Trouble in Taiwan: a messy election warns of a dark future.

TAIWAN's bitterly fought presidential election in March and its even more bitter aftermath have provided the United States with a daunting glimpse of what could go wrong on the democratic island off China's east coast. The post-election turmoil demonstrated that the potential for political instability there is much greater than previously thought. That's good news for Beijing--which will exploit any opportunity to realize its ambition of conquering the island--and bad news for the United States, Taiwan's best friend and sole military ally (if only de facto).

President Chen Shui-bian's re-election campaign was marked by a defiant stance toward China and an emotional appeal to the separate Taiwanese identity that has flowered since Taiwan's first democratic election more than a decade ago. Nevertheless, even his close supporters privately concede that he was headed for decisive defeat at the hands of the Nationalist party (Kuomintang or KMT) candidate, Lien Chan, until the eve of the election, when Chen gained public sympathy after being slightly wounded in a shooting incident.

Lien and his running mate, James Soong, were suspicious about the shooting and infuriated by Chen's suggestions that the KMT was disloyal to Taiwan. Those things, combined with Chen's narrow victory margin of 29,000 votes, were the sparks that set off the post-election fires. The KMT demanded the election be annulled and appeared ready to call for Chen's violent overthrow. For days, Taiwan's fledgling democracy itself seemed in jeopardy.

Even more worrisome was Beijing's reaction. China's Taiwan Affairs Office warned, "We will not sit back and look on unconcerned should the post-election situation in Taiwan get out of control, leading to social turmoil, endangering the lives and property of Taiwan compatriots, and affecting stability across the Taiwan Straits."

That warning should haunt the people of Taiwan--and all those concerned with their fate--for years to come. Beijing wasn't signaling its intention to do anything serious right away. Rather, it was issuing a reminder for the future that it has long asserted a unilateral right to invade and conquer Taiwan in the event of serious disorder.

What's troubling about Beijing's threat is that a Chinese military strike against a politically embroiled Taiwan seems much more plausible, and more likely to succeed, than the other China-Taiwan military scenarios analyzed by experts for more than a decade. After Beijing adopted its ambitious Grand Strategy in the early 1990s, aimed at achieving unchallenged Chinese domination over all of East Asia, Chinese military strategists frequently argued that seizing Taiwan was an essential first step. Since then, China has focused on achieving the military capabilities to conquer Taiwan in several different ways:

Conventional invasion. Although China openly advertised some major military exercises in the mid-1990s as rehearsals for a massive, coordinated invasion of Taiwan by air, sea, and amphibious units, experts agree that it could take decades for China to acquire sufficient capabilities to pull this off.

Blockade. Blockading Taiwan by air and sea could bring the island to its knees--but only if the U.S. Navy and Air Force don't intervene. China is trying to develop military capabilities to deter the United States in such a scenario, but at best success here is many years away.

Missile barrage. As China deploys hundreds of missiles on its coast opposite Taiwan, analysts worry increasingly about a sudden, massive missile barrage aimed at destroying Taiwan's key military assets and decapitating its political and military leadership. This is militarily plausible but the international reaction would ensure the collapse of China's export-based economy and with it, perhaps, its one-party dictatorship.

But what if China a few years from now launched a "humanitarian intervention" with the announced aim of restoring order in a Taiwan wracked by political chaos? That was effectively what it threatened to do in its March 26 warning.

It wouldn't require a large-scale military operation to permanently undermine the Taiwanese government, and discredit the U.S. commitment to aid Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. One can envision a near-future scenario in which Chinese special-forces units, landing by parachute and in helicopters, seize an airfield, port, or even a military base. The chosen site is "defended" by senior Taiwanese military officers who were born into mainlander families and are deeply uncomfortable with the shift in power to those who identify with an independent Taiwan. Recruited by Beijing agents appealing to their Chinese patriotism, they have agreed in advance to offer no resistance for several hours. Later they will retire to comfortable lives and respected positions on the mainland, or remain in Taiwan and plausibly insist that Chinese information warfare had cut off their communications with Taipei during the attack.

