It is yet to be seen what sort of pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) placed on Washington during last week’s visit with respect to Taiwan’s status. However, that does not mean Beijing will stop intimidating Taiwan.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) said that cross-strait relations are not relations between two nations, nor between one China and one Taiwan, but between two parts of one nation. He demanded unambiguous affirmation of this view from whoever wins the presidential election next year.
Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) responded by proposing to maintain the “status quo,” saying that it is the prevailing consensus among Taiwanese. Tsai is to visit Japan next month — a visit Beijing is gravely concerned about and firmly opposes, according to a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson.
The spokesperson asked the Japanese government to abide by the “one China” principle and not to allow anyone to come up with excuses to propagate support for Taiwanese independence.
Maintaining the “status quo” until Taiwan becomes an independent nation or maintaining the “status quo” forever both seem to be part of mainstream public opinion, a consensus that continues to grow among Taiwanese at a steady pace. The trend is found in public surveys, no matter which polling organization conducts them. The younger the respondents are, the less they have been brainwashed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It stands to reason that this view of the “status quo” is the “status quo” that Tsai wants to preserve.
However, Tsai has not affirmed whether her understanding of the “status quo” is the one backed by Taiwanese public opinion or the “new status quo” that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has replaced it with and then maintained over the past seven years.
Beijing worries that Tsai is going to propagate Taiwanese independence in Japan, because it fears that she might follow public opinion and get rid of China, instead of following in Ma’s footsteps to push the “status quo” toward ultimate unification.
Even with Ma’s “one China, different interpretations” framework, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is taking precautions lest Taiwan maintain the “status quo” indefinitely. As the saying goes: “The longer the night, the more likely that nightmares will happen.” That is why Beijing’s “Anti-Secession” Law and National Security Act were put into motion.
However, the CCP is also aware that Ma’s “different interpretations” is nothing but false pretense that can be propagated in Taiwan, but not internationally. The phrase “one China” is the part that matters, because it enables Beijing to tell the world that Taiwan acknowledges itself as a part of China.
After receiving permission from China, the Ma administration used the title “Chinese Taipei” to take part in the World Health Assembly as an “observer” instead of as a “member.” It is self-evident whether this would make the global community regard Taiwan as a sovereign nation.
Given that Ma is a lame duck, it is likely that the opposition will win January’s election. Hence the CCP’s priority is to force the next president to continue to adhere to the “one China” principle while changing the “status quo” behind the US’ back.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) told Chinese officials in Shanghai that he understood and respected the “1992 consensus,” and also declared that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are “one family.”
The nation is about to be raped, but the capital’s mayor is still talking about “respect” and “one family”: No wonder the Chinese state media gave Ko the thumbs-up.
On the other hand, Tsai has not clarified what she means by maintaining the “status quo,” so the public should pressure her to explain her words. Neither has she clearly explained whether she would maintain the “status quo” according to the public’s understanding of that phrase or according to someone else’s. The CCP is applying pressure and if Taiwanese are not responding in kind, who would prevail?
The concept of maintaining the “status quo” to ensure independence is interpreted differently by the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. For the CCP, letting Taiwan maintain the “status quo” indefinitely and seeing Taiwan and China drift further apart as two nations means the Chinese dream will forever remain that way, a dream.
Hence they discredit and criticize the maintenance of the “status quo,” coerce Taiwan into accepting that Taiwan and China both belong to “one China,” and force Taiwan to sign a cross-strait peace treaty to establish that it is subordinate to China, thereby leaving no room for independence. Only then can they feel assured.
On the other hand, as far as public opinion is concerned, the ultimate goal of maintaining the “status quo” is to keep Taiwan from being annexed, while sustaining itself as a nation of 23 million people. In other words, the aim is to establish Taiwan as a normal nation. That means maintaining the “status quo” to ensure independence has positive significance for most members of the public.
Last year’s Sunflower movement and nine-in-one elections showed how more than half of Taiwanese perceive their national identity, and this shift in self-identification is unlikely to be reversed. This is the change that is taking place in Taiwan.
Internationally, the US is actively staging a comeback to Asia to counterbalance the expansion of the Chinese might. In addition, Japan has passed its new security bills, allowing the Japan Self Defense Forces to operate abroad.
As for China, its economy has slowed down and capital continues to flow out of its markets. The Chinese dream of being a superpower does not seem to be standing.
The shift in Taiwan’s internal political climate gives Tsai the opportunity to win next year’s election. How she would go about maintaining the “status quo” is likely to determine her place in history.
Since it is Tsai’s wish that Beijing will make the effort to understand Taiwanese public opinion, Tsai herself should adhere to that opinion as much as possible.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Ursula K. le Guin in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas proposed a thought experiment of a utopian city whose existence depended on one child held captive in a dungeon. When taken to extremes, Le Guin suggests, utilitarian logic violates some of our deepest moral intuitions. Even the greatest social goods — peace, harmony and prosperity — are not worth the sacrifice of an innocent person. Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), since leaving office, has lived an odyssey that has brought him to lows like Le Guin’s dungeon. From late 2008 to 2015 he was imprisoned, much of this