Third Taiwan Strait Crisis

Based on Wikipedia: Third Taiwan Strait Crisis

In the spring of 1995, a university reunion invitation nearly started a war between two nuclear powers.

The story begins with Lee Teng-hui, the president of Taiwan, receiving an invitation from Cornell University to deliver a speech about Taiwan's democratization. It sounds innocent enough. But this simple academic visit would trigger the largest military crisis in the Taiwan Strait since the 1950s, bring the United States and China to the brink of conflict, and reshape the military balance in East Asia for decades to come.

The Humiliation That Changed Everything

To understand why a university speech could cause an international crisis, you need to understand the peculiar diplomatic fiction that governs relations between Taiwan, China, and the United States.

Taiwan operates as an independent country in virtually every practical sense. It has its own government, military, currency, and passports. But officially, according to the diplomatic framework the United States established with China in the 1970s, there is only "one China"—and the United States maintains only "unofficial" relations with Taiwan. This means Taiwan's president isn't supposed to visit the United States in any official capacity. He's meant to be treated as if he leads something less than a real country.

A year before the Cornell invitation, President Lee had experienced just how seriously the United States took this diplomatic fiction. His plane stopped in Honolulu to refuel after a trip to South America, and he asked for a visa to leave the airport—perhaps to stretch his legs, meet with supporters, or simply be treated with the dignity befitting a head of state.

The Clinton administration refused.

Lee was confined to the military airfield where he landed. He spent the night on his airplane, unable to set foot on American soil. A State Department official later called the situation "embarrassing." Lee complained, with considerable understatement, that he was being treated as a second-class leader.

This humiliation would have consequences.

Congress Forces the Issue

When Cornell invited Lee to speak in 1995, Taiwan's supporters in the United States saw an opportunity to right what they viewed as a shameful wrong. The lobbying firm Cassidy and Associates worked to build Congressional support for Lee's visit.

The results were extraordinary.

On May 2, 1995, the House of Representatives passed a resolution asking the State Department to grant Lee a visa. The vote was 396 to zero. Not a single member voted against it. Thirty-eight didn't vote at all, but no one was willing to go on record opposing the visit.

A week later, the Senate followed suit: 97 to 1.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher had assured China's foreign minister that granting Lee a visa would be "inconsistent with our unofficial relationship with Taiwan." But faced with this overwhelming Congressional pressure, the State Department reversed itself on May 22nd. Lee would be allowed to visit.

The United States had not prepared China for this policy reversal. Beijing learned about it the same way everyone else did—from the news.

The Speech That Launched a Thousand Missiles

Lee arrived at Cornell on June 9, 1995. What he said there went far beyond anything the Chinese government was prepared to tolerate.

"Taiwan is a country with independent sovereignty," Lee declared.

This was, from Beijing's perspective, an intolerable provocation. The entire framework of China's relationship with Taiwan rested on the premise that Taiwan was a wayward province that would eventually reunify with the mainland—not an independent nation. China's leadership described Lee's moves as an effort to "split the motherland."

The response came swiftly.

In July 1995, China's official Xinhua News Agency announced that the People's Liberation Army would conduct missile tests. Then something unusual happened. According to a series published by Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper in 2019, titled "Secret Records on Lee Teng-hui," China sent a remarkable back-channel message to Taiwan in early July.

"Our ballistic missiles will be launched toward Taiwan a couple of weeks later," the message said, "but you guys don't have to worry."

This was communicated through Tseng Yong-hsien, Lee's national policy adviser, who had established secret connections with Chinese officials. The message reached Lee quickly. China wanted to send a signal—a loud, unmistakable signal—but not to start a war.

The Missiles Fly

Beginning on July 21, 1995, China's Second Artillery Corps—the branch of the military responsible for nuclear and conventional missiles—began launching Dongfeng-15 missiles into the waters around Taiwan.

The Dongfeng-15, whose name translates to "East Wind," is a short-range ballistic missile capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear warheads. Each one represents a technological achievement that China had spent decades developing, a weapon designed specifically to reach Taiwan in minutes and strike with precision.

On July 21st, two missiles splashed down approximately seventy nautical miles from Taiwan's coast. The next day, two more. On July 24th, two more still. The target area was about thirty-six miles north of Taiwan—close enough to terrify, far enough to avoid casualties.

