THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN MANN, INSIGHT (voice-over): Arming the island. The United States considers a multi-billion dollar arms sale to Taiwan at a time when relations with China are already on the rocks.
(on camera): Hello, and welcome.
The decision wasn't due until Tuesday, but the recommendations are in to the president and leaking out to the public. And an official announcement is now just a short time away. Taiwan has submitted its annual shopping list for U.S. weapons and is awaiting word on what Washington will actually sell.
What is different this year is that the U.S. has a new president whose party has different feelings towards Taiwan and that the president has just emerged from a difficult episode with China over a downed U.S. reconnaissance plane.
On our program today - a delicate decision on Taiwan. We begin with this report from CNN's senior White House correspondent John King.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: We'll let you know soon.
JOHN KING, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): CNN is told the leading option before the president is to say no, at least for now, to Taiwan's request for four U.S. destroyers with the state-of-the-art Aegis radar system. Instead, the package would include four Kidd-class destroyers and as many as a dozen P-3 sub-hunting surveillance planes, both designed to address Taiwan's concern about the threat of a Chinese naval blockade.
JAMES STEINBERG, FMR. U.S. DEP. NATL. SECURITY ADVISER: I think this clearly would have a meaningful impact. I think they do respond directly to the evolving balance between the two, and consistent with our obligation to provide meaningful equipment; not just symbolic sales, but things that really do have an impact on Taiwan's legitimate defense capabilities.
KING: Taiwan wants four destroyers with the Aegis radar system to counter the threat of China's growing arsenal of ballistic missiles, but it would take eight to 10 years to deliver them anyway, and top advisers want Mr. Bush to take a carrot-and-stick approach: Say he would be inclined to approve Taiwan's request in a year or two, if there are still some 300 Chinese missiles aimed at the island.
STEINBERG: I think that the Chinese will obviously prefer the fact that Aegis was not sold, but I think that they will react fairly negatively to the notion of this rigid linkage.
KING: Tensions are still high over the collision of a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. surveillance aircraft, and there is evidence of shifting public opinion in the United States. Nearly six in 10 Americans say maintaining relations with China is more important than the return of the U.S. EP-3 surveillance plane, but nearly seven in 10, 69 percent, describe China as unfriendly or an enemy, up from just 43 percent a year ago.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Just a short time ago, we got back in touch with John King to talk about why the Aegis system in particular has been clouded in so much controversy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING: The Aegis system can track up to 100 missiles at a time and has a sophisticated anti-missile system onboard. So Taiwan says it needs it for the missile threat. Now, why does Beijing object so much? Because it would give Taiwan a defense against those missiles. But Beijing also believes it would be part of a U.S. plan - remember, here in the United States a big debate within the Bush administration and the Congress over a national missile defense program.
If Taiwan had the Aegis system, it could certainly be integrated into any missile defense system the United States wanted to have in the Pacific and beyond. So Beijing says it would be an affront to it for the United States to have such a plan. Here in Washington, one of the concerns, we're told, is that Taiwan's navy is simply not technologically up to speed to have the Aegis system.
But if the president were to go that way - and we suspect he will not - but even if he were to approve the sale of that technology, it would take eight to 10 years simply to build and deliver that system. So there would be some time for training.
MANN: In the U.S., Taiwan has a special place in the hearts of a special part of the Republican Party. Can you tell us about the domestic and, in fact, the partisan pressures that the president has to respond to?
KING: Certainly among conservative Republicans, they are very pro- Taiwan, very pro-democracy. Even many senior officials in this new young administration, when they were out of government, wanted the then- Democratic Clinton administration to be more up front and more favorable to Taiwan. So there is pressure on this new president from the conservatives in his own party to, A, give a very muscular weapons package to Taiwan but, B, also to be much more candid in public.
The one China policy is quite ambiguous. U.S. officials certainly leave the impression that they would defend Taiwan in the case of an attack, but it is not U.S. policy to say so outright. During the campaign, President George W. Bush, then-Governor George W. Bush, promised he would be more candid about this.
But here at the White House, they say the official position still is one China. They won't flat-out guarantee that the United States would defend Taiwan in the case of an attack, although that is certainly the perception and it is certainly one of the reasons why so many conservatives in the U.S. Congress want this president to give quite a sophisticated, quite an expanded arms package to Taiwan.
MANN: John King at the White House, thanks very much for this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
The U.S. decision is colored by conditions inside Taiwan. CNN's senior Asia correspondent Mike Chinoy says Taiwan's military needs are complicated by the state of its own military. A point he made both in the report you're about to see and a conversation we had with him shortly afterwards.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Taiwan's armed forces training to repel a Chinese attack. There's little disagreement here on the danger China poses. It underpins the island's request to buy advanced weapons, including multi billion-dollar ultra-sophisticated Aegis anti- missile systems from the United States.
ERICH SHIH, EDITOR, DEFENSE INTERNATIONAL: The short-range ballistic missiles are the most terrible weapon to Taiwan. Now we almost cannot defend the short-range ballistic missile.
CHINOY: But as Washington make its decision, there are sharp divisions of opinions here on the wisdom of acquiring Aegis. After so many years of international isolation, many worry Taiwan's armed forces lack both the resources and the technological capability to deploy such a complex system.
TIM TING, GALLUP TAIWAN: We have to spend a lot of money, and we will need a lot of high-tech and highly trained people to use Aegis. I don't think that's the weapons system we need right now, and I don't think we are capable to absorb Aegis at this moment.
CHINOY: Indeed, some critics claim Taiwan's entire arms procurement policy is based as much on politics as it is on military considerations.
ANDREW YANG, COUNCIL OF ADVANCED POLICY STUDIES: Getting Aegis, you have more weight on the political commitment from the United States. It's a very big political symbol.
CHINOY: President Chen Shui-bian has lobbied strongly for the island's entire shopping list, including an upgrade to its current U.S. Patriot anti-missile batteries, anti-submarine aircraft and replacements for Taiwan's tiny fleet of subs, two of which date back to the second world war. This, despite China's warning of a sharp response to any major arms sale and signals from Washington that Taiwan may not get all it's asked for.
(on camera): The government here has asked for the Aegis battle system for several years in a row, and it's always been deferred. The government had hoped this year with the new administration that is clearly more sympathetic than the Clinton administration was to Taiwan that the chances of getting Aegis would improve.
However, there are, in fact, considerable differences of opinion about whether or not Taiwan can actually use the Aegis now. And as long as it's made clear that the long-term possibility of getting Aegis has not been ruled out - and that will really depend on Beijing's behavior in terms of its missile deployment - and as long as the U.S. combines whatever collection of weapons it does finally agree to give Taiwan with some firm assurances of American diplomatic and political support for Taiwan in the event of a future crisis with Beijing, then as far as the government and the people here go, that will still be a reasonably successful outcome.
MANN: In your report, you alluded to something I'd like to ask you more about, and that is the trouble that Taiwan has with its current military technology.
CHINOY: Taiwan has a lot of military problems, Jon. This is an armed forces with a reputation for the different services not cooperating well with each other. It's an armed forces with a fairly poor record of integrating sophisticated technology. For example, there have been a series of accidents with the American F-16 fighters that were sold to Taiwan in recent years.
There are a lot of doubts about whether or not the Taiwan military really has the capability to handle a system as sophisticated as Aegis, and there are broader questions about whether or not there are other much more pressing immediate problems that the Taiwan armed forces ought to be devoting its energy and resources to -- issues of integrating command and of trying to come to a really clear idea of what sort of strategy Taiwan is going to adopt.
Is it a purely defensive strategy? There have been some calls here to rethink that, to look at turning a defensive strategy into one in which the best defense is a good offense and to give Taiwan the capability to actually take the battle to mainland China.
There is also an ongoing political debate here about whether confrontation or accommodation with the mainland is the best course. The government of President Chen Shui-bian has tried to get dialogue going. But he has refused to accept China's basic condition of accepting the so- called one China principle.
But interestingly, as Taiwan has become more and more economically dependent on its economic relationship with the mainland for its well- being, there is a growing body of opinion in Taiwan that's urging some kind of accommodation be found so you actually have an ironic situation here in which on the one hand, there's a lot of anxiety about the Chinese military threat. At the same time, there is a lot of people here who feel Taiwan has to find some way to get along with the mainland, even if that means retreating a little bit from the tough line that the government has been pursuing.
MANN: How heavily does all this weigh on the minds of the people of Taiwan? Do they feel safe or threatened?
CHINOY: Well, it's interesting. The people here were surprisingly calm and relatively not disturbed by the whole crisis over the spy plane. The overwhelming majority of people in Taiwan would like to see a continuation of this very ambiguous status quo in which Taiwan is not independent but retains its separate identity and goes its separate way while continuing to have a very productive economic relationship and a continuing series of exchanges with the mainland China.
There is very little political support for independence. The concern, though, would be over the long run if relations between China and the United States get worse, then Taiwan could be caught in the middle. There is an old saying in Asia, "When the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled." And I suspect many people here in Taiwan feel a bit like they might be the grass if Sino-American relations continue to deteriorate.
MANN: Mike Chinoy in Taipei, thanks very much for this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
We'll pause for a short break. And then take a closer look at Taiwan's military and the one it faces on the mainland. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Welcome back.
