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.
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS