SPARROUGH: What do you see are the national priorities of Beijing, overall?

YATES: I think their number one concern is that they want to limit American micro-management--

SPARROUGH: Okay, let’s start again. Again, same question, China’s national priorities, national interests.

YATES: China’s number one concern, in looking at its security interests, as limiting American micro-management of what it sees as its key priority issues.

Number one on that list appears to be Taiwan’s status, and I think that they would like to deter the United States from intervening politically or militarily on behalf of Taiwan.

I think secondarily, they are concerned that the United States, Beijing is concerned that the United States might form some kind of special alliance with Japan, or other major power in the region, to contain or in other ways limit Beijing’s influence, or growing influence in the region.

SPARROUGH: And how does Taiwan’s national priorities fit in with this?

YATES: Taiwan’s major priority is to deter coercion or aggression from Beijing. Taiwan’s number one goal is to forge a new relationship with the mainland that protects its freedom and stability, and its prosperity.

And they can’t do that unless they feel that there’s at least some significant deterrent against Beijing using force against them.

For Taiwan, it’s a very different perspective. Taiwan is looking at the terms under which it will be brought to the negotiating table.

Beijing is looking at how can it achieve maximum advantage in forcing Taiwan to the negotiating table, without a deterrent from the United States.

SPARROUGH: Does this mean that Taiwan eventually will accept reunification, or, I know it doesn’t want it now, but will Taiwan eventually accept reunification?

YATES: It all depends on the terms, in my view. It is possible that Taiwan would someday accept unification with a free and democratic China.

Many people may think that it’s preposterous to imagine this kind of a change in the near future; however, I believe that many in Taiwan object more to communism than to China, and object more to the use of force than to talking about unification.

And so I think it is possible.

SPARROUGH: On the other side of the Strait, how patient is Beijing on their agenda and reunification?

YATES: I think the signs out of Beijing in recent years, and especially in recent months, have been that they’re losing patience.

I think that they have a fundamental misconception of where Taiwan is going. Taiwan perceives itself as being slowly integrated into the mainland’s sphere of influence, economically and politically.

And so it at times has to demonstrate that it’s still separate, in order to maintain its security and freedom. Beijing seems to think that Taiwan is slowly drifting away, and they need to call it back into the fold.

And it sees all of these moves by Taiwan as moves toward independence. I just simply don’t believe independence is an option for Taiwan at this point, nor do I think they’re serious about exercising it.

So Beijing is concerned about this, but I think this concern is misplaced.

SPARROUGH: Let’s talk a little bit about Beijing’s strategy. There is, there has been the threat of armed force. Is this threat in your judgment, a bluff, or is it very real?

YATES: I think Beijing’s capability on its threat of force is very real. I think they also fully intend to bring Taiwan to the negotiating table, without having to use its military force.

I think that they’re trying to rely upon the threat of force to be enough to deter the United States from intervening, and perhaps even pressuring Taiwan sooner than it would like, to go to the negotiating table.

SPARROUGH: Do you have any sense of how they could use armed force to pressure Taiwan?

YATES: Well, in 1996, we saw one very clear example of how they could use military force to basically coerce Taiwan, and it was by allowing nuclear capable missiles to splash down in Taiwan’s vicinity--

Especially the vicinity of its major trading ports, had a severe economic impact on Taiwan, and it also sent shock waves through Washington and other national capitals, that in turn, translated into pressure on Taipei to restore peaceful dialogue with Beijing.

So that’s one way that they don’t actually have to hit Taiwan, but can use their military prowess to push Taiwan into talks.

SPARROUGH: But couldn’t you make the case that in 1996, it had just the opposite effect of intimidation? I mean, Lee Teng-hui was elected, the United States became much more concerned, you had legislation introduced in Congress that tended to be more pro-Taiwan.

YATES: I think that you could, there are two different stories to tell in the 1996 encounter. And I think the key is to try to decipher what lesson Beijing learned from the 1996 encounter.

And from all I’ve heard from them, they considered 1996 to be a success. They considered it to have succeeded in limiting the moves toward independence by Taiwan.

And I think right now, the debate within Beijing is not whether their policy towards Taiwan has succeeded or failed in recent years.

I think they all believe it has failed, with the election of Chen Shui-bian, a Democratic Progressive Party activist.

The debate, though, is why it failed. Was it too soft or too hard? And I fear that those who think they won in 1996, think the policy has been too soft and they need to go back to the sabre-rattling type techniques, to get an upper hand over Taiwan.

SPARROUGH: Would it go beyond sabre-rattling?

YATES: It’s very possible that China would go beyond just test-firing missiles. It’s possible that they could, I think one of the more difficult strategies for the United States to respond to would be if China launched a single missile, on to an offshore island that is currently under the jurisdiction of Taiwan.

You would have an extremely difficult choice of what kind of retaliation is appropriate, or even possible. It would have a major political impact, but at the same time, there’s no conflict to stop.

