China uses business to promote unification

In 2002, Japanese academic Kenichi Ohmae boldly predicted that Taiwan and China would be unified by 2005, and that the 2004 presidential election campaign would pivot around the question of how to unify with China, instead of whether or not to unify.

Ohmae's did not come true: The pan-green camp with its "one country on each side" [of the Taiwan Strait] platform won the presidential election. In retrospect, the timing of Ohmae's prediction was wrong, but the direction may be right.

Just Ohmae said, Taiwan is moving production facilities to China at an amazing speed. He said that Taiwan began gradually losing its key advantages over China in 2000, and that by 2008, China will have duplicated all of Taiwan's advantages, and the value of Taiwanese businesspeople will disappear.

On March 28, the Chinese-language United Evening News reported that Taiwan's major computer makers have moved 90 percent of their production to China. As a result, the 15,000 computers that the US State Department purchased recently were all "Made in China," the daily said. This proves that Ohmae's prediction of China"using business to promote unification" was right.

China's has even greater political impact. By exchanging economic integration for business benefits, it anesthetizes Taiwanese consciousness and gradually integrates it into the "greater China" cause. Only a few years ago, China-based Taiwanese businesspeople still felt some guilt when confronted by the public. Today, they have become the government's "favorite sons."

In the past, no politician dared visit China. Now, not only are some willing to accept China's pandas but they also boldly promote the idea of unification without fearing a backlash.

An by Robert Ross in the US publication Foreign Affairs entitled "Taiwan's fading independence movement" gives a fairly close summation: "The rapid growth of China's economy has given Beijing leverage over Taiwan's economy. In 2001, the mainland became Taiwan's most important export market [last year, it accounted for about 40 percent of Taiwan's exports], and since 2002, more than half of Taiwan's foreign investment has gone there. Without firing a shot, therefore, China could cause chaos in Taiwan."

The journal concluded that Taiwan's independence movement is fading, and that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no longer afraid to be labeled a "mainlander party," since "46 percent [of the Taiwanese] believed that the KMT was the party most capable of handling cross-strait relations."

During his recent US trip, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) talked about not only the opening of direct links and economic integration, but also a cross-strait "modus vivendi" -- a temporary agreement before a permanent settlement is officially reached -- for Taiwan's participation in the international community. He even suggested that China unite with its secondary enemy (the KMT) to combat its primary enemy (Taiwanese independence).

Many view further economic integration as politically correct. Take, for example, the complementary mechanism to the "active management" policy proposed by the Cabinet. The strongest criticism came from within the Democratic Progressive Party. Some party members even threatened to propose a "China policy resolution" at the party's national assembly in July to demand the opening up of the cross-strait economy and trade.

Just cancer cells spreading inside a body, China's policy of using business to promote unification has spread to every corner of the island. Ohmae's prediction is coming true as we speak.

Huang Tien-lin is a national policy adviser to the president.

Translated by Eddy Chang