China is more than 250 times the size of Taiwan with 50 times the population. Its army outnumbers Taiwan's several times over. But the military balance across the Taiwan Strait is not quite that straightforward.
Joining us now to talk about that is Derek Mitchell, an Asia policymaker for the Pentagon in the Clinton administration, now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thanks so much for being with us.
If you think about it this way, Taiwan gave the Bush administration a shopping list. Was it a routine kind of list, or was this going to be a spree that would really change the balance in the region?
DEREK MITCHELL, CTR. FOR STRATEGIC AND INTL. STUDIES: Not changing the balance. This is what Taiwan has wanted for several years, mostly really to balance out what they saw as the increasing threat from the mainland. The mainland has been increasing its naval power. It's procured advanced subs from the Russians, advanced destroyers.
It's built up its missile capabilities. So largely this shopping list was in reaction to what they saw as an increasing threat from the PRC.
MANN: Where do the two nations stand in terms of their offensive and defensive capability?
MITCHELL: Well, the PRC again is building up a very large quick- strike capability. They have building up 50 missiles a year is estimated. They now have about 350 short-range missiles pointed at Taiwan. Again, they have deployed Su-27s , Su-30s, airplanes, advanced aircraft from the Russians also meant to intimidate Taiwan for quick strike capability.
So Taiwan is reacting to that, and they are trying to get anti-air, anti-missile capabilities to try to deter and defend themselves should the PRC decide that they have an advantage and decide to attack.
MANN: What kind of assets do they have in other terms? What's their navy like? What's their army like? How well could they repel an invasion, say?
MITCHELL: Well, you have to look at it in different terms. An invasion is probably not the most likely scenario. The so-called amphibious invasion, some jokingly call it the million man swim by the PRC because they have a very limited capability of getting across the Taiwan Strait, of airlift, of sea lift.
What is more likely, again, is sort of a quick strike to try and take out Taiwan's defense and bring Taiwan to the negotiating table on its terms. Its ability to reconstitute its aircraft, its airstrips, its ability to defend against missiles is very important to Taiwan. Having said that, they also have historically built up their army for land defense. That is, again, very unlikely to be the situation that they need to defend against.
But they have a traditional land force that still gets a lot of assets.
MANN: So if the quick strike scenario that you've outlined were to come to pass, essentially would China win?
MITCHELL: That's uncertain. One of the key questions, and I think Mike Chinoy raised this question, was would the Taiwan people succumb to it? What I think the PRC, the Chinese would want most of all is to have a quick strike before, for instance, the United States might decide to get involved, and undermine the will of the Chinese people to resist. To sort of blind them militarily, take out their command/control structures, to force the situation in such a way the Taiwan people may say, listen, this isn't worth it. Let's sue for peace and come to the table.
What we have told the PRC in response, and I think Taiwan tries to tell the PRC, is it's not that simple. As oftentimes when peoples are under attack, that's when they put up their most strong defense, and they're least likely to come to the table in that circumstance. So I think that's what PRC strategy is. Whether it will be successful or not over time is uncertain.
MANN: Is this essentially a stable situation? Both sides are trying to arm themselves. But are they doing it slowly and cautiously? Or are they doing in a panicked way that's likely to result in some kind of sudden conflict?
MITCHELL: Not panic necessarily. But there is - the trend is worrying, I think, to those who are observing this. It's the PRC and less so Taiwan, because they're defending themselves. But the PRC is militarizing the cross-strait situation. This is a fundamentally political problem.
The two sides have to find some kind of reconciliation, some kind of modus vivendi over time. Historically, the PRC - Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping - have counseled patience. They say we can wait 50 years. We could wait 100 years for Taiwan, and that's OK.
There is a sense now of impatience mostly on the mainland. And as they increase their military force, as they saber rattle, as they talk about taking a military strategy and they train for a military contingency across the strait, that militarization is what is most worrying - not necessarily such a quick procurement.
MANN: Derek Mitchell, thanks so much for talking with us.
MITCHELL: Thank you.
MANN: We have to take another break. And then we'll be back to talk about another battle - the diplomatic one. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN (voice-over): A visit to Japan raises eyebrows and hackles. Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui is in Tokyo for treatment of a heart condition. During his presidency in the `90s, Lee was best known for his efforts to raise Taiwan's profile in the world, an effort that outraged Beijing.
Now his hosts in Japan say they hope Lee will concentrate on his treatment and also breathe lots of Japanese air.
(on camera): Welcome back.
Even though his visit is unofficial, Japan gave Lee a visa only after days of agonizing about it. For good reason - the number of countries that recognize Taiwan has shrunk rapidly as Beijing flexes its diplomatic and economic muscle.