And the United States clearly couldn’t deploy itself quickly enough to halt something like that; it would just be a single launch. Things like that, a bolt out of the blue, I think, others refer to it as--

Would be very problematic for the United States and for Taiwan, and it would go beyond just test-firing missiles, or exercising military force.

SPARROUGH: It would probably escalate to that. Would they escalate even further, to a full-blown missile attack?

YATES: I believe that it would be so powerfully counterproductive for China to do so, that this would be a last resort.

I believe that there are those in Beijing who believe that at some point, they’re prepared to sacrifice any number of lives, and any amount of money, in order to, in their mind, keep Taiwan from permanently separating from the mainland.

How that political judgment is reached is problematic. I still think they’re a long way from that. I think for them right now, their strategy is to make us believe that they’re closer than they in fact are, to that kind of a decision.

SPARROUGH: You mentioned the word counterproductive. A full-blown response, you say, would be counterproductive. In what sense would it be counterproductive?

YATES: First, I believe that China has the capability to destroy Taiwan, but not to occupy Taiwan. And so, in a sense, there’s a question of what would victory actually mean.

You could keep Taiwan from going independent, perhaps, but then all you have is a barren island, that is your number one source of foreign investment currently--

And an acknowledged failure of your own policy to politically unify with the people on the island. And so a dramatic use of force is the ultimate recognition of failure on the part of the mainland, to attract Taiwan into some form of unification.

So that’s why I believe that it would, number one, be counterproductive. Even without US intervention, I have no doubt that Taiwan would suffer severe damage, and the mainland wouldn’t win very much.

SPARROUGH: You would not include going all the way to nuclear weapons, or would you?

YATES: I would not include going all the way to nuclear weapons, although I wouldn’t put the threat of a nuclear attack against the United States out of the realm of possibilities, by China.

Clearly they want to use their status as one of the nuclear powers, to deter the United States from going overboard and intervening on Taiwan’s behalf.

So I would not put the threat of nuclear attack out of the realm of possibilities. Carrying through with it, again, would lead to such total devastation for both China and Taiwan, that I can’t imagine that there are those that actually believe that this would be a winning strategy.

SPARROUGH: Let’s turn now to US policy. It’s been for a number of years, labeled strategic ambiguity. Is this in your judgment, a proper policy?

YATES: Well, I think there have been a lot of aspects of our policy towards Taiwan where now we fight over the terminology, without really understanding what it all means.

Strategic ambiguity, if it means basically saying that we have a firm commitment to Taiwan, that we want to deter the use of force in resolving the political dispute between Beijing and Taiwan, but we don’t want to say how exactly we intend to do this.

I can live with that, but if strategic ambiguity means that we don’t intend to make it clear to Taiwan what our commitments are, and we don’t make it clear to Beijing that force must be off the table--

When they consider options for unification. And I can’t believe that that’s an effective way to move forward. There are those that believe that by making clear our defense commitment to Taiwan, that we give Taiwan a blank check, that they will then declare independence.

I personally believe that independence is a red herring. Taiwan isn’t about to declare independence. And so, in effect, we’re deterring Taiwan from doing something it has to intention of carrying forward, while at the same time, we don’t seem to be deterring Beijing from using the means that it seems to be perfectly willing to implement, in coercing Taiwan to the negotiating table.

So I think that the meaning of strategic ambiguity has suffered greatly over the recent past, and personally I would prefer that we simply define our interests--

Say we have a China policy, we have a Taiwan policy, we insist on peace, we will deter the use of force, and we will have active engagement with both sides.

SPARROUGH: As we discussed earlier, the Pentagon released its recommendation to the White House on arms sales. Don’t these arms sales show a commitment to Taiwan?

I mean, don’t they buy, even without the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, they tell Beijing that the United States will back Taiwan’s security against an unprovoked attack, and give them a defense capability, as required under the TRA?

YATES: I do believe that continued arms sales will help give Taiwan the confidence they need in order to enter into negotiations with the mainland, basically to be flexible.

And I do believe that continued arms sales to Taiwan demonstrate to Beijing that we insist on peace, and we are intent on deterring the use of force.

Whether the current basket of arms and services is sufficient is really a debate for technical people to make. The one concern that I have is that there are significant elements of this current offer that are going to be withheld, at least for a time, from Taiwan.

And so there’s some question of the utility of promising to give Taiwan an early warning radar system, but saying that you must first reform yourself, to prepare to integrate the system into your forces before we’re going to deliver it.

What’s the point of promising it now, if you believe a reform must take place first? And so I think there’s a lot of contradiction in our approach.

It doesn’t acknowledge the fundamental problem, which is twenty years of diplomatic isolation has made us significantly incapable of being able to help train, and orient Taiwan’s military to the needs of modern warfare.

Not so they can be provocative, but simply so they can really maintain an adequate self-defense in a new era of warfare.

SPARROUGH: Terrific. Have I not asked you a question that you anticipated and would like to answer?

YATES: Well, I guess the whole question of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act.

SPARROUGH: Okay, let’s deal with that. It has passed the House, as you know, 341 to 70. And there was a letter recently by what, 11 senators--

YATES: At least, yeah, I think it was around that.

