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Beijing, January 23: The Chinese leadership has sent unusually explicit warnings to the Clinton Administration that China has completed plans for a limited attack on Taiwan that could be mounted in the weeks after Taiwan's President, Lee Tenghui, wins the first democratic balloting for the presidency in March.
The purpose of this saber-rattling is apparently to prod the United States to rein in Taiwan and President Lee, whose push for greater international recognition for the island of 21 million people, has been condemned here as a drive for independence.
While no one familiar with the threats thinks China is on the verge of risking a catastrophic war against Taiwan, some China experts fear that the Taiwan issue has become such a test of national pride for Chinese leaders that the danger of war should be taken seriously.
A senior American official said the Administration has `no independent confirmation or even credible evidence' that the Chinese are contemplating an attack, and spoke almost dismissively of the prospect.
`They can fire missiles, but Taiwan has some teeth of its own,' the official said. `And does China want to risk that and the international effects?'
The most pointed of the Chinese warnings was conveyed recently through a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Chas. W. Freeman Jr., who traveled to China this winter for discussions with senior Chinese officials. On Jan. 4, after returning to Washington, Mr. Freeman informed President Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, that the People's Liberation Army had prepared plans for a missile attack against Taiwan consisting of one conventional missile strike a day for 30 days.
This warning followed similar statements relayed to Administration officials by John W. Lewis, a Stanford University political scientist who meets frequently with senior Chinese military figures here.
These warnings do not mean that an attack on Taiwan is certain or imminent. Instead, a number of China specialists say that China, through `credible preparations' for an attack, hopes to intimidate the Taiwanese and to influence American policy toward Taiwan. The goal, these experts say, is to force Taiwan to abandon the campaign initiated by President Lee, including his effort to have Taiwan seated at the United Nations, and to end high-profile visits by President Lee to the United States and to other countries.
If the threats fail to rein in Mr. Lee, however, a number of experts now express the view that China could resort to force, despite the enormous consequences for its economy and for political stability in Asia.
Since last summer, when the White House allowed Mr. Lee to visit the United States, the Chinese leadership has escalated its attacks on the Taiwan leader, accusing him of seeking to `split the motherland' and undermine the `one China' policy that had been the bedrock of relations between Beijing and its estranged province since 1949.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeman, asked to comment on reports that the Chinese military has prepared plans for military action against Taiwan, said he was awaiting a response from his superiors. Last month, a senior ministry official said privately that China's obvious preparations for military action have been intended to head off an unwanted conflict.
`We have been trying to do all we can to avoid a scenario in which we are confronted in the end with no other option but a military one,' the official said. He said that if China does not succeed in changing Taiwan's course, `then I am afraid there is going to be a war.'
Mr. Freeman described the most recent warning during a meeting Mr. Lake had called with nongovernmental China specialists.
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