The purpose of this paper is to study the basic features demonstrated in the decision-making in the three military actions taken across the Taiwan Straits in 1954/55, 1958 and 1995/96. Relevant researches in this area have not been adequately conducted partly due to shortage of literature and archives. There are not even adequate archives available for the two events in the 1950s, let alone the military exercises in mid 1990s. However, two publications in 2003 suggested that major progress might be made in the research.[1] Up to now, there is no research result published about the decision-making process in 1995/96 mainly because of the lack of basic historical documents. Exchanges with our American colleagues and availability of limited historical literature in the US are helpful in conducting preliminary research into the issue,[2] but we must not have too high expectations.
The three military confrontations across the Taiwan Straits discussed in this paper occurred with long time intervals between them and huge difference in their backgrounds. As a result the decision-making processes were very different from each other. However, the present paper is mainly to discuss the common points among the decision making process in the three military confrontations. They are mainly in the following three areas.
First, to accomplish national reunification is first and foremost unswerving political pursuit of China. National reunification is also a process of constant practices, including the preparation to use military means to reunite Taiwan, or to create conditions for reunification, or prevent the situation from diverging from the objective. The three military confrontations represented special stages and special methods taken in this constant pursuit of reunification. Therefore, they have the same nature, which is the basis of logic in argumentation of this paper.
Second, all three military confrontations took place when China-US relations deteriorated or were very unstable, no matter there were diplomatic ties or not. The Chinese decision-making in the three cases embodies responses to US policies. Of course, there are questions that require further analyses, such as, to what extent the military actions taken were responses to American policies, and what factors made Chinese decision-makers believe it necessary and possible to take military actions, etc.
Third, there are also some other common features, such as the diversity and limitations of decision-making objectives and the randomness in policy readjustment. These features led to very complex decision-making process.
The present paper chooses “military confrontation decision-making” rather than “Taiwan Strait crisis decision-making” as the core concept in my study intentionally to show that Chinese decision-making is in nature different from that in the US. In the minds of Chinese leaders, a basic feature of world politics is the permanent existence of turmoil and crises. In their view, crisis is constant in world politics. It was so at least in the Mao Zedong era.[3] For Chinese decision-makers, military action is but one of the various means to resolve complex problems even to prevent a crisis. The military exercises in 1995/96 are typical example of an effort to militarily deter crisis. In this connection, for Chinese leaders, to take military actions does not mean an “international crisis management” as defined in the relevant theories about decision-making.
I. Role of Military Actions in China’s Reunification Strategy
To define the nature of Chinese decision-making in military confrontation across Taiwan Strait, the status and role of military actions in China’s national reunification process must be first determined. As discussed above, to accomplish full national reunification is an unswerving political pursuit and a constant process of practices in China. This is the basic background to understand military confrontations in the Taiwan Strait. Military actions, including the bombardment of Kinmen, attacking and occupying coastal islands and military exercises of various scales, are but one means for national reunification rather than a method of international crisis management. On the other hand, each military action taken by China from the very beginning included the intention and measures to prevent occurrence of international crisis, in other words, to avoid international military conflict caused by military confrontations in Taiwan Strait as far as possible.
As early as in the spring of 1949 when victory was registered in the Yangtze River-Crossing Battle, the focus of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) gradually shifted to attack Taiwan and realize national reunification. When the People’s Republic was founded in October 1949, to liberate Taiwan was set as one of the strategic tasks that had to be accomplished at an early stage.[4] According to the vision of the CPC Central Committee, the liberation of Taiwan would be accomplished in three steps. The first one was to establish modern navy and air forces with a view to obtain command of the sea and air supremacy in the Taiwan Strait. The second step was to gradually liberate coastal islands of Zhejiang and Fujian Provinces which were then still occupied by Kuomintang army so as to ensure the safety of ports and navigation lines and establish military bases for attacking Taiwan. And the third step was to wage a cross-strait war in 1950/51 and realize national reunification.[5] The three-step plan originally targeted early 1950s as its time of accomplishment. The Korean War transformed it into a two-step strategy, taking coastal islands first and then liberating Taiwan, with no time frame identified. Chinese leaders also considered non-military means for national reunification but only as a vision or supplementary means which was not very important in the then reunification strategy.[6]
The Korean War broke out on 25 June 1950. Two days later, the Truman Administration declared blockade of the Taiwan Strait by the Seventh Fleet and stationing of American air forces in Taiwan. The blockade of the Taiwan Strait by American army and the development of the Korean War led to a decision by Chinese leaders to postpone the original combat plan. But that was temporary. Actually the PLA had never stopped its wars with the KMT army in the coastal areas, only on small scales. For example, the PLA shelled Kinmen as early as in January 1953.[7] Up until 1952, the main combat actions of the PLA were to clear maritime bandits supported by the KMT army and break through maritime blockade by the KMT army including seizure of some coastal islands, which were all in nature defensive.[8] As of summer 1953, the PLA navy and the East China Army Command issued the orders to project power along the Southeast coast and take on the offense against the navy and air forces of KMT.[9] Air-defense troops were stationed in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Qingdao, completing air defense deployment for major cities.[10] In March 1954, a naval air force joined combat and gained air supremacy over the Zhejiang coast in July, opening the first military confrontation in Taiwan Strait.[11] Roughly at the same time, the Central Military Commission formulated strategic guidelines for taking the coastal islands, that is, attacking on an island-by-island basis from north to south and taking small islands first and then big ones.[12]
The actions taken from the bombarding of Kinmen in September 1954 to the taking over of Yijiangshan Island in January 1955 were but part of the PLA strategy to control coastal islands. They were the natural result of a military plan and even defensive in nature with the purpose of breaking through the Taiwan’s blockade mainland ports and preventing its military harassment in the coastal areas. Nonetheless, the military plan indeed served in the summer of 1954 the call of the CPC Central Committee to liberate Taiwan, the special reasons for which are to be discussed in the next section.
The military actions aimed at taking hold of islands along the Zhejiang coast in 1955 did not extend to Kinmen and Matsu outside the Fujian coast. Available literature suggests that the PLA had not at that time completed necessary military preparations for taking over Kinmen and Matsu. The combat plan for attacking and talking over Kinmen formulated by the PLA General Headquarters of Staff in October 1953 did not win support from leaders of the East China Military Command. Mao Zedong also thought the plan too costly and victory uncertain and vetoed the plan in late December.[13] It can therefore be reasonably inferred that combat principle of attacking on an island-by-island basis from north to south and taking small islands first and then big ones was not with a fixed and unchangeable timeline.
