WHEN PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN addressed the House of Commons on June 8, 1982 he never uttered the words "evil empire," but the speech has nonetheless been aptly called the "Evil Empire Speech." While most intellectual and foreign policy intellectuals of the time sought ways to accommodate the Soviet Union and to avoid disturbing the sensitivities of the Great Bear, Reagan thought that respect for the truth compelled him to explain his vision of the world. In Reagan's words, "If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."
Reagan outlined the economic and political failure of the ideology of the Soviet Union, to the embarrassment of some that smugly thought it naive and simple-minded for the American cowboy to point out the obvious. "The decay of the Soviet experiment," Reagan said, "should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies - West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam - it is the democratic countries that are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people.''
We should remember these words in our present dealings with Communist China. During the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to play Communist China off of the Soviet Union, President Richard Nixon thought it convenient to indulge in the opportune fiction that there is only "one China." Of course, there was a deliberate diplomatic ambiguity as to which China, the Communist one or the Nationalist one, was the "one" China. The need for such an invention has long since ceased.
Communist China has engaged in years of provocative behavior including missile tests conducted close to Taiwan. On July 10, Taiwanese President Li Teng-hui modestly suggested that, rather than viewing Taiwan as a wayward province of mainland China, Taiwan and the mainland should engage in "state-to-state" negotiation. The reaction from the Communists was belligerent, angry, hostile, and expected. They informed the world that they had a neutron bomb, which kills people with minimum damage to structures. This is a convenient tool for the intimidation of uppity neighbors.
The Clinton Administration's appeasement and fretful pressure on the Taiwan government to moderate its already modest rhetoric was cowardly, foolish, ineffectual, and also expected. Pressuring a democracy to appease anti-American thugs has become a habit for this Administration, both in Asia and in Israel.
The facts on the ground are simple enough. Taiwan is a representative democracy, imperfect, but light years freer and more prosperous than its gargantuan neighbor. If the Taiwanese people are disposed in the future to join mainland China, their status as either an independent state or a rebellious province will make little difference. Two independent states can agree to merge. The only plausible explanation to maintain the Red Chinese chimera of considering Taiwan a Chinese province, is to provide a patina of cover for future intimidation or force to compel Taiwan to capitulate. If Taiwan is accepted by the world as an independent state, then the Communist Chinese can not argue that combating the Taiwanese is a solely internal matter.
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