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Referendum can influence Beijing

Many people have criticized President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) recently, believing that the "preventive referendum" the government is about to hold is completely useless. How can the people of one country ask another country to withdraw missiles or even give up the use of force simply through a referendum? If that were the case, why does Taiwan need national defense anyway? Nevertheless, in view of the changes in China's Taiwan policy in recent years, holding a preventive referendum does have a chance of bringing some positive changes to Beijing's policy.

At present China's Taiwan policy can be generally described as "one center, two basic points" -- it centers around its own economic development, with US pressure on Taiwan and influencing the Taiwanese people as the two basic points.

Based on this policy of "one center, two basic points," Beijing has changed many principles of its Taiwan policy ever since Chen came to power. As long as Taiwan does not declare independence, China will pragmatically face Taiwan's public opinion and political reality, and appropriately adjust its Taiwan policy to establish stable cross-strait relations -- so as to focus on boosting economic development and maintaining social stability.

Before the 2000 presidential election, Beijing hinted that it might use force against the island if Chen was elected.

After the election, however, no radical action was taken.

Beijing responded in a very low-profile manner and said that it would "listen to Chen's words and watch his deeds."

Next, after Chen, a "pro-Taiwan independence element," came to power, China accepted the three principles in its Taiwan policy that had been unacceptable before.

First, after August 2000, China has changed the definition of the three-stage "one China" principle, and the new definition is almost the same as the one the National Unification Council had proposed.

Second, China no longer takes the "one China" principle as the premise for direct-links negotiations, a principle which it firmly insisted on in the past.

Third, China has actively requested that Taiwan accept the "1992 consensus." But Beijing actually denied the consensus during the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) rule.

Beijing is unwilling to admit that "one China, with each side having its own interpretation" is the 1992 consensus to this day, saying that the consensus was "both governments across the Taiwan Strait insisting on the `one China' principle." But many Chinese academics have already said that Beijing is likely to accept the consensus of "one China, with each side having its own interpretation" if the blue camp comes to power. In addition, US pressure may further change China's Taiwan policy.

Looking at the two referendum questions recently proposed by Chen, the first involves peaceful resolution of the cross-strait issue and opposition to China's military threats. The second promotes "negotiation with China on the establishment of a `peace and stability' framework for cross-strait interactions."

The essence of the questions has long been the content of US cross-strait strategy.

Today, by clearly telling international society in a democratic way that the Taiwanese people "long for peace and negotiation and oppose threats," we can stimulate international society's support.

At present China relies on US pressure on Taiwan to a great extent. However, Beijing also has to express a certain amount of good will toward Washington to win US support. For example, before US President George W. Bush took office in early January 2001, Chinese vice premier Qian Qichen (錢其琛) publicly talked about Beijing's new definition of the "one China" principle during an interview with the Washington Post in order to stop Washington from selling weapons to Taipei.

In September of the same year, Qian said again that China would patiently wait for unification if Taiwan accepts the "one-China" principle. His words indirectly vetoed the third condition for a Chinese attack on Taiwan proposed in China's "three-ifs" white paper (if Taiwan refuses a peaceful settlement of cross-strait unification through negotiations) -- a condition that the US strongly opposes.

During Bush's visit to China early in 2002 and right before former Chinese president Jiang Zemin's (江澤民) visit to the US at the end of the same year, Beijing repeatedly talked to Washington about its current "flexible and practical" Taiwan policy, to convince the US to put pressure on Taiwan to accept it. If Taiwan can clear the US doubts about pushing for a new constitution in the near future, I believe that the results of the referendum will push China to adopt a more flexible and practical Taiwan policy and gain US support for its current policy.

Tung Chen-yuan is an associate research fellow in the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University.

TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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