Chen works toward China platform

When the Democratic Progressive Party (¥Á¥D¶i¨BÄÒ) held its first-ever intra-party debates on China policy in mid-February, 1998, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), then the Taipei City mayor, was absent. Chen was later questioned by the public on his "real" stance on cross-strait relations, for he was the hottest political heavyweight in the party at that time.

On Sept. 20, 1999, Chen, as the DPP's presidential candidate for the year 2000, unveiled a five-point China policy platform for normalizing cross-strait relations. In addition to advocating a comprehensive dialogue with Beijing based on equal footing and the establishment of military confidence-building mechanisms (CBMs), Chen also expressed his willingness to sign a peace agreement or treaty with China, to make a personal visit to the mainland once he is elected as the president next March, and allow a conditional lifting of the ban on direct links between Taiwan and China.

"To what extent can Chen develop a feasible approach, to distinguish himself from Lien Chan and James Soong, while at the same time preserving Taiwan's sovereignty and promoting reconciliation across the Strait?"

What changed Chen's mentality and his idea of Taiwan's relationship with China? Is he ready to convince people that he is a responsible leader who could alleviate tension and instability across the Taiwan Straits? To what extent can Chen develop a feasible approach, to distinguish himself from Lien Chan (3s¾Ô) and James Soong (§º·¡·ì), while at the same time preserving Taiwan's sovereignty and promoting reconciliation across the Strait?

To understand Chen's concept of cross-strait relations, we have to retrace the evolution of the DPP's China policy.

For the past decade, the DPP's cross-strait policy has been affected primarily by the interplay of domestically generated and institutionalized identity issues and changing international norms. That is, the appeal to independence was not only a way to enlarge its support base domestically, but also a strategy to demonstrate Taiwan's independence to the world. However, the strategic thinking, based largely on electoral consideration, also constrained its policy options, especially in the face of international pressure.

Old DPP leaders might suggest making an early bid for de jure independence, rather than waiting for some future time when the growth of the PRC's military capabilities could change the balance of power in East Asia. This self-interested and security-oriented approach runs the risk of overestimating the nature and scale of US military support in the wake of a potential attack from Beijing. Furthermore, it also creates a "security dilemma" whereby attempts by any state to strengthen its security by increasing its own military power (in this case Taiwan's pursuit of de jure independence) provokes other states to follow suit, thereby rendering the initiating state as insecure as before.

In the post-Cold War era, DPP leaders started to modify their position on independence in1994. Former Chairmen such as Shi Ming-teh (¬I©ú¼w) and Hsu Hsing-liang (3\«H¨}) reiterated the party's stance of "recognizing Taiwan's de facto independence without any necessity to declare independence when the DPP comes to power" with an aim of generating more electoral support and mollifying international interests

The 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis and the 1997 Clinton-Jiang Zeming (|¿¿A¥Á) summit marked a turning point for the DPP's reorientation of its cross-strait policy. The conclusion of their China policy conference was divided by two lines of thought, led respectively by the Formosa faction's (¬üÄR®q¨t) theory of "boldly march west"(?jÁx|è¶i) and the New Tide faction's (·s¼é¬y¨t) "strengthen the base and march west"(±j¥»|è¶i). The leaders agreed that cross-strait exchange was irreversible and, sooner or later, Taiwan would have to go to the negotiating table with Beijing. The consensus thus was to engage in a comprehensive dialogue with China. The main difference between these two leading factions, however, was the extent and pace of "moving west."

Just Chen played an insignificant role in the debate does not mean he had no idea of DPP's evolution on cross-strait policy. Instead, through pragmatic examination of cross-strait relations and external changes, the party itself has become the backbone for flexible policy adjustments.

Since President Clinton announced the "three no's" policy (?T?£¬Fµ|) toward Taiwan in 1998, the fear that Washington has been tilting toward Beijing has constituted Taiwan's main worry. The stagnation of cross-strait semi-official talks further generated pressures from Washington to push forward the signing of an "interim agreement" between Taipei and Beijing. The external influences, together with electoral concerns place great pressure on all three major presidential candidates.

When the media attention was on President Lee Teng-hui's (§õµn½÷) July announcement that the relation between Taiwan and China is a "special state-to-state relationship"(¯S®í°ê»P°êÃö«Y), people seemed to forget that this was simply a reflection of DPP's long-time position on cross-strait relations. Even Chen, during a trip to Washington this April, publicly called for Taipei and Beijing to develop an "international special relationship" (°ê»Ú¯S®íÃö«Y). The essence of this relationship entails the recognition of "two distinguishable ethnic Chinese countries," namely, ROC and PRC. What exactly is a suitable framework for this future relationship, according to Chen, should be worked out by both governments working on an equal footing. In this regard, the DPP and Chen deserve real credit for consistently safeguarding Taiwan's independent statehood and making efforts to work out future relations with Beijing.

As for the China policy platform Chen has recently laid down, it displayed what he called a "new middle way" (·s??¶¡¸ô½u) of handling cross-strait relations. Whereas no candidates will compromise Taiwan's national security with China or accept an unequal basis for negotiations, the differences among them lie in strategy and determination.

First all, the KMT's passive strategy of "no rush, be patien," (§Ù«æ¥Î§Ô), in reality is nothing but "procrastination until change"(¥H©ì«Y´ÅÜ). In contrast, Chen emphasized the urgent need for starting an all-round negotiation with China, including political talks. His suggestion of visiting Beijing as a new president and the promotion of signing a treaty was a progressive and striking move. This is a position that Lien Chan would not dare take right now, given President Lee's strong antagonism against Beijing; let alone James Soong, who used to criticize Lee's "two states theory" as an unwise and reckless move. How would Soong react to Jiang Zeming's (|¿¿A¥Á) request to withdraw Lee's announcement if he is elected president?

Furthermore, in contrast to James Soong's position on opening the three links (?T3q) and the KMT's insistence on maintaining the status quo, Chen argued a conditional liberalization of the ban on direct links. In this regard, national security is of vital significance. Most importantly, Chen offered the need to establish military CBMs across the Strait. The aim is to reduce the tension with the increase of military transparency and communication on both sides of the strait. He also stressed the importance of building ad hoc and issue-specific relationships with the US, Japan and South Korea to manage regional instability. The task is bound to face great challenges. Nevertheless, at least he was one of the first to outline a framework.

The extent to which the proposals revealed by Chen would work remains to be seen and more concrete policies will have to be formulated to fulfill them, ie, setting up the preliminary work for negotiation and the contents for a peace agreement. However, one thing is certain: this has demonstrated Chen's and the DPP's determination to face the real world of post-Cold War international politics.

Liu Shih-chung is the deputy director of the Democratic Progressive Party's Department of International Affairs.