Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
became a reality. The Communist leaders of mainland China, always
fearful of direct democratic elections, watched nervously as the people
of Taiwan excitedly participated for the first time in all of Chinese his-
tory in a genuinely democratic and popular election of a national
leader. The free speech of the campaign unnerved the Communist rul-
ers and led them to fear that widespread sentiment in favor of Tai-
wan's formal independence might be given popular and legitimate
expression in the election. Mainland Chinese news broadcasters, fail-
ing utterly to understand the momentous significance of the
democratic nature of the election, warned Taiwan not to harbor ambi-
tions of formally breaking away from China based on its “excuse” of
having “changed the manner of selecting its president.” Lee, for his
part, publicly stated during the campaign that the mainland was
“crazy in the head” (a phrase he spoke in Japanese) over the election
and his visit to Cornell the year before.
Highly distressed by all of this and suspicious that Lee was secretly
scheming for independence, the mainland launched a crude campaign
of intimidation aimed squarely at Taiwan's voting public. Mainland
Chinese warships plied the waters near Taiwan and “test fired” sev-
eral missiles in the general direction of the island. Their purpose was
to create panic and fear in Taiwan and goad the island's population
into backing away from their pending election of Lee Teng-hui. This
clumsy demonstration of brute force showed just how little the main-
land rulers really knew and understood Taiwan's people, and their
actions produced the opposite effect. Support for Lee actually increased
during this time, especially after he traveled to the Pescadores (a
group of islands midway between Taiwan and the mainland) and
defiantly shook his fist at the mainland, proclaiming that nobody was
frightened of Chinese Communist scare tactics.
U.S. President Bill Clinton jumped into the fray by sending two car-
rier battle groups from the U.S. Seventh Fleet (stationed in Japan) into
the waters off Taiwan in a show of force against the mainland vessels
attempting to intimidate the island. This action enraged the Chinese
leadership, and soon the inevitable accusations of U.S. connivance in
Taiwan's elections were flying. In the end, however, the Chinese war-
ships backed off and returned to port, and the situation blew over.
Hotheads in the mainland nursed a growing grudge against the
United States for its influence in the region, while in Taiwan some
advocates of Taiwanese independence began to believe, perhaps unre-
alistically, that the action proved that the United States would never
stand idly by and allow the mainland Chinese military to invade or
seriously menace their island.
