There is a certain irony in China's recent verbal fireworks. The People's Liberation Army Daily (a telling name for a newspaper) recently called Lee "traitorous," mentioning for good measure that Lee would leave "a stink on China for a thousand years." This is, of course, the same Lee Teng-hui that the same People's Liberation Army played an integral role in getting elected. In Taiwan's first-ever presidential elections in 1996, Lee was running as a status quo candidate against a fairly popular pro-independence candidate. China "tested" some missiles by lobbing them into the Taiwan Straits, close enough to scare those who thought a pro-independence President would be a good idea.
For the United States, the One China policy is all about keeping the peace. During the missile-lobbing party of 1996, the United States sent the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Straits to ensure the peace. (When the missiles stopped, many American hawks were too busy congratulating themselves on their big guns to notice that the elections were over, Lee had won, and China had accomplished its goal.) Given America's extensive military presence in the Pacific Rim, and the economic necessity of protecting both the Taiwanese economy and the sea lanes in the region, it is almost certain that the United States would be under great pressure to become involved in a war between the two Chinas. Such a war would be disastrous. China, after all, is a nuclear-armed country, most likely with the ability to launch a nuclear missile from Beijing to Los Angeles.
But even discounting that extreme possibility, a conventional conflict between the two powers would cost dearly. The American military is far better equipped and trained than the Chinese army, which doesn't even have enough bullets to go around. But the Chinese standing army outnumbers its American counterpart by eight to one, even counting America's reserves. And the fighting would be in a far-flung and unfamiliar territory for the Americans. The United States wants to avoid such a conflict at all costs, which could include dropping its commitment to protect Taiwan. That would be a terrible choice to have to make: enter a war that can only be won at great cost, or alienate every ally in the world by backing down. All in all, better for the United States to maintain its One China policy, and hope that somehow, sometime, the two sides work it out.
For Taiwan, the One China policy is about survival. Taiwan does have a military, and it enjoys the strategic advantage of being an island. China's ability to attack it with conventional weapons is hampered by its lack of an amphibian capability, and China's ability to attack with missiles is hampered by the fact that destroying an area to save it went out of style with the Vietnam War. But China is unpredictable enough to keep the threat alive, and its vehement protests at Taiwan's abandonment of the One China policy serves as a reminder of its threat. Its recent claims, that it has the technology to make a neutron bomb that can kill people with a burst of radiation leaving structures largely intact, is a frightening threat, even if just a bluff. Bluffing in a poker game is one thing; bluffing with the very future of your country at stake is quite another. Thus, Taiwan's continuance of the policy for so long.
