In the past, when observers tried to understand the development of cross-strait relations, the "status quo" was an important option to consider, along with the choices of unification or independence. This was true despite the fact that definition of the status quo was often unclear.
For example, although maintaining the status quo is the basis for stable US-China-Taiwan relations, each of the three countries interprets the status quo quite differently. As a result, whoever can define the status quo becomes the most powerful member of the three-way relationship. In addition to having the power to define the status quo, the question of how to change the status quo or influence the direction in which it changes becomes the goal of the competition for power.
If, within the traditional unification-independence framework, advocating either of the two is an attempt to change the status quo, then opposing either could be seen as supporting the status quo. In other words, if promoting Taiwan independence is an attempt to unilaterally change the status quo, then opposing independence could be an attempt to maintain it.
This interpretation has often been seen since Beijing passed its "Anti-Secession" Law. The law accepts that China and Taiwan are divided, because its emphasis is on preventing formal independence rather than on promoting unification. Looked at in this way, the law is an active attempt to maintain the status quo, and has indirectly come to define it.
After the passage of the Anti-Secession Law, and after former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) visited China, Taiwan was pushed toward unification. As KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said during his visit last week to the UK, if he is elected president, the main goal will be to shape domestic conditions for unification and plant the unification idea deep in every sector of society in order to move from an anti-independence strategy toward a pro-unification push.
This shift, which Ma had also given voice to earlier, so agitated President Chen Shui-bian (
In the past, achieving the conditions to bring about independence were seen as the major force motivating a change to the status quo. This ignored the anti-independence character of the Anti-Secession Law as well as the changing nature of the conditions for a move toward unification that has followed on China's economic development.
This is also why it is no longer just the independence movement that is trying to change the status quo, and why an even greater effort now comes from those who wish to alter the conditions by which unification could take place. This has put the Taiwan independence movement on the defensive and forced it to strive against unification.
The unification-independence war also plays out over the right to define the status quo. Only if we can see beyond pro-unification and pro-independence efforts, and recognize the struggle to define the status quo can we understand Beijing's Anti-Secession Law and Taiwan's anti-unification stance.
If our actions are only decided in response to who is changing the status quo, we will overlook the anti-independence and anti-unification struggle that is going on within the status quo framework, and it will become impossible to understand the character of the current political struggle going on across the Taiwan Strait.
This means that relations between the US, China and Taiwan have moved on to a new battlefield, where the goal is to maintain the status quo but redefine the meaning of that status quo. It is very difficult to say whether anti-unification amounts to an attempt to change the status quo. It could even be seen as an attempt to maintain it.
It is also difficult to say if the anti-independence effort is only an attempt to maintain the status quo, or whether it aims to eventually change it.
The nation's domestic politics have entered a new stage in which the fight is between pro-unification and anti-unification forces. Ma's unification efforts are opposed to Chen's anti-unification efforts, which is becoming the focus of the next stage of politics in Taiwan.
Hsu Yung-ming is an assistant research fellow of the Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy at Academia Sinica.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS