Assault on Taiwan Would Be Disastrous : Neighbors Warn Beijing 
International Herald Tribune
March 5, 1996
Michael Richardson 

While Asian countries do not believe that China wants to torpedo the region's stability and economic growth by attacking Taiwan, concerns are growing that Chinese military maneuvers linked to elections on the island next month may trigger a serious conflict.

As a result, several Asian leaders who have close ties to Beijing have recently cautioned China about the devastating consequences for the mainland as well as for China's neighbors of an outbreak of fighting.

In blunt messages to the Chinese leadership, they have warned that China's ambition to become a major industrial power respected by other countries would be seriously set back by an assault on Taiwan.

In a recent speech, Lee Kuan Yew, senior minister of Singapore, said that countries in the region that Beijing has been courting "will not understand why China cannot be patient and resolve the matter peacefully, when using force will damage both China and Taiwan, and also hurt third parties," including East Asian nations.

The use of force, he added, would "set back a real chance China now has of becoming an industrialized nation in 25 years."

In Bangkok, Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, who has cultivated Beijing, said he did not think that China would go to war against Taiwan.

"Most countries have now learned that in order to dominate, you have to be economically powerful. I don't think China will spoil the power it has achieved," he said.

The Defense Ministry in Taiwan says that China is massing up to 150,000 troops for a military exercise on its southeastern coast opposite the island, which Beijing regards as a rebel province.

Taiwanese officials say the exercise is aimed at intimidating voters and reducing support for President Lee Teng-hui, the leading contender in Taiwan's presidential elections on March 23.

Beijing, which on Monday renewed a threat to use force to prevent Taiwan's independence, has repeatedly accused Mr. Lee of trying to chart a separatist path for the island.

Gerrit Gong, director of the Asian Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that military action was unlikely because it was not in the interest of either Beijing or Taipei.

He said that at present, Beijing's primary objectives were psychological and political.

However, if military tension across the straits separating heavily armed Taiwan from China heightened, both sides might box themselves into a rhetorical corner. "Once spoken, some words are hard to retract," he said.

Mr. Lee of Singapore said that if "by accident or miscalculation actions happen that get the U.S. involved, the costs would be very high for China and the U.S., but highest for Taiwan, because Taiwan's industries and population centers are all on the western coastal plain facing China."

Any Chinese attack on Taiwan would "force the U.S. to react and at least impose an economic embargo on China," he said. "U.S. forces will prevail in the short run, but the long-term consequences will be enormous, and all countries in the Asia-Pacific will be affected."

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