The Strategic Triangle } 421
viewed as Carter’s betrayal of Taiwan in the US-PRC normalization process,
and said that as president he would upgrade the unofficial US office in Taiwan
to a liaison office such as the United States had in Beijing between 1973 and
- Reagan at that stage may not have understood the subtleties of the US
position regarding Taiwan; in any case, he referred repeatedly to Taiwan as a
separate and sovereign state. And once he won the election, it became known
that two Taiwan representatives had been invited to attend his inauguration.
During the 1980 election campaign, Reagan’s vice-presidential candidate
George H. W. Bush, the US representative to the United Nations during the
1971 debates on PRC admission and head of the liaison office in 1973, certainly
understood the ins and outs of the US stance on Taiwan, and was sent to
Beijing to mollify Chinese opposition to the inaugural arrangements. Once in
office, Reagan quickly became apprised of the nature of US undertakings with
Beijing vis-à-vis Taiwan. Yet the issue of US arms sales to Taiwan continued
to rankle Beijing. Contrary to Washington’s promise during normalization
negotiations, US arms sales continued during 1979. Then they increased to
$276 million in 1980, compared to $208 million in 1978. Beijing decided that
Washington was violating the crucial deal over US arms sales to Taiwan.^45
Deng feared that Beijing’s strategic partnership with the United States
was leading Washington to conclude that the United States could force
China to accept essentially unlimited arms sales to Taiwan. On January 4,
1981, after Reagan’s election but before his inauguration, Deng laid before a
US delegation his concerns about US belief that China’s triangular depen-
dence would compel it to acquiesce to unacceptable US moves regarding
Taiwan. Deng disputed several US viewpoints that he believed mistaken
and which, “if not clarified, are likely to cause regression in Sino-US rela-
t ions.”^46 The first US viewpoint Deng believed mistaken was that China
was so poor and weak that it really didn’t matter in global balance of
power. People with this point of view “misjudge China’s position in world
politics [and] will not have a correct international strategy,” Deng said.
It was true that China was weak and poor, Deng said, but “China has its
own advantages ... a vast territory and a large population. ... Even in
times of great difficulty, we dared to face reality and confronted power-
ful forces with our limited strength.” A second mistaken US viewpoint
was that, because of its drive for development, China needed US help,
not vice versa. Again it was true that China was poor, but China “has a
strong point: it is relatively highly capable of surviving without outside
help, and “the Chinese are accustomed to being poor.” A third mistaken
American viewpoint was that China needed the United States to coun-
ter the Soviet Union and that therefore “if the US government adopts a
hard-line policy towards the Soviet Union, China must in turn set aside
such questions as ... Taiwan.” “However, we simply cannot and will not do
that,” Deng said. Instead, “China definitely will not give way. ... China will