622 { China’s Quest
was prepared materially and psychologically for war, even for a full-scale
assault on Taiwan to bring that island finally and irrevocably into the state
system of the PRC, if Taipei continued to reject what Beijing believed was
a reasonable and moderate one country, two systems framework. Elections
of Taiwan’s legislature were scheduled for December 1995, shortly before the
island’s first-ever direct election of a president on March 23, 1996. The 1995
Legislative Yuan (LY) election was only the second fully democratic elec-
tion of Taiwan’s legislature. The first had come in 1992 after constitutional
reform eliminated appointed (not elected) delegates supposedly representing
Mainland constituencies long since incorporated into the PRC. CCP leaders
were deeply afraid that the dynamics of Taiwan’s new democracy would push
Taiwan toward independence. Red lines had to be made clear.Beijing’s Response to the US Visa IssuanceWashington was the second target of Beijing’s coercive diplomacy. US lead-
ers were under the false impression, China’s leaders believed, that China
needed US help to modernize, or that China was simply too far behind the
United States in military capabilities to countenance confronting the United
States. Because of these vulnerabilities, US leaders believed (continuing with
Beijing’s reconstruction of US views) that China would be forced to acquiesce
to US interference in China’s internal affairs and violation of various US-PRC
agreements. General and Politburo member Liu Huaqing had expressed
Beijing’s intent in April 1994: China needed to send an “explicit and firm mes-
sage to the United States: China will never tolerate foreign interference in its
internal affairs and will never barter away its principles. China will not seek
confrontation, but will not fear confrontation and will not evade any imposed
confrontation.”^19
Beijing responded swiftly to the US issuance of a visa for Lee. The day after
the announcement that Lee would receive a visa, a Chinese delegation in the
United States headed by the PLA air force chief canceled its remaining itiner-
ary and departed for home. A scheduled visit to the United States by Defense
Minister Chi Haotian was postponed, and a scheduled visit to China by State
Department nonproliferation officials was canceled. Beijing rejected an offer
by Washington to send a special emissary to Beijing to explain the visa deci-
sion. Beijing also declined to approve the new US ambassador nominated
by Washington, James Sasser. Stapleton Roy was scheduled to step down as
US ambassador on June 17, 1995. President Clinton did not nominate a new
ambassador until September 1995, and that nomination was not approved by
Beijing until February 14, 1996. About a month after the visa announcement,
and the day before Roy’s term in Beijing expired, Beijing recalled Ambassador
Li Daoyu “to report on his work.” This meant that for a period of several