SPARROUGH: --asking Trent Lott to bring it up before the Senate. What would the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act change, in terms of US policy?

YATES: I think the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act is a critical piece of legislation, but it’s one that has been frequently mis-portrayed.

It’s been frequently considered an arms bill, and in my view, what it really is is an executive-legislative relations bill.

What it would in the end do is give form to the consultations that are supposed to be taking place between the executive and legislative branch, over Taiwan’s defense needs, and the decision on what to provide Taiwan, to meet those defense needs.

To my knowledge, in the twenty years since the Taiwan Relations Act was passed, there has never really been thorough consultation between the executive and legislative branches on these two levels on decisions.

During the Reagan and Bush years, it was less of an issue, because Taiwan felt like it could trust those presidents, and there was less of an issue, perhaps because China wasn’t yet pushing the envelope, and threatening the use of force against Taiwan.

But under the Clinton administration, one could day that this element of trust has disappeared for a number of reasons, between Congress and the White House.

And Taiwan has started to question the administration’s commitment to its defense. I believe that this act is an important form of communication that allows the Taiwan Relations Act to actually function.

It doesn’t guarantee Taiwan would have any more arms, but it would guarantee Taiwan that its friends on Capitol Hill would be as informed as possible, on how the administration is arriving at its decision--

And not leaving it to the media to sort out. I think one of the key problems we’ve had in just recent days, over the current decision, is that these decisions were leaked through the Washington Post, rather than going through direct consultation between the White House and the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, and the International Relations Committee of the House.

That’s where this communication needs to take place, and the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act would at least allow the Congress to be informed enough to engage in those consultations should they take place.

SPARROUGH: What you just said was obviously in keeping with the TRA. But Beijing is saying that the other provisions, that establish some indefinite military to military tie--

And the training of Taiwan military officials, breaks the agreements embodied in the 1979, the 1972 and the 1982 communiqués, between the United States and Beijing.

This seems to be, doesn’t it, a restoration of more formal ties with Taiwan?

YATES: Well, it would definitely be a restoration of military to military ties in, to the extent that there would military to military training.

But it doesn’t necessarily even need to be official training. The fact that the United States is selling a very advanced piece of technology to Taiwan, and not sending even a user’s guide, a training manual, and conducting a seminar in how to use the technology--

Is just mind-boggling, in my view. Microsoft doesn’t even do that when it sells a new operating system. And so even if it were retired military officials going to conduct this kind of training, and providing for integration of these kinds of new technology and weaponry into Taiwan’s system--

It would only be common sense. In my view, Beijing is understandable from a political point of view; they have a very clear policy.

They do not want Taiwan to receive any military assistance whatsoever. They do not acknowledge the legitimacy of the Taiwan Relations Act, period.

And so, to them, anything that deals with arms transfers is objectionable. However, if one reads the communiqués that we signed with Beijing, and the Taiwan Relations Act, you will find nothing, in any of those documents, that the United States asserted that said that we would not do exactly what we’re doing--

Or striving to do, in helping Taiwan defend itself. So I think Beijing has a bit of a reinterpretation to suit its own interests.

Understandably, politically, but on substance, this would be a far cry from a military alliance. In the end, we’ve got a contradiction that we’re trying to get out of.

On the one hand, we don’t want to give a blank check to say that we will automatically defend Taiwan under all circumstances. And yet we don’t, on the other hand, want to allow Taiwan to defend itself under all circumstances, leaving ourselves on the hook to have to intervene.

And so I think we’ve gone a long ways, straddling this divide, and today, the decisions are getting tougher, where these two very different policy options aren’t as, don’t coexist as peacefully as they have in the past.

We have to decide, are we going to allow Taiwan to have the capability to defend itself against a modernizing military force, or are we going to increase our commitment to defend Taiwan and maintain these advanced technologies under our own control?

That’s a difficult decision; I don’t, it’s not as if I believe that there’s a simple solution to this. But I think we have to begin to recognize this contradiction, and these communiqués provide no guidance to us, on the way forward.

SPARROUGH: Finally, some have suggested, not too many, that in fact, China is like the old Soviet Union, an expansionist power. That it really wants to dominate not only East Asia, but some would even say, world politics.

What is your take on its long-range goals, on expansion? Do you think it is an expansionist power?

YATES: Well, I don’t doubt for a moment that there are leaders in Beijing who would like to dominate world politics, would like to be the dominant decision makers in Asia, on a whole range of issues.

I don’t doubt there are significant group, especially in the military, that would like to see the United States leave Asia altogether, and not be a factor in decision making within Asia.

I believe that China is expansionist, if you consider pushing Taiwan, and trying to occupy Taiwan expansionism. If you believe pushing their territorial claims in the South China Sea, beyond credulity, expansionist, then they are expansionist.

And certainly in the area of influence, they are expansionist, where they want to have a say, on Japanese decision making, Korean decision making, Russian decision making, United Nations decision making.

If you consider on the influence level, I think you would have to acknowledges that they are expansionist.

SPARROUGH: Good. That was very good. I think that’s it.