met predominantly by coal-fired plants. Autos clogged roads in and between
major cities. Air pollution went from bad to worse. Efforts to develop hydro-
power using dams on China’s rivers were controversial as the projects dis-
placed large numbers of people and had major environmental impacts on
people in China and other countries downstream from the new dams. Serious
depletion of water resources in northern China was exacerbated by water
pollution, pervasive throughout China. 93
The Hu Jintao leadership gave more emphasis than its predecessors to the
need for sustainable development in China. However, the results remained
mixed as in the past. Official Chinese media and Chinese officials noted
significant improvement in water pollution levels in some Chinese rivers
during the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001–5), but not in others. Efforts to curb
air pollution included 182 projects to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, and
closures of more than six thousand heavily polluting enterprises. Air pollu-
tion levels were said to have improved in some cities, but sulfur dioxide
remained a major problem. 94
As of 2017 it can be said that in recent years, there was notable progress
reported in greater efficiency in energy use, but Chinese officials sometimes
were cautious in predicting improvements, especially with the projected rap-
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Chapter 9
id rise of automobile use in China, along with the pollution and land, water,
and natural resource use associated with China’s rapid economic growth. The
nation still lacks a powerful national body that is able to coordinate, monitor, and enforce environmental legislation. The devolution of decision-making
authority to local levels has placed environmental stewardship in the hands
of officials who frequently are more concerned with economic growth than
the environment. Meanwhile, the deficiency of capital and the lack of will to
promote the massive spending necessary to reverse several decades of envi-
ronmental damage indicated that environmental restoration would be proble-
matic in the near future. 95
The international consequences of China’s environmental problems are
varied and usually negative. Dust storms from eroding land in northern China
pollute the atmosphere in Korea and Japan, leading to popular and sometimes
official complaints and concerns. Air pollution from China affects locales to
the east as far away as the Pacific coast of the United States. Chinese dams
on the Mekong River negatively impact the livelihood of people in Cambo-
dia and Vietnam, complicating official relations. Extensive international and
especially American publicity regarding China’s poor environmental record
makes US opinion less patient with Chinese government explanations that
China, as a developing country, should not be held to strict environmental
standards. As a result, China’s image in the United States declined. 96
Facing such circumstances, the Obama administration made energy and
climate cooperation one of the highest items on its agenda with China. On
emissions reduction, the Obama administration worked collaboratively with
China and used US-China presidential summits to push Beijing toward
stronger international climate commitments. Prior to the December 2015
COP-21 Paris climate negotiations, all parties to the UN Framework Conven-
tion on Climate Change were expected to put forward post-2020 targets in
the first half of 2015. Those targets, once combined, would form the frame-
work for a new global climate deal. President Obama took the initiative to
reach out to President Xi Jinping, and the two were able to reach agreement
in 2014 on targets to be announced in Paris in 2015, thereby substantially
adding to international momentum in support of environmental reforms to
meet the dangers of climate change. 97
Whatever positive impact this accord made on US-China relations at the
time was undermined by the election of President Trump and an administra-
tion antagonistic to or disinclined to support international climate change
efforts. Under these new circumstances, concern over Chinese environmental
policies figures much less in US government policy calculations, either posi-
tively or negatively. Some in the Congress and many more among the media
and nongovernment groups have a negative view of China’s impact on the
global environment, but their focus is diverted to contending with the new
US administration. 98
Chapter Ten
Taiwan and East Asian Maritime
Disputes in Contemporary
US-China Relations
There is much to support the judgment of experts on both sides of the Taiwan
Strait and in the United States that the so-called Taiwan issue in US-China
relations is sui generis, encompassing a unique set of elements that stand on
their own as they influence the US-China relationship in negative and posi-
tive ways. Thus, past editions of this volume duly treated Taiwan as the
subject of a separate chapter. Nevertheless, as reviewed in chapter 7, the
serious challenges to US interests posed by President Xi Jinping’s assertive
and expansionist behavior in the disputed East China Sea to the north of
Taiwan and the South China Sea to the south of Taiwan represent a leading
cause of hardening US attitudes toward China by the US administration,
Congress, the media, and various elite and public opinion outlets. That hard-
ening did not spill over to change the Barack Obama administration’s tightly
managed relations with Taiwan that carefully avoided serious controversy
with China. Nevertheless, the 2016 election campaign saw the Republican
Party and its winning candidate, now President Donald Trump, repeatedly
chastise President Obama’s perceived weakness in foreign affairs. The criti-
cism included the Obama government’s alleged weakness in dealing with
China over disputes in the East and South China Seas and other issues, and in
that context the Republican Party platform and prominent Republicans regis-
tered stronger American support for Taiwan. As noted in chapter 7, Presi-
dent-elect Trump temporarily upended the Obama government’s discreet
handling of Taiwan by having a phone conversation with Taiwan’s president;
and when rebuked by China, Trump criticized Chinese expansion in the
South China Sea and questioned adherence to the American one-China poli-
213
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Chapter 10
cy. He later reverted—perhaps again temporarily—to handling Taiwan mat-
ters in ways that would not grossly offend Beijing.
