626 { China’s Quest
Clinton reiterated the pledges made in his August letter and did not bring to
Jiang’s attention the US interest in peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue.
Nor had there been a US military reaction to the August “tests.” This US
approach satisfied Beijing. Following this Jiang-Clinton summit, Ambassador
Li Daoyu returned to his posting in Washington.
Following the Jiang-Clinton meeting in New York, China’s leaders met to
discuss the situation. Washington had not given a pledge promising no future
visits by Taiwan’s leaders and also seemed to believe that the Taiwan issue
was behind it. This was not satisfactory: Washington had not fully learned
its lesson. Nor had Taipei shifted course. Lee Teng-hui was still pursuing his
“two Chinas” and “Taiwan independence” approach in his campaign for the
1996 election. There was thus consensus within the CCP elite that further,
even more threatening, measures were in order. Jiang, with PLA prompting,
ordered further, more forward-leaning exercises.
In October, the PLA conducted naval exercises simulating an opposed am-
phibious landing on an island on the mainland coast north of the Taiwan
Strait. Naval artillery and missiles bombarded coastal defenses, after which
amphibious tanks and landing craft brought troops ashore while subma-
rines and antisubmarine vessels shielded the landing force. Jiang Zemin, Liu
Huaqing, and six other members of the CMC observed the simulated inva-
sion. This underlined the importance of the exercises. China’s media gave
extensive coverage to the exercises, including distributing photographs to the
Japanese media.
Another round of talks with the United States followed the October mil-
itary demonstration. In November, a Department of Defense delegation, led
by Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Joseph
Nye, visited Beijing. This constituted the first high-level interaction of mil-
itary officials since the visa announcement in May. During the talks, PLA
officials pushed hard over the Taiwan issue, making clear to their US inter-
locutors that China was prepared for war, if necessary, and was dusting off
contingency plans for Taiwan operations that had not been looked at since
the 1950s. The Chinese also side probed to understand how the United States
would respond to various crises in the Strait. The US side refused to be drawn
into contingency scenarios, but Nye made clear at a press conference after
the meetings that any use of force against Taiwan “would be a serious mis-
ta ke.”^22 Nye also reminded Chinese officials that both US domestic law and
national security strategy indicated that instability in the Taiwan Strait could
be a threat to US national security interest and hurt long-term prospects for
US-PRC relations.^23
The same month the US Defense Department delegation visited Beijing,
the PLA carried out yet another, and larger, simulated amphibious inva-
sion. This one targeted Dongshan Island, near the southern end of the
Taiwan Strait. Up to 18,000 personnel from all PLA services were involved.