Joining us to talk about Taiwan, China and diplomacy is Justin Rudelson of the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs at the University of Maryland. Thanks so much for being with us.
JUSTIN RUDELSON, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: Thanks for having me, Jonathan.
MANN: The diplomacy of many countries seems to be very complicated. But in Taiwan's case, at least to an outsider from far away, it seems to be very simple. They're just trying to get through the door to get invited through the door. Am I missing something, or is Taiwan really at that basic a level of diplomacy?
RUDELSON: No, I think it is complex. Taiwan is definitely in the door. They might not be in the door of the UN, but they are in the door in terms of maybe institutes and consul relations in many of the countries of the world, even though they don't have ambassadorial relationships.
But they are very much involved with the world today.
MANN: When you look at their diplomacy, are they the outcasts that Beijing wants them to be, or you say they're in the door. Are they in the mainstream? Are they the country among other nations that they would like to be?
RUDELSON: No, it's somewhat of a global anomaly. We have a country that has over 20 million people. It used to claim - I think it still claims - to be the legitimate government of China in terms of the civil war it had with the Communist Chinese. It was, in fact, defeated and pushed onto Taiwan in 1949.
For a long time, China was supported, of course, by most of the nation, had a UN seat until the early 1970s. And then China gradually gained more and more acceptance in the world community, and fewer and fewer nations recognized Taiwan and switched their allegiance to the PRC.
MANN: So is Taiwan losing ground, do you think?
RUDELSON: I think right now this is about the best position they have been in a long time. Taiwan has a very status quo that is essentially a status quo in a moving world. As China increases its strength around the world and its military might, Taiwan needs to defend itself and defend from that might.
And so right now what we're seeing is really a jockeying of positions to maintain the status quo. Essentially Taiwan is a status quo independent country. It can deal for itself. But both government recognize that Taiwan is part of China and don't really want to rock that boat.
MANN: What kind of contacts do the two governments have with each other?
RUDELSON: There are some. It's not on the high diplomatic levels that we might think. For instance, in the United States, there are very few contacts except maybe on the consular or the cultural level. But you won't see two - an ambassador and the head of the Taiwan delegation at a same party, for instance.
It's very sensitive. It's still extremely sensitive, though a lot of diplomatic relations are unfolding through corporations and businesses which are dealing with China on a very large level.
MANN: And in fact, this is something that our correspondent Mike Chinoy alluded to - the economic integration that's bringing the two countries together.
RUDELSON: Exactly.
MANN: How powerful a force is that?
RUDELSON: That's a huge force. I think especially in Taiwan, Taiwan has tremendous trade with the world. It's invested a lot of money in mainland China. In fact, what we're seeing, and I think more and more is being floated, is the idea of a confederacy for a greater Chinese confederacy, where you have a confederacy of countries - Taiwan and China together. But having essentially a distinct identity.
Given that, one would seek an overarching flag that doesn't use the Chinese PRC flag or the Taiwan flag, but comes up with a different flag for this overarching confederacy. It's a very hot topic not only in China and Taiwan, but also on the global Web sites in Chinese.
MANN: Do you think that could happen any time soon? Do you think this dispute could be put behind those two nations?
RUDELSON: I think so. I think that there needs to be a larger overarching framework that could happen perhaps with in the next three years, if I could be so daring. We're going to have a sea change in China. Jiang Zemin and Li Peng will be stepping down next year.
We really have had a sea change in Taiwan. One thing that we tend to forget about is that in Taiwan it was an authoritarian military rule until 1988. It only has had democracy over the last maybe 13 years. so we had a sea change where the nationalist party, Chiang Kai-shek's party lost power in the last election.
Something similar could happen this way in China, where like Gorbachev, the government could change or reform itself.
MANN: One quick thought for you, and that's about what the Bush administration is going to announce very shortly. They're trying not to rock the boat. Do you think they're doing the right things?
RUDELSON: Yes, I do. I think what's come out of some of the reports just made is that sometimes Taiwan has too many arms, too much arms for its own good. In the Bush administration needs to find that line of defense that's adequate but not too much. And the reason for that is particularly in the 1980s, the mid 1980s, some of the military leaders of Taiwan were believed to be threatening a coup, given that they had a lot of military backing and perhaps strength trying to come up with a military leadership.
Several of these generals were sent to Latin America as ambassadors or consul officials, and the threat was moved. But this has been a threat in the past.
MANN: Justin Rudelson of the Institute for Global Chinese Affairs, thanks so much for talking with us.
RUDELSON: Thank you very much.
MANN: And that is INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. There will be more on this story in the hours to come. The news continues.
END
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