Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has returned from her successful US visit with a spring in her step. Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is likely to confirm its candidate for next year’s presidential election, for which the battle is soon to commence.
Due to the importance of geopolitical strategies and Taiwan’s unique political status, experience has shown that a presidential candidate needs not only to gain the support of voters, but must also overcome two more hurdles: Washington’s understanding and Beijing’s attitude. These three factors are interconnected: Not only must presidential candidates build up a rapport with voters, they must also expend a great deal of effort managing external relationships with both Washington and Beijing. Weakness in any of these three areas results in failure.
Tsai’s cross-strait policy — based on the concept of maintaining the “status quo” — which has been placed under an a great deal of scrutiny, is formed of three separate phases.
During the first phase, 50 days prior to her US visit, Tsai first used the phrase “maintaining the status quo” to gauge voter reaction. As expected, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Taiwan’s pan-blue media and Beijing unanimously called on Tsai to further clarify her position.
However, having sustained this attack, Tsai composed herself and did her homework. She dispatched DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) — former chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council and former representative to the US — to Washington for preliminary talks. Tsai then confidently walked into the White House and the US Department of State and clarifed her stance on the “status quo” — this was phase two.
Tsai, who once chaired the council herself, possesses an understanding of the subtleties of cross-strait relations. If critics cast aside their prejudices, they would realize that with 20 years of experience, Tsai possesses both the knowledge and ability to discuss the thorny issue of cross-strait relations.
For example, when Tsai spoke to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, she said: “If elected, I will push for the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations in accordance with the will of Taiwanese and the existing Republic of China constitutional order.”
The audience was left stunned, she immediately removed pressure from all sides.
The June 7 editorial in the pan-blue camp’s staunchest media ally, the Chinese-language United Daily News, was entitled “Return to the Constitution: Tsai Ing-wen has taken the right first step.” This can be seen as the paper’s official endorsement of the pan-green camp leader’s cross-strait policy: An exceptionally rare event.
In other words, Tsai’s policy of adhering to the constitutional order has to a large degree neutralized the force of the pan-blue attack and caused the camp to turn the gun on itself. At the same time, Tsai’s policy could garner the support of pan-blue leaning voters at the center of the political spectrum — this is a step in the right direction for her presidential bid.
Washington has been put at ease, mainstream opinion accepts the DPP’s position and Tsai has put the ball in Beijing’s court.
The third phase is to observe Beijing’s reaction. Indeed, Beijing can cross-examine Tsai by picking over her speech and asking the question: “By saying you will inherit ‘the accumulated fruits of 20 years progress,’ ‘respect the Constitution’ and ‘consistently maintain the cross-strait relationship,’ are you not therefore acknowledging the existence of the so-called ‘1992 consensus’?”
On returning from Washington, Tsai has put in place a counter to Beijing’s next move. What is certain is that Tsai will hold off from revealing her position on the “1992 consensus” until the last moment, employing a strategy of ambiguity, neither admitting nor denying the existence of the “1992 consensus.” Tsai has a secret weapon. When required, she will imitate Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) by counterbalancing the KMT’s “one China” position and stating that: “If Beijing also agrees to ‘one China, with each side having its own interpretation,’ then the concept of ‘one China’ is not a problem.”
Having experienced the attack and defense tactics employed by Beijing during Tsai’s Washington visit, even Ma’s national adviser, Chao Chun-shan (趙春山), says he shook his head at Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai’s (崔天凱) comment that Tsai needs to “pass the test” of 1.3 billion Chinese.
Restricted by its policy of creating a divide between Tsai and voters, Beijing may have exhausted all its tricks. Beijing has had no choice but to shift the focus from blocking Tsai’s cross-strait policy to responding to a possible Tsai administration’s new policies and the issue of whether she would continue to support formal cross-strait relations and toward studies of whether to maintain normal cross-strait relations.
John Lim is an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Modern History.
Translated by Edward Jones
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