Imagine as well that the Chinese operation begins at 11 P.M., Washington time. Just as the American president is being awakened with the first, confusing indications of a small military operation, Beijing sends the White House an urgent but vague message advising the president that it has merely sent one or two small units into troubled locales to restore order. The units, China's leader avers, will leave Taiwan and return to China within a few days.

And, in fact, China keeps its promise and the units depart. But in their wake is the failure of the Taiwanese government to repel the invasion, the failure of Taiwan's armed forces to crush the Chinese units, and the failure of the U.S. government to come to Taiwan's aid before the Chinese units departed. Such a combined failure might collapse the entire Taiwanese governing structure. With Beijing asserting that it won't hesitate to dispatch troops to Taiwan again and with the credibility of U.S. military assurances to Taiwan in doubt, Beijing could soon set up a quisling government in Taipei willing to bow to its demands.

The Center for Security Policy's Richard D. Fisher Jr., possibly the best U.S. expert outside the government on Chinese military capabilities, recently presented a paper detailing China's development of military assets that could soon accomplish precisely this sort of operation. China's Taiwan Leading Group has been tasked with coordinating a multifaceted military, political, and economic effort to take control of Taiwan. And China is pouring resources into developing and strengthening its special forces, including airborne special forces, which could soon be able to launch raids against targets on the island.

Moreover, this scenario must seem increasingly appealing to Beijing now that its "Hong Kong demonstration project" has so obviously failed. Before and after China's 1997 takeover of Hong Kong, most mainstream China-watchers glibly and confidently predicted that China would keep its promise to allow the people of Hong Kong substantial autonomy in governing themselves. Beijing, they argued, wanted Hong Kong to serve as an example to the people of Taiwan that they had nothing to fear from the "one country, two systems" formula under which Hong Kong had become part of China.

But on March 26, after Taiwan's election, Beijing issued a statement that expressed its contempt for the commitments it had made to give the people of Hong Kong wide-ranging autonomy: Beijing effectively declared that it would dictate any and all political changes to be made in Hong Kong's internal governing structure.

If this statement had been issued before Taiwan's March 20 election, Chen Shuibian would have pounced on it as conclusive evidence that Taiwan must keep its distance from a perfidious China. As I write, Hong Kongers are in a state of shock or sadness, depending on whether they had ever believed Beijing. More to the point, the people of Taiwan are absorbing the lesson that they alone must guard their (de facto) independence, no matter how closely their economy becomes integrated with the mainland's.

But such self-reliance will require a political transformation in Taiwan. A new consensus must be created that recognizes that unchecked political conflict--not to mention political turmoil--can open the gates to Taiwan's destruction. That consensus should reject the sort of China-baiting that Chen engaged in during the election campaign--no matter how justified it may seem. It must exclude those elements of the KMT whose political stance places unification with the mainland before democracy. And it must assign harsh penalties for fomenting or engaging in political disturbances that could give China the excuse it seeks to attack the democratic island.

Finally, the United States should make it clear to Taiwan's leaders and its people that its commitment to defend Taiwan is not absolute. Some American conservatives insist that the United States has a moral obligation to support any decision the people of Taiwan make about their future, even if that decision is to declare an independent republic, a step China promises it would counter with military aggression. But that would effectively cede to Taiwan the power to declare war for the United States.

The U.S. should continue the effort started by President Bush last December to warn Taiwan against unnecessarily drawing us into a war. Taiwan--our old friend, our fellow democracy, and a crucial part of the balance of power in East Asia--is worth defending even if it means going to war. But not if Taiwan starts it.

Mr. Munro is director of Asian studies at the Center for Security Studies in Washington, D.C., and co-author of The Coming Conflict with China.He spent a week in Taiwan observing the recent elections.