Simultaneously, China concentrated naval forces and amphibious landing units in the strait. The message was clear: this is what we can do. This is what we might do.

America Responds

The United States could not ignore this.

In July 1995, the amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood transited the Taiwan Strait. In August, China's East Sea Fleet deployed fifty-nine vessels for exercises while the People's Liberation Army Air Force flew 192 practice sorties. Naval exercises continued through September and October. In November, China conducted a major amphibious landing exercise—rehearsing, essentially, an invasion of Taiwan.

The United States kept pushing back. In December 1995, the destroyer USS O'Brien and the frigate USS McClusky sailed through the strait. Then, on December 19th, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz—one of the most powerful warships ever built, a floating city of more than five thousand sailors and Marines, capable of projecting American military power anywhere on Earth—passed through the strait with its entire battle group.

This was not subtle diplomacy.

The Election Approaches

Taiwan was preparing for something unprecedented: its first direct presidential election. For decades, Taiwan had been governed by the Kuomintang party under martial law. The transition to democracy was Lee Teng-hui's great achievement, and now Taiwanese voters would choose their leader directly for the first time in history.

China viewed this with alarm. A democratically elected Taiwanese president would have a popular mandate that no previous leader had possessed. The legitimacy that comes from free elections would make Taiwan's de facto independence even harder to reverse.

Between January and February 1996, as the election campaign heated up, China concentrated one hundred thousand troops along the strait and conducted large-scale exercises. On January 4th, a warning reached the Clinton administration through an unusual channel. Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas Freeman reported that a Chinese general had threatened him directly: the People's Liberation Army had prepared plans to fire conventional missiles into Taiwan for thirty days straight, one attack per day.

Whether this was a bluff or a genuine threat, no one in Washington could be certain.

Missiles Over Shipping Lanes

On March 8, 1996—less than three weeks before Taiwan's election—China escalated dramatically.

Missiles splashed down just twenty miles from the port of Keelung, in northern Taiwan, and twenty-nine miles from Kaohsiung, in the south. These were not random stretches of ocean. Over seventy percent of Taiwan's commercial shipping passed through these two ports. China was, in effect, firing missiles into Taiwan's economic lifeline.

Three days later, on March 11th, monitors detected something that sent shockwaves through the American military establishment. The cruiser USS Bunker Hill, which had detached from the Independence carrier group, was watching alongside an RC-135 intelligence aircraft when China launched three more missiles. Two of them landed in shipping lanes near Kaohsiung. One was fired directly over Taipei—over the capital city itself—before splashing down in a shipping lane near Keelung.

A ballistic missile had flown over a city of millions.

Shipping rates for freight to Taiwan skyrocketed. Insurance premiums exploded. Twice during the crisis, the missile launches closed the strait completely to all sea and air commerce. Taiwan, an island economy utterly dependent on trade, was being strangled.

The Carriers Move

The United States responded with the largest show of American military force in Asia since the Vietnam War.

On March 10th, the carrier USS Independence was ordered toward the strait from its base in Japan. The next day, the USS Nimitz and its entire battle group received orders to sail from the Persian Gulf toward Taiwan—a journey of thousands of miles.

The Nimitz battle group included an astonishing array of military capability. The carrier itself held approximately seventy aircraft: F-14 Tomcat fighters, F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters, A-6 Intruder attack aircraft, EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare planes, and S-3 Viking antisubmarine aircraft. Escorting the carrier were Aegis cruisers bristling with missiles, destroyers, and frigates. The Independence battle group was similarly equipped.

Together, these two carrier groups represented more combat power than most nations possess in their entire military.

The Nimitz and its escorts, along with the amphibious assault ship Belleau Wood carrying Marines, sailed directly through the Taiwan Strait. The Independence held position in the East China Sea. China announced more exercises in response, but the message had been received: the United States would not stand by while Taiwan was threatened.

The Outcome Nobody Expected

China's intimidation campaign backfired spectacularly.

Far from frightening Taiwanese voters into choosing candidates more acceptable to Beijing, the missile tests drove them toward Lee Teng-hui. His poll numbers jumped by five percentage points during the crisis. On March 23, 1996, Lee won the election outright with a majority—not merely a plurality—of the vote.