Against that background, this chapter first assesses long-standing Taiwan
issues and their impact on US-China relations; it then assesses the serious
differences that have emerged between the United States and China caused
by recent unprecedented tension over territorial disputes in the East China
Sea and the South China Sea that surround Taiwan.
Given the rising tensions amid recently more serious differences over
various aspects in US-China relations, the issues examined in this chapter
regarding Taiwan and the maritime disputes probably are best unde
rstood
using a realist lens in international politics: seeing China and the United
States engaged in an often zero-sum competition for influence. Of course,
realism could result in negotiations leading to compromises that would mark-
edly improve relations, say, for example, if the Trump government in eco-
nomic negotiations with China saw such progress for US interests that it was
prepared in turn to substantially reduce US support for Taiwan. Advocates of
liberalism in international relations theory might see such an outcome as
reflective of the importance of economic engagement and economic engage-
ment as reflective of the salience of their perspective in recent US-China
relations. Meanwhile, the constructivist perspective seems more likely than
not to perceive that the strong nationalistic identities being built in China,
Taiwan, and other nearby states as factors that make significant compromise
over territorial and related disputes more difficult, which adds to the prevailing trend of competition and distrust.
TAIWAN ISSUES AND CONTEMPORARY
US-CHINA RELATIONS
The governments in China and the United States approved improvements in
cross-strait relations carried out by Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou
(2008–16). This unusually positive trajectory followed more than a decade of
repeated crises in cross-strait relations brought on by China’s harsh reactions to movement toward self-determination and independence by Taiwan’s leaders, who looked to the United States for support in the face of Chinese
pressure. Ma’s eight years of engagement with and accommodation of China
ended with the landslide election as president of his long-standing opponent,
Tsai Ing-wen, who pledged to avoid further compromise with Beijing over
sensitive cross-strait issues while seeking greater autonomy for Taiwan. 1
Even during the improving cross-strait relations under President Ma, the
interests, policies, and practices of the United States and China have re-
mained at odds over Taiwan in important ways. Notably, the Chinese author-
ities continue an impressive buildup of military forces targeting Taiwan and
Taiwan and East Asian Maritime Disputes
215
American forces that they believe will come to Taiwan’s assistance in the
event of conflict over Taiwan. The Americans carefully monitor the Chinese
buildup as they prepare forces to counter and destroy Chinese combatants
that would impede US response in a Taiwan conflict. The military strength-
ening on both sides underlines the position of Taiwan as one of only a few
world areas where the world’s number-one and number-two powers could
come to blows, with devastating implications for them and international af-
fairs. 2
The history of the normalization of US-China relations shows the United
States giving ground on US relations with Taiwan in seeking to foster benefi-
cial US relations with China. Yet, the United States has tended to side with
Taiwan, which remained in strong competition with China until Ma’s elec-
tion in 2008, and faced renewed pressure from Beijing with the election of
President Tsai and her less accommodating posture toward China. The result
was repeated efforts by both countries to move forward in developing US-
China relations while dealing with often mixed results with differences over
Taiwan. Seemingly successful understandings and agreements have been
compromised and reversed; both sides have periodically resorted to military,
diplomatic, and economic pressures to support their goals; the result has been
mutual wariness and suspicion. 3
A new situation fostering détente and cooperation in cross-strait relations
and in US relations with China over Taiwan emerged with the election of Ma
Ying-jeou in March 2008. His administration followed moderate policies and
sought to reassure China, marking a sharp contrast with the intense Taiwan-
China competition that had prevailed up to that time. Ma was reelected in
2012 and continued positive engagement with China. The result was a signif-
icant easing of cross-strait tensions that affected US-China relations, though
often competing and conflicting US and Chinese interests and policies re-
garding Taiwan—notably the respective arms buildups focused on Taiwan—
remained.
