Confrontation with the United States } 623
months, for the first time since establishment of normal relations in January
1979, neither country had an ambassador posted in the other’s capital. By
recalling Li and delaying approval of Sasser, Beijing deliberately downgraded
ties. Strident denunciations of Lee Teng-hui and of recent US shifts on Taiwan
filled China’s media. Shifts in US policy were depicted as efforts to encour-
age Taiwan independence and “split China.” A long litany of US transgres-
sions was reprised: the Taiwan Relations Act, the F-16 sale, the Taiwan Policy
Review, and finally the visit of Lee Teng-hui.
But diplomatic protests and media polemics alone were deemed inad-
equate. This time, diplomatic protests would be given additional force by
military demonstrations targeting Taiwan and gradually escalating in scope
and potency. Washington did not take China’s warnings seriously, Beijing
felt. The United States felt it could force US-dictated terms regarding Taiwan
down China’s throat. It was necessary to disabuse US leaders of these illu-
sions. Rather like the staging of a military ambush at Chen Bao Island in
March 1969 in an attempt to make Moscow stop and take stock, the military
demonstrations in the Strait in 1995–1996 were an attempt at active defense.
Confronting Washington with China’s willingness to go to war was intended
to cause China’s adversary, the United States in the 1990s, to “rein in at the
brink of the precipice” and pull back from its unacceptable policy course
regarding Taiwan. Each round of military demonstration would be followed
by a hiatus and talks with the United States. This maximized opportunity
for China to use the exercises to pressure Washington, and to give opportu-
nity for China to deescalate if the United States reacted more forcefully than
Beijing anticipated. Beijing did not intend to go to war with the United States,
just convince Washington that it was ready to.
What eventually become eight months of on-again, off-again but gradu-
ally escalating PLA military demonstrations against Taiwan began on June
30, 1995, with routine PLA air and naval exercises simulating amphibious
landings on the Fujian coast. More unusual demonstrations came in late July
when the PLA conducted what Beijing called ballistic missile tests, with PLA
warheads landing in a circular area twenty miles in diameter and eighty miles
northeast of Taiwan. Shortly before the “tests,” foreign ships and airplanes
were warned to avoid the area. They complied. Over the course of a week,
the PLA fired six missiles into the target zone from bases in Jiangxi and Jilin
provinces at distances of up to a thousand miles. This was the first time the
PLA had fired missiles into the seas adjacent to Taiwan. The missile firings
effectively demonstrated PLA ability to put at risk commercial or military
shipping between Taiwan and Japan. Firing exercises by coastal defense artil-
lery and simulated air and naval strikes along China’s coastal areas paralleled
the missile firings. There was no military response from the United States.
Beijing’s campaigns of military intimidation in 1995–1996 are illustrated by
Figure 23-1.