China growls at the Taiwan arms sale. Is this time different?
On Jan. 29, the Obama administration approved a $6.4 billion package of weapons sales to Taiwan. The Chinese government's reaction was all-too predictable: The next day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador to China for a dressing-down and threatened "serious repercussions" if the U.S. government did not reverse its decision.
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Beijing has had to live with U.S. support for Taiwan's defense ever since the establishment of the People's Republic in 1949. Each arrival of another arms sale for Taiwan has resulted in an outraged response from the Chinese government. Tempers then cool and business, both political and commercial, soon returns to normal. Will this time be different?
The best bet is that it won't. The Chinese government will most likely deliver its routine bluster and then allow the issue to fade away. Obama administration officials are likely hoping that the composition of this arms package -- mostly defensive systems such as surface-to-air missiles, minesweepers, and communications equipment, but not new F-16 fighter-bombers -- will appear non threatening to China.
The Chinese government needs to save face and protect China's reputation in the eyes of a domestic audience that is occasionally prone to nationalistic outbursts. But at the same time, the government has to maintain an export-driven economic policy that generates millions of new jobs each year. Failure to do so risks social instability. Thus, in spite of China's anger over U.S. military support for Taiwan, no confrontation with the United States is likely to result.
Even so, some analysts wonder whether there might be a trend toward greater Chinese combativeness. John Pomfret of the Washington Post cataloged a range of worried views from both U.S. and European analysts. Writing at the Financial Times, Gideon Rachman asserted that China and the United States are on a collision course. Rachman notes that should the U.S. unemployment rate remain in the double digits, many Americans, not least nervous politicians, will wonder why the government stands by while China manipulates the yuan-dollar exchange rate, thus transferring jobs to China.
The United States went through this same story with Japan in the 1980s and early 1990s. But Japan was a pacifist ally and eventually fizzled as an economic challenger. China, by contrast, is a worrisome military competitor with rapidly expanding air and naval power in the Western Pacific. Others will note China's support for repressive rogues such as North Korea, Burma, and Sudan, along with its failure to cooperate with the United States and Europe on blocking Iran's nuclear program. Friction with Japan was confined to trade and eventually faded as an issue, but friction with China encompasses trade, U.S. financial vulnerability, the strategic balance in Asia, U.S. alliances, human rights, and nuclear proliferation.
Policymakers in both countries are eager to avoid conflict. But they also don't control many of the variables in play, most notably the impulses of their populations. Even with the best of intentions, the friction may still burn.
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