Taiwan had held its first democratic election under Chinese missile fire, and the voters had chosen defiance.

The crisis also had consequences that China's leaders almost certainly did not intend. The United States used the threat to justify additional arms sales to Taiwan. Military ties between the United States and Japan strengthened, with Japan taking on a larger role in contingency planning for Taiwan's defense. The crisis that was meant to isolate Taiwan instead reinforced its connections to the world's most powerful military alliance.

Secrets and Consequences

In the fog of the crisis, both sides were operating with incomplete information. Taiwan didn't know whether the missiles were armed or merely tests. The United States didn't know how far China was willing to go. China didn't know how the United States would respond.

Years later, some of these mysteries were resolved—though not in ways anyone anticipated.

In 1999, Chinese authorities arrested Major General Liu Liankun, a senior military logistics officer, along with his subordinate Senior Colonel Shao Zhengzhong. Their crime: they had been spying for Taiwan throughout the crisis, and they had revealed a crucial secret. The missiles that flew over the strait, the missiles that terrified Taiwan and nearly triggered war with the United States, had carried unarmed warheads.

China had been bluffing—at least partially. The threat was real, but the immediate danger was not quite what it seemed.

Liu and Shao were court-martialed and executed.

The Long Shadow

The People's Liberation Army drew its own lessons from the crisis, and they were not the lessons of caution.

General Zhang Wannian assessed the exercises as successful, arguing they demonstrated the army's resolve, warned outside powers against intervention, and encouraged pro-unification sentiment in Taiwan. General Fu Quanyou reported to China's Central Military Commission that the exercises had "attacked the power of the Taiwan separatists" and "warned the United States as the main outside intervening power."

But beneath this triumphalist rhetoric, China's military leadership recognized a harsh truth. They had been outmatched. When American carriers sailed into the strait, China had no effective response. The People's Liberation Army lacked the naval and air power to seriously threaten American carrier groups or to prevent them from operating wherever they chose.

President Jiang Zemin ordered a ten-year military modernization program. China began acquiring advanced weapons from Russia: Sovremenny-class destroyers specifically designed during the Cold War to counter American carrier battle groups, Kilo-class attack submarines, and modern fighter aircraft like the Su-30. The seeds of China's current military power were planted in the humiliation of 1996.

The crisis also left its mark on Taiwan. During the March exercises, panic spread that China might seize some of Taiwan's small outlying islands. The most vulnerable was Wuqiu, a tiny speck of land garrisoned by just five hundred soldiers. Flights from Taiwan to the United States and Canada filled with citizens seeking safety abroad. The Secretary General of Taiwan's National Security Council flew to New York to meet with American officials and plead for continued support.

What It Meant Then and What It Means Now

The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis was a turning point that looked, at the time, like a successful demonstration of American power. The carriers came, China backed down, Taiwan held its election. The system worked.

But that interpretation misses the longer story. China's response to the crisis was not acceptance of American dominance—it was a determination to build the capability to challenge it. The missiles and ships and submarines China has acquired since 1996, the artificial islands in the South China Sea, the hypersonic weapons designed to sink American carriers—all of this flows from the lessons Chinese strategists drew from those tense weeks in 1995 and 1996.

The crisis also established patterns that persist today. The United States demonstrated that it would send military forces to deter Chinese action against Taiwan. China demonstrated that it was willing to use military threats to influence Taiwan's politics. Taiwan demonstrated that its people would vote their conscience regardless of Chinese pressure.

Every few years since then, tensions in the strait have flared. Chinese aircraft probe Taiwan's air defense zone. American warships transit the strait. Taiwanese politicians visit Washington, and Beijing lodges protests. Each time, observers wonder whether this will be the crisis that finally spills over into war.

The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis ended peacefully, but it did not resolve anything. It was a dress rehearsal for a conflict that has never been fought—and that everyone hopes never will be. The missiles that splashed into the waters around Taiwan in 1995 and 1996 were a warning of what might come. Nearly three decades later, we are still waiting to see whether the warning will be heeded or whether, one day, the missiles will come armed.