As explained in chapter 4, the process of normalization of US-China
relations saw Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon privately pledge to meet
firm Chinese demands about ending US official relations with Taiwan in
return for the perceived strategic and other benefits the United States would
gain from the breakthrough in official relations with China. To avoid contro-
versy in American domestic politics and in US interaction with Taiwan and
other concerned powers, these commitments remained hidden from the
American public, the Congress, most officials in the Nixon government,
Taiwan, and other foreign governments. The US-China normalization pro-
cess stalled on account of Nixon’s forced resignation over the Watergate
scandal. Unaware of the Kissinger-Nixon secret commitments, American
public opinion and mainstream views in Congress supported continuing US
ties with Taiwan while moving ahead with China.
216
Chapter 10
tion of diplomatic relations and eventually met most Chinese demands on
ending US official ties with Taiwan. China seemed basically satisfied,
though Carter’s insistence on continuing some US arms sales to Taiwan after
breaking official relations remained an outstanding dispute. The backlash in
the United States severely complicated the Carter understanding with China.
Bipartisan congressional leaders rewrote the administration’s proposed bill
governing future unofficial relations with Taiwan, passing the Taiwan Rela-
tions Act, which underlined continued strong US interest in protecting Tai-
wan from Chinese pressure and sustaining close economic, arms sales, and
other ties with Taiwan.
Ronald Reagan highlighted his record of support for Taiwan in defeating
Carter in the 1980 presidential election. Strong Chinese pressure against the
seeming reversal of US policy resulted in a compromise over US arms sales
to Taiwan in a Sino-American communiqué in 1982. Whatever Chinese ex-
pectations continued about the United States withdrawing from Taiwan di-
minished further with concurrent US efforts to support Taiwan in internation-
al organizations, to transfer to Taiwan the technology and expertise to pro-
duce its own jet fighters, and to increase high-level US officials’ meetings
with Taiwan counterparts. American officials from Reagan on down saw US
interests well served by preserving a balance in American relations with
Taiwan and China where Taiwan would be sufficiently supported by the
United States through military and other means that it would not feel com-
pelled to come to terms with China on reunification or other issues seen as
adverse to Taiwan’s interests. Reagan’s successor, George H. W. Bush, con-
tinued this approach, notably by sending the first US cabinet member to visit
Ta
iwan and by transferring more than $5 billion of advanced jet fighters to
Taiwan in a deal that was widely seen to have undermined the understand-
ings reached in the 1982 communiqué with China.
As discussed in chapter 5, Sino-American interaction over the issues as-
sociated with Taiwan became much more complicated as democracy and a
strong movement toward self-determination emerged in Taiwan in the
post–Cold War period. The American antipathy to China following the Tian-
anmen crackdown added to the shift in American attitudes against China and
in favor of Taiwan. American attraction to growing democracy in Taiwan
overshadowed US attention to the profound implications for China of moves
by Taiwan’s democratic leaders toward greater separation from China. The
moves were popular among many Taiwanese people and their supporters in
the United States but were fundamentally at odds with China’s concerns over
sovereignty and nationalism.
The clash of Sino-American interests reached a high point with the mili-
tary crisis in the Taiwan Strait in 1995–96, caused by Chinese military reac-
tion to President Bill Clinton’s unexpected reversal of US policy in granting
Taiwan and East Asian Maritime Disputes
217
Taiwan’s President Lee Teng-hui a visa in order to visit the United States and
give a speech at his alma mater, Cornell University. Following the face-off of
US and Chinese forces in the Taiwan area in 1996, China’s strong political
pressure against Taiwan and its US supporters continued along with con-
certed Chinese efforts to build up military forces in the Taiwan area designed
to coerce Taiwan, prevent its movement toward permanent separation from
China, and deter US military efforts to intervene. American policy reflected a
complicated mix of efforts to preserve a balance of power favorable to the
United States and Taiwan and thereby deter China’s coercive pressures, on
the one hand, while trying to dampen pro-independence initiatives in Taiwan
and thereby reassure China regarding US commitment to a one-China policy,
on the other.
The period from the Lee Teng-hui visit to the United States in 1995 until