But we cannot assume that the Chinese absorbed the lessons that the United States wished to impart during the straits crisis. Long the underdog, China is adept at sniffing out the weaknesses of others. China's missile barrages revealed many targets of opportunity in Taiwan. Taiwan is highly trade dependent, and its ports are vulnerable. Its share market and the currency both fell during the straits crisis. The Chinese also know that half the Taiwanese population, including many cabinet members, hold second passports.
Only Australia protested loudly about China's use of missile threat against Taiwan. The Chinese also noted that the US carriers did not sail through the Taiwan strait. Nor was there any suggestion that the carriers might be accompanied by Japanese escorts. (The Japanese would not have been able to respond, but the request itself would have made the point to China.)
The United States has a poor record of predicting the PLA's resort to force. It did not anticipate the Chinese entry into the Korean war (despite much signaling from Beijing), nor the PLA attack on Vietnam in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, China's ally.
Accustomed to having the Soviet Union as its adversary, the United States may not appreciate how much the PLA is a partner of the communist party, not its servant, as was the case with the USSR. The PLA's legitimacy is closely linked to the Taiwan question. Nationalism requires the reintegration of the motherland, and the redress the humiliation of the past, when hostile powers preyed on China's weakness. At the top of that list is Japan, which took Taiwan as a result of the naval war of 1895, and killed millions of Chinese when it attacked China in the late 1930S. It particularly galls China that many native Taiwanese, including 'splittist-traitor' Lee Teng-hui, are favorably disposed towards Japan.
With Hong Kong now part of China, and Macao due to revert in 1999, Taiwan is ever more the focus of PLA attention. China's leaders know they need US help, especially access to the US market, in modernizing their economy. But, unlike President Clinton, the Chinese do not think it's 'all economics now'. If China does not succeed in its current efforts to enter the World Trade Organization, and Taiwan is admitted ahead of China, China might conclude that it has less to lose by rattling Taiwan's cage. In February 1999, China deployed additional short range M-9 and M-11 ballistic missiles along its coastline opposite Taiwan. Preparing for a visit to the United States, China's Premier, Zhu Rongji, claimed disengenously that these were not meant to threaten the brothers and sisters on Taiwan.
