In a compromise solution it is not always possible to say which side made greater concessions. This is certainly true in respect of the Sino-US agreement on the question of American arms supply to Taiwan. Under it both sides have resiled from their original positions. While the Chinese have reconciled themselves to continued supply of US arms to Taiwan for an unspecified period of time, the Americans have agreed not to raise either the quality or the quantity of the weapons and, indeed, to taper off the supply. Similarly, while Beijing has reaffirmed its position that Taiwan is China’s internal affair, Washington has sought to commit China to a peaceful resolution of the issue. And if the Chinese have taken care to emphasize in a People’s Daily editorial that the Taiwan Relations Act under which America continues to supply arms to the island republic remains “a fundamental obstacle in the way of the development of Sino-American relations”, the Americans have not made any commitment to abrogate this vital legislation.
Neither side has had much of an option but to go in for a compromise solution. The Americans realized that China’s US policy could become a major issue at the forthcoming communist party congress next month and that the absence of an agreement on the arms issue could weaken the position of Mr Deng Xiaoping who is the architect of the present friendly approach towards Washington. It is impossible to say how far the Chinese leadership would have gone to seek accommodation with the Soviet Union in case the Reagan administration had dug in its toes on the Taiwan issue. But the Americans could not have taken the risk of pushing it in that direction. The dominant Deng group has had its own reasons for seeking and reaching a compromise agreement. It could not possibly admit that its policy of befriending the United States has been a terrible mistake and that the Americans were a wholly intractable lot with whom it was not possible to do business. For it would in the process have strengthened the case of its critics. The Deng group could also not have wished to throw away its America card and thereby weaken its bargaining position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Moreover Mr Deng’s entire strategy of modernizing the economy calls for a measure of cooperation by the US, and its western European and Japanese allies.
In the nature of things, a compromise solution is not a final solution. But often there are no final settlements in national and international affairs. In the case of Taiwan, it is impossible to think of one. And it would be absurd for the Chinese to suggest that Taiwan is the only obstacle to the full flowering of Sino-US friendship and for the Americans to buy such a suggestion. In fact, it can safely be said that America’s and China’s objective can converge only temporarily. The US, for example, cannot wish China to become a great military power and thus be in a position to dominate east Asia and southeast Asia. On their part, the Chinese cannot wish the world power balance to be tilted decisively and permanently in favour of the US and against the USSR. All in all, Sino-US relations are and will remain complex and subject to many considerations, Taiwan, however important, being only one of them.