Beijing should abandon deadlines

In the past, Mao Zedong's (毛澤東) handling of the cross-strait relation was actually quite rational. Not only did he take into consideration the gap between subjective perception and objective reality, but he respected that reality. Mao once said to Henry Kissinger: "It would take 100 years to resolve the Taiwan issue. I don't want to take Taiwan yet, even if the US wants to give it to me right now. Taiwan isn't a good place, because there are a whole bunch of anti-revolutionaries (on the island)." What Mao really meant was that the gap between the systems and beliefs on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait was too great for them to be united.

In contrast to Mao's pragmatism, today's Beijing leadership appears overly anxious. The leadership has repeatedly set a timetable which has only served to limit real positive interaction between the two sides of the Strait. For example, Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) recently held a press conference during which he warned the people of Taiwan to refrain from voting for Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) just two days before the presidential election. Later on, China indicated that it would "listen to (Chen's) talk, and watch (Chen's) behavior (聽其言,觀其行)," and pay close attention to the content of Chen's inaugural address.

After Chen's election, both Chen and the entire DPP have demonstrated sincerity and goodwill with respect to cross-strait relations. There will be no announcement of Taiwanese independence, no holding of a public referendum, and no inclusion of the "special state-to-state model (特殊兩國論)" in the Constitution, Chen and the DPP have said. In fact, the "one China" policy has become a topic of discussion within the mainstream DPP. Logically speaking, the cross-strait relationship should finally be entering harvest season and breaking through past barriers.

However, we now hear that the new president's inauguration speech on May 20 is being treated as an indicator of Chen's attitude. This kind of talk gives the impression that whether there will be peace or war between the two sides depends entirely on whether Chen recognizes the "one China" policy in his speech. During a conference on cross-strait relations held after the election in Washington, Gerrit W. Gong (江文漢) at the Center for Strategic & International Studies called this kind of harsh ultimatum "deadline diplomacy." All other scholars attending the conference agreed that a "deadline diplomacy" would only further deteriorate the possibility of an innovative resolution to the cross-strait standoff.

Unfortunately, some politicians and pro-unification scholars within Taiwan had initially portrayed Chen as a hawkish separationist and demanded an explicit stance on the "one China" policy following the election. They appear to agree with the timetable given by China, whether intentionally or unintentionally. They seem to be compelling Chen to give a "true" or "false" answer.

This kind of mechanical approach will only further stiffen the relationship between Taiwan and China, and destroy all chances for a reasonable resolution. On highly complicated issues such as cross-strait relations, room must exist for a unilateral stance by each side. Ambiguity serves as a lubricant for avoiding conflict and leaves room for both sides to turn around to prevent escalation of conflict. Treating the cross-strait relationship as a "true-false question" inevitably leads to a zero-sum game in which all hope for a resolution is gone. Actually, the cross-strait relationship should be treated as a zero-sum game, because much mutual interest exists between the two sides, and the continuation of these interests requires mutual cooperation.