2011-02-28 (China Military News cited from the-diplomat.com and written by James Holmes & Toshi Yoshihara) -- We could hardly agree more with Prof. Daniel Lynch’s appraisal of the situation across the Taiwan Strait—let’s not mistake happy talk and economic agreements for a durable cross-strait status quo. Beijing shows no sign of relenting on its goal of imposing its rule on Taiwan, and Chinese spokesmen are admirably forthright about this.

Nonetheless, when we discuss cross-strait relations with senior US military officers, they often inform us that China evinces little desire to use the formidable military it’s constructing to achieve longstanding political aims. We fully agree with them on this point. Where we do part ways with them, though, is on the sweeping conclusions they draw from this trivial point—namely that Beijing so abhors the prospect of armed conflict that it will accept the cross-strait status quo more or less indefinitely, and presumably compromise on national unity.

Doubtful. As we see it, Beijing is attempting to amass such military superiority over the island’s armed forces, along with such an overbearing deterrent against outside intervention, that Taipei has little choice but to acquiesce in unification on the mainland’s terms while Taipei’s friends have little choice but to stand aside. If so, China is building a strong People’s Liberation Army (PLA) precisely to avoid using that force in combat. Armed conflict is a perilous enterprise. Accordingly, Sun Tzu portrays winning without fighting as ‘the acme of skill’. Western sage St. Augustine teaches that even those who disturb the peace through warfare have no intrinsic hatred of peace. They simply want to transform the existing peace into one that suits them better, and they are prepared to use arms to effect such a transformation—accepting the risks entailed by violent conflict.Force is a last resort, then, even for those who use force.

As Lynch implies, the task before Taipei is to combine political measures with artful deployment of military force, presenting such a hard target that Beijing never concludes it can win without running unacceptable risk. Thucydides illuminates the dynamics at work in the Taiwan Strait. When the island of Melos appeared likely to defect from the Athenian Empire to rival Sparta 2500 years ago, the Athenian Assembly dispatched an embassy to make the islanders an offer they couldn’t refuse. They could bow to Athenian wishes or see their male populace slaughtered, their women and children enslaved. As the ambassadors informed the Melians, questions of justice only arise between rough equals in physical might. The strong do as they will, the weak do as they must.