Arms Sales to Taiwan Almost Destroyed Sino-U.S. Relationship

The U.S. recently claimed the arms sales of F-16A/B to the Taiwan Air Force, the total cost of which was more than $6 billion. The Communist Party of China seriously protested such sales; the Chinese army in particular reacted strongly. Regarding such influence, U.S. scholar of Chinese military Michael Swaine even suggested that the U.S. government, when considering its own benefits and the future of the Sino-U.S. relationship, should cancel President Reagan’s Six Assurances to Taiwan before the August 17 Communiqué.

U.S. arms sales to Taiwan present the most complicated difficulty in Sino-U.S. negotiations. If Deng Xiaoping hadn’t compromised at the last minute to agree to establish a diplomatic relationship first and talk about arms sales later, the Sino-U.S. Joint Communiqué at the beginning of 1979 would not have been possible. The Biography of Deng Xiaoping, written by Harvard professor Fu Gaoyi, exposed firm information on this event.

In the book, Fu Gaoyi stated that the diplomatic negotiation began on July 5, 1978. Until November 2, 1978, the two sides had already had 5 meetings. The negotiator representing the U.S. was the U.S. ambassador in Beijing, Leonard Woodcock. The negotiator from China was Foreign Minister Huang Hua. However, when the negotiation in which the two countries established a diplomatic relationship happened on December 4, Huang Hua was sick and substitute Foreign Minister Han Nianlong took his place.

In this negotiation, Han described China’s thoughts about the first draft of the communiqué and set up the establishment date as Jan. 1, 1979. At the end of the negotiation, Han told Woodcock that Deng Xiaoping would meet with him soon. Carter was afraid of the exposure of this information and decided to declare diplomatic establishment on Dec. 15, 1978. China accepted his suggestion.

Another important development was that Deng Xiaoping became the leader of the Party instead of Hua Guofeng, and therefore was the representative of China to negotiate with the U.S. Because Deng wanted to normalize Sino-U.S. relations as soon as possible, he accelerated the negotiation.

On Dec. 13, Deng met with Woodcock in Jiangsu Hall of the Great Hall of the People. Woodcock gave Deng four copies of the one-page first draft of the Joint Communiqué. Interpreter Shi Yanhua translated the contents into Chinese for Deng. However, Deng didn’t even wait to receive the official Chinese version of the communiqué and made the decision of diplomatic establishment right away. We can see that Deng strongly hoped to build a relationship with a powerful country.

In terms of arms sales to Taiwan, Deng required that the U.S. not sell weapons to Taiwan after one year in which the Mutual Defense Treaty between the U.S. and ROC was till valid. However, because Deng didn’t explain this idea clearly, the U.S. thought that arms sales to Taiwan would be completely prohibited. When National Security Advisor Brzezinski talked with Chai Zemin, he also gained this impression. Therefore, he phoned Woodcock and required him to meet with Deng as soon as possible and to explain clearly the U.S. attitude on arms sales to Taiwan in the future.

In fact, thanks to a U.S. Congress Asian Affairs assistant, the diplomatic establishment was on the road, but this assistant didn’t even know the establishment. Because Deputy Secretary of State Christopher insisted on asking Brzezinski, this assistant managed to read the communiqué in the White House and found that the communiqué didn’t mention anything about arms sales to Taiwan. This assistant pointed out that Congress must not accept the communiqué as it was and made Woodcock start a negotiation with Deng at the last minute to express the U.S. attitude on arms sales to Taiwan.

Deng’s interpreter, Shi Yanhua, said that the diplomatic establishment had been confirmed and Deng, who at that time was preparing for the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee to promote the Reform and Opening, was confused by Woodcock’s sudden request to meet. However, Deng still arranged a meeting with Woodcock at four in the afternoon on Dec. 15, only 18 hours before the announcement of the China-U.S. diplomatic establishment.

Woodcock first thanked Deng for meeting him, and then straightforwardly told Deng the White House’s opinions and claimed that the U.S. had to continue arms sales to Taiwan in light of U.S. domestic politics. Deng was outraged by this. After almost one hour’s discussion and debate, Deng said: “The problem of Taiwan is the only unsolved problem. What should we do?”

At that point Woodcock caught the chance to emphasize that U.S. citizens would accept Taiwan as a part of China and support the unification of China (at that time many U.S. and Chinese officers predicted that the unification would happen in several years) after the normalization of the China-U.S. relationship. Woodcock also stated that right then, the most important thing was the normalization of the China-U.S. relationship. Then, Deng said “Hao (okay).” Finally, the establishment was announced without solving the arms sales problem. However, because the problem was not solved at that time, it still exists 32 years later.