RENEWED fears of a Chinese attack on Taiwan have been aroused by a report in yesterday's New York Times that the Chinese government would launch a series of daily missile attacks against the island following the March presidential election.
Such a move, the Times said, would be designed to pre empt moves to secure international recognition for the island's government. Beijing views Taiwan as a renegade province.
However, a senior US official said the Clinton administration had no independent confirmation or even credible evidence" of such a plan, and China's Foreign Ministry called the report totally groundless
The warnings are reported to have been delivered by Mr Chas Freeman, a former assistant secretary of defence who is among a group of former US officials regarded as very old friends of China". Mr Freeman's contacts with senior Beijing officials go back to the days when he acted as President Richard Nixon's interpreter during his ground breaking visit to China.
Beijing reacted with fury last year when President Lee Teng Hui of Taiwan made a so called private visit to the United States, a move that appeared to fore shadow the end of Taiwan's diplomatic isolation. However, the strength of the Chinese reaction seems to have drawn the United States back in line to its original one China" policy, which offers no scope for recognising the government of Taiwan.
China, in turn, has been less aggressive in pursuing its claims. Earlier this month it made no more than ritual protests when the US gave permission for a stopover by Taiwan's vice president, en route to Honduras.
Now China appears to be worrying that President Lee will triumph in the first ever democratic election for a Chinese head of state and that he will use his mandate to canvass international support for Taiwan in the US.
The report says that Mr Freeman conveyed China's concerns to Mr Anthony Lake, President Clinton's National Security Adviser, on January 4th, and that the matter was discussed at a White House melting of non government specialists.
The plan according to Mr Freeman is for one conventional missile strike a day for 30 days, not to start a war but to warn the US to keep out of Sino Taiwanese relations and to persuade President Lee to maintain a low profile. Mr Freeman, who has previously criticised President Lee in public confirmed the report on the record. In Taiwan, where talk of Chinese military action always provokes jitters, officials said the report wash unconfirmed and therefore could not basis for comment.
However, tension between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is higher now than at any time since the late 1970s, when the two sides last exchanged artillery fire. China launched a series of deliberately threatening military exercises off Taiwan's coast last year and the government in Taipei retaliated with a series of more modest military manoeuvres.
Officially both China, with a population of 1.2 billion and Taiwan committed to a policy or reunification but China fears that President Lee, the first native Taiwanese to head the island's government, is intent on drawing the two states further apart.
Much of the Chinese military pressure has been aimed at undermining confidence in President Lee but the crude methods of intimidation appear to have backfired and placed him in an unbeatable position during the forth coming elections.