Plain sailing in the Taiwan Strait?

China's 2.5-million strong PLA has been prepared to launch an attack on Taiwan

(CNN) -- The prospects for military conflict in the Taiwan Strait are slim for the foreseeable future.

Yet the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) response to Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence statements earlier this month has been bone-chillingly disturbing.

The generals' hawkish outbursts have highlighted the perils of rising nationalism coupled with a military force deemed to have extra-constitutional powers.

The top brass's bellicosity -- and preponderance -- is illustrated by unpublicized remarks made by senior officers who attended the just-ended series of leadership meetings at the seaside resort of Beidaihe.

The original intention of the Beidaihe gathering was to finalize the leadership line-up to be confirmed at the upcoming 16th party congress.

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Yet because questions such as whether President Jiang Zemin would retire remained unresolved, the Taiwan problem -- or how to "teach Chen Shui-bian a lesson" -- dominated much of the discussion among civilian and military cadres.

To some extent, the generals' reactions to Chen's assertion that "each side [of the Strait] is a nation" were even more belligerent than the PLA rhetoric following former president Lee Teng-hui's visit to the U.S. in 1995 or that in the wake of Lee's enunciation of the "two states theory" in 1999.

Indeed, through the second half of the Beidaihe meetings, which started the last week of July, Jiang, also head of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the party's Leading Group on Taiwan Affairs, was obliged to give a patient hearing to the often incendiary gameplans of his generals.

Jiang was reportedly taken aback because implicit in the generals' proposals was the criticism that his Taiwan and U.S. policy had been too "weak and soft."

The main argument of the top brass, led by CMC Vice-Chairmen Zhang Wannian and Chi Haotian, was that Beijing could no longer afford not to take immediate and concrete action against Chen's pro-independence gambit.

A senior officer asked Jiang to immediately declare a state of national emergency because, he said, "Chen Shui-bian has, abetted by the U.S., gone from creeping and gradualist independence to overt and aggressive independence."

"They [the pro-independence forces] are going further and further down the separatist road," he warned. "If we don't do anything, we may forever fail in the holy task of recovering the island."

Teaching Taiwan a lesson

Referring to the treacherous global situation, General Zhang also cited the arguments of his more pessimistic colleagues that the year 2002 could mark the "last chance" for Beijing to achieve reunification.

During Beidaihe and after the leaders' return to the capital last week, the generals went over ways and means to "teach Taiwan a lesson" via a series of quick air strikes.

The doctrine behind the so-called "teach-them-a-lesson model" or TTLM is partly inspired by the NATO action against Kosovo in 1999: the PLA would launch surgical missile strikes against military, and if necessary, civilian targets on Taiwan island.

The action should be completed in 24 hours or so. Civilian casualties are to be avoided.

Even if civilian facilities are targeted, these will only be facilities such as power plants or ports that have relatively few people working in them.

Beijing does not want to give Washington time -- or pretext -- to intervene.

However, the senior generals claimed at Beidaihe that the TTLM's basic goal -- "ridding Chen and his henchmen of their military and economic means to wage independence" -- would be achieved.

They said after a 24-hour blitzkrieg by the PLA, the Chen Shui-bian regime would be forced to renounce its "splittist" gambits -- if not also to go to the negotiation table and start reunification talks on Beijing's terms.

Indeed, immediately after Chen's August 3 statement about possibly holding a referendum, a number of PLA officers petitioned the CMC and the party leadership to immediately launch an TTLM attack.

In one such petition, the officers said they could "guarantee" that in the wake of marathon PLA missile strikes, "not a single aircraft can fly out of [Taiwan's] airports -- and not a single ship can leave its ports."

A golden opportunity

China is keen on punishing Chen for going further down the separatist road

Equally importantly, the hawks see Washington's preoccupation with the war on terrorism -- particularly the imminent strike on Iraq -- as a "golden opportunity not to be missed."

The George W. Bush administration needs the acquiescence of China -- a permanent member of the UN Security Council -- in the event of an incursion into Baghdad.

Moreover, with U.S. forces deployed in the Persian Gulf, Washington may not be in a position to speedily come to the aid of Taiwan.

At Beidaihe, General Zhang and other generals referred to a widely held PLA belief that "a well-fought war can bring about stability and well-being for at least 20 years."

The generals cited the "merits" of the brief war against India in 1962 and that against Vietnam in 1979. Both battles were risky propositions.

Yet the generals claimed the Sino-Indian and Sino-Vietnam conflicts served their purposes: China's global positions were enhanced, and relations with India and Vietnam had been stable ever since.

Quite a number of civilian Politburo members also expressed their views at Beidaihe.

One of the surprisingly bellicose figures was Premier Zhu Rongji, who has always had much stronger views on reunification than Jiang.

The premier was unequivocally on the side of hardball players.

"Taiwan is the internal affair of China -- and nobody else can meddle with us," Zhu reportedly said. "It's like a father beating up an errant son within closed doors."

Another Politburo member, a provincial party secretary usually deemed a Jiang protégé, said in private that if the president failed to take resolute steps to thwart Chen's dark goals, "Jiang's position in history will be jeopardized."

It is a tribute to the political skills of Jiang that the party chief and CMC chairman was able to rein in the hawks both in the army and party.

U.S. ultimatum

The air drill conducted in Shanghai was meant to warn Taiwan and the U.S. of China's military prowess

At Beidaihe, Jiang indicated that all action should be shelved for the moment -- and at least until his summit with President Bush in the latter's Texas ranch around October 25.

The president vowed to deliver the equivalent of an ultimatum to Bush: unless Washington makes it clear that it does not support Chen's "splittist plots," the U.S. might one day find itself embroiled in a military conflict that it does not want.

Jiang said he would put pressure on Bush to immediately halt the sale of sophisticated weapons to the "renegade province."

In line with the long-standing policy -- first proposed by the late Deng Xiaoping -- of "not seeking confrontation" with the U.S., Jiang has tried to stop his generals from making on-the-record remarks about the U.S. and Taiwan.

However, he had to acquiesce -- some say with much reluctance -- in the provocative military maneuvers held in Shanghai last week, the first such exercise in the metropolis in 50 years.

The defense drill against a possible air raid was aimed more at the U.S. than Taiwan.

"The PLA wants to let the U.S. know that it is prepared even to handle an American retaliation," said a Beijing source close to the military.

And breaking the silence that PLA chieftains had maintained since August 3, General Liang Guanglie, Commander of the Nanjing Military Region, --whose "jurisdiction" includes Taiwan -- gave a public warning to Taiwan on that day.

"Taiwan is the sacred territory of the motherland," General Liang thundered. "Taiwanese independence means war."

To stay afloat and expand his power base, whoever succeeds Jiang at the 16th Congress may have to pander to such sentiments, which are spreading from the PLA to different sectors of the populace.