Is the “harmonious society” that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) constantly proclaims being realized in China’s relations with Taiwan?
Before Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) became Taiwan’s president in May 2008, Taiwan was regularly portrayed in China as a “troublemaker” and was the main cause of tension between China and the US. Now Taiwan has become something of a diplomatic afterthought because it no longer makes trouble. At the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, indeed, Taiwan was barely mentioned, as North Korea, Iran and the value of the Chinese yuan claimed the most attention.
It has always been unfair to demonize the Taiwanese merely for wanting what most people around the world take for granted: To uphold their basic human rights and way of life, including the right to decide through a democratic process their own future.
China, however, rejects such sentiments about self-determination and, as a rising power, China is not a force that even democratic leaders dismiss lightly. For years, China’s ruling Communist Party has maintained that Taiwan is a “core national interest,” despite the reality that Taiwan has existed and functioned as a virtual state for 60 years.
China has long threatened to use force if the international community should formally recognize Taiwan’s independence. However, the atmosphere gradually changed in recent years and the “troublemaker” label, applied under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has not been used for two years.
Of course, Taiwan under Ma still wants the same rights that it desired under Chen. but Ma has taken a different approach. He has eased tensions with China by focusing on what both sides can agree upon. China’s leaders find his language inoffensive. He seeks to advance Taiwan’s national interests without arousing Beijing’s threat to use force and he has sought to forge closer trade and transport links.
Ma’s strategy suits China, whose leaders welcome being able to avoid confrontation with Taiwan, given their current focus on engineering their country’s “peaceful rise.” Moreover, China does not wish to see the DPP and its aggressively pro-independence leaders return to power. When Ma’s popularity fell dramatically as Taiwan’s economy suffered from the global financial crisis, China’s leaders worked with Ma to pre-empt just such an outcome.
This has allowed Ma’s administration to claim credit for improving relations with China. However, the fundamental causes underlying the threat of a China-Taiwan war — and conflict between China and the US, which has long been committed to supporting Taiwan should China seek to determine its status unilaterally — have not been removed. Beijing remains committed to forcing Taiwan to accept the idea of ultimate “reunification,” while the Taiwanese remain determined to decide their own future.
However, each side’s interests need not be mutually exclusive. The right to national self-determination does not imply an assertion of de jure independence. For example, acknowledgement of Scotland’s right to choose independence has not resulted in Scotland leaving the UK. What people in Taiwan want is nothing more and nothing less than acknowledgement that they can decide their own future.
Given China’s deep distrust, it will never believe that a DPP president who insists on the Taiwanese people’s right to determine their own future will not secretly push for independence. However, since China knows that Ma is not advocating independence, they are able to countenance with greater equanimity his commitment to sustain the Republic of China — the official name of the government in Taipei — on Taiwan.
If ever there was an opportunity for China and Taiwan to find a way to ensure that future confrontations do not escalate and drag the US into a conflict, it is now. What Ma must do is forge a clearer consensus within Taiwan that the independence vs unification issue is a phony one. The real issue is whether both sides can acknowledge that Taiwan’s people have the right to determine their future.
China’s leaders need to be persuaded that conceding this point does not imply letting Taiwan move towards de jure independence. This may require that the Taiwanese abandon their tendency to hold regular referendums to show that they enjoy this right.
Beijing will need to recognize that the best way to entice Taiwanese to embrace reunification is to make the proposition so attractive that they cannot resist. There is no need to set a timetable for this. As a rising superpower, China should feel confidant that time is on its side.
The whole world shares an interest in preventing disagreements between Taiwan and China from becoming a cause for military confrontation between the US and China. Ma has created the necessary conditions for deactivating the trigger. It is time for the rest of the world to support him in removing it forever, so that Taiwan will continue to fade as a global security concern.
Steve Tsang is a professorial fellow in Taiwan Studies at St Antony’s College, Oxford University.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has its chairperson election tomorrow. Although the party has long positioned itself as “China friendly,” the election is overshadowed by “an overwhelming wave of Chinese intervention.” The six candidates vying for the chair are former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), former lawmaker Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文), Legislator Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強), Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), former National Assembly representative Tsai Chih-hong (蔡志弘) and former Changhua County comissioner Zhuo Bo-yuan (卓伯源). While Cheng and Hau are front-runners in different surveys, Hau has complained of an online defamation campaign against him coming from accounts with foreign IP addresses,
When Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced the implementation of a new “quiet carriage” policy across all train cars on Sept. 22, I — a classroom teacher who frequently takes the high-speed rail — was filled with anticipation. The days of passengers videoconferencing as if there were no one else on the train, playing videos at full volume or speaking loudly without regard for others finally seemed numbered. However, this battle for silence was lost after less than one month. Faced with emotional guilt from infants and anxious parents, THSRC caved and retreated. However, official high-speed rail data have long
RSS