guardian carried an article entitled “ Xi Jinping challenges Donald Trump over Taiwan” quoting Chinese officials who saw the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait missile crisis as the time Beijing decided that the ability to destroy U.S. He was referring specifically to the South China Sea, but Chinese generals have made similar murderous threats about U.S. aircraft carrier or two, with the loss of up to 10,000 lives, “We’ll see how frightened America is.” Rear Admiral Luo Yuan said if it sank a U.S. There has been much talk about the recent comments of a Chinese military official issuing a dire warning against the United States resisting China’s aggression in the region.
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