The President noted with distaste that Finegold had fallen into the new convention, popular in the media since the conflicts had started about a month ago, of calling the Republic of China “Chinese Taipei” instead of the ROC or Taiwan. It demonstrated to Kevin Martindale exactly how far a lot of persons, especially the opposition, had gone in believing anything that might help stop the nightmarish conflict brewing between mainland China, Taiwan, and now the United States. Chinese president Jiang Zemin and the government of the People’s Republic of China had engineered a major publicity campaign, to criticize the Martindale administration’s reactivation of America’s nuclear forces, especially the actions that violated the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty warhead limits.
After China used nuclear weapons against Taiwan, the President of the United States announced that he was putting ten nuclear Multiple Independently targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) on each of the fifty Peacekeeper land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and ten nuclear MIRVs on the Trident D5 sea-launched ballistic missiles. But the angriest response came when the media announced that all of America’s sixteen B-2A Spirit stealth bombers were now on nuclear alert, loaded with sixteen B83 thermonuclear gravity bombs, and twenty B-1B Lancer bombers were loaded with eight AGM-89 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and four B83 nuclear gravity bombs.
America was back in the Cold War game, and almost no one, either in the United States or elsewhere, liked the idea.
“My intentions are simple, Senator,” the President responded. “I’m going to support President Lee and the Republic of China against President Jiang and mainland China’s military aggression. The reactivation of the Triad nuclear forces remains in effect, as well, especially given the cowardly attack on the Independence, the Chinese nuclear attacks against the Republic of China, and the sudden nuclear attack in North Korea and the volatile situation there. The capture of our sub by Iran doesn’t change things one bit — in fact, it makes me even angrier and more positive that I’m doing the right thing.”
“By what treaty or force of law can you do this, Mr. President?” Fine- gold asked. “The Taiwan Relations Act does not authorize you to defend Chinese Taipei; it is not a member of ASEAN or any other alliance of which America is an ally. ”
“Senator, I don’t need a treaty or membership in an alliance to make a commitment to a friendly, peaceful, democratic nation,” the President said. “I’ve pledged my support, because I don’t think that China or anyone else has a right to impose its will by force on another country.”
“Mr. President, my legal experts, as well as several think tanks we’ve commissioned, not to mention the Congressional General Accounting Office itself, have all taken a position that in a legal sense, Chinese Taipei is not a separate nation but in fact a province of China, as Beijing has asserted since 1949,” Finegold said. “As I see it, that’s the only logical conclusion that can be made. The Nationalist government fled the mainland and established a rebel government on the island of Formosa, which was Chinese territory recently returned to China from Japanese occupation. The Nationalists were nothing more than a deposed government.
“The fact that the United States supported the Nationalists’ goal of someday retaking control of the mainland government, or that the Nationalists occupied the seat in the United Nations, doesn’t alter the facts,” Finegold went on. “The government in Beijing is the lawful and legitimate government of all the Chinese people, a fact which has been recognized by the United States since 1972 and by most of the rest of the world; and the Nationalist government is not the legitimate government, and therefore has no right to declare independence or ask for assistance from anyone, especially the United States of America. The conflict between China and Taipei is an internal matter, and therefore we have no responsibility to risk American lives or threaten the peace of the world by getting involved militarily in that conflict.”
“Do you really believe this nonsense, Senator?” the President asked scornfully. “Can you seriously look at those two countries and then tell me that you truly believe that the Republic of China is nothing more than a deposed government living on an isolated province?”
“Mr. President, what I believe is that Chinese Taipei is running out kicking mainland China in the shins, then running behind the United States’ skirts — and we get the bloody nose from it,” Finegold said. “Taipei is not an innocent victim here. As long as they continue to illegally declare independence and try to instigate nuclear conflicts, they are dangerous. What purpose do you have for backing them?”
“The Republic of China meets the traditional benchmarks that the United States has applied to any nation seeking assistance in the last sixty years,” Secretary of State Jeffrey Hartman interjected. “We require the new nation to have formed a pluralistic, democratic government with a written constitution, based on free, open, and regular elections with universal suffrage; we require a formal exchange of credentialed ambassadors; we require the new nation to provide for the common good, the common defense, and provide free and open access to its markets and communication between its people and the rest of the world; we require that the new nation apply for membership in the United Nations; and we require that the new nation openly and publicly ask for our assistance. The Republic of China has met each and every one of these criteria, Senator.”
“In fact, Senator,” Vice President Ellen Whiting interjected, “Taiwan has met more of these five traditional criteria than other nations that you have supported in the past have done, such as Bosnia, Kurdistan, and East Timor. Taiwan has proven to be a strong and true friend to the United States.”
“One that apparently is taking advantage of this friendship to attack mainland China, oblivious to threat of global nuclear war,” House Minority Leader Crane argued. He now saw his role in this debate as Barbara Finegold’s defender.
“I seriously doubt that Taiwan is oblivious to the nuclear threat, Mr. Crane,” Secretary of Defense Arthur Chastain pointed out, “since it has just recently been devastated with nuclear attacks three times as severe as Japan ever endured.”
“I didn’t mean that Chinese Taipei hasn’t been hurt by recent attacks by China, and I certainly don’t mean to blame the dead,” Crane said. “But it was Taipei’s aggression that started this entire series of conflicts.”
“My intelligence information suggests otherwise, Mr. Crane,” the President said. “China was, and still is, in position to invade the island of Quemoy — there’s no doubt about this. Taiwan was acting in selfdefense when the attack first started on the Chinese aircraft carrier. The other incidents involved a carefully calculated string of actions by China to make it appear that Taiwan was the aggressor, when in fact it was China all along. ”
“Of course, I’ve heard this one from your advisor’s press briefs— China attacked its own carrier with torpedoes, China put transmitters on its own ferryboat to make us think it was a warship, China planted a nuclear device on the Independence, and China even shot a nuclear missile at its own ally, North Korea, to make us think that the United States or South Korea or some other boogeyman was diverting attention away from China by starting another war. ”
“Those are the facts, Mr. Crane,” National Security Advisor Freeman cut in.
“There’s plenty of doubt about your so-called facts, General Freeman,” Crane argued hotly. “But I have plenty of questions about the role that secret B-52 bomber played in igniting the conflict! I think that’s the question facing us this afternoon, Mr. Martindale!”