With Macau now firmly under Beijing's control, predictions about Taiwan's future are intensifying. According to the Communist leadership, "renegade" Taiwan must soon be brought back into the Chinese fold. The curious thing is that Western opinion seems to be moving in a similar direction.
Many US and European obser-vers are speculating that, if the West really wants access to the fabulous markets that 1.3 billion Chinese entail, they may have to sacrifice Taiwan.
The sheer size of China's alleged emerging superpowerdom, in both economic and military terms, suggests that an accommodation with President Jiang Zemin (
In the light of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Western opinion was once firm on the principle of non-communist Taiwan's independence. But in 1972 the `one China' doctrine was announced by President Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai (
It quickly drew the Chinese regime into its Cold War strategy, placing intolerable economic pressure on the Soviet Union. The "China card" was played brilliantly -- especially by Henry Kissinger -- in helping to bring the Soviet dinosaur to its knees.
One historical orthodoxy has it that the Chinese state has always and will always be absolutist and dynastic. In this view, democracy is beyond Chinese political expectations. But Taiwan is a remarkable refutation of this thesis. In the past decade it has constructed one of the most viable democracies in the world, one in which human rights are constitutionally guaranteed -- all in the context of enviable economic growth.
Not only is Taiwan a refutation of the absolutism of the Chinese state, it also contradicts the "Asian values" assertion that Asian prosperity is only achievable through political authoritarianism. (South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and India also contradict the "Asian values" apology for authoritarianism.) Taiwan is unselfconsciously Confucian, energetically democratic and rich. Far more so, for example, than Singapore.
The unprincipled warming of the West towards Beijing rests on shaky assumptions about China's future. Can we complacently assume that China will continue to be a unified and stable state?
The radical reforms to the Chinese economy, initiated by Deng Xiaoping (
The political unrest this is stoking should not be under-
estimated. In some regions, rebellions have broken out as wages are cut and the old labor-intensive industries are ruthlessly restructured by an emerging class of private managers and owners.
Bedevilling the processes of economic reform is a rapid growth of corruption. Organized crime syndicates have moved into the prosperous economic zones. Growing inequalities, violence and crime are starting to emulate the anarcho-capitalism now eating into the very heart of the Russian economy.
The unrest associated with economic "reform" is being aggravated by the unregulated polluting of cities and countryside by irresponsible industrial development. We can expect environmental concerns to increase as more Chinese become aware of versions of industrialization that undermine public health -- as culpable Japanese authorities discovered in the wake of the "Minimata disease" crisis that followed the poisoning of fish with industrial mercury.
The horrifying increases (numbering in the millions) in opium addiction and AIDS, especially in China's southwest, compound Beijing's woes.
Growing regionalism is also undermining Beijing's monopoly of power. Apart from the intractable problems associated with Tibet, regional unrest is gathering pace in western China and in areas such as the notorious Three Gorges project, where hordes of people are stubbornly resisting resettlement.
Scepticism about both the government and the People's Liberation Army since the Tienanmen Square crackdown in 1989 has meanwhile been growing throughout China. The rise of political dissidence and a growing criticism of the central government show that Beijing's authority is no longer unquestioned.
As globalizing media reach into Chinese homes via TV and the Internet, the Chinese public is less vulnerable to information manipulation by the political leadership. Protest movements are mushrooming, making the government increasingly nervous.
The clumsy (and probably unnecessary) reaction to the Falun Gong sect suggests an overreaction by an insecure regime. The recent escape of the adolescent Karmapa Lama from Tibet suggests too that the government is losing its grip.
Internationally China's appalling record on human rights, its resistance to democratic development, as well as its increasingly selfish pragmatism in international politics (eg, the Spratley Islands disputes), has seen a growing suspicion of Chinese ideological purity among former allies in East and Southeast Asia. Global pressures on the central government for political reform and better international citizenship and leadership can only increase as globalization intensifies.
Can the Communist regime contain these pressures? The odds are that it can't. Certainly it would be naive to rely on an out-dated, Cold War-inspired `one China' doctrine that never anticipated the sorts of challenges now facing Beijing.
Taiwan's future in all of this should not be complacently dis-missed, especially by business and government leaders in the West. Indeed Taiwan's economic and democratic achievements could well hold the key to China's future.
Allan Patience is a professor of political science and Asian studies at Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne.
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