President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in an interview with Reuters on April 27 called on Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to exercise his leadership in reshaping China’s policy toward Taiwan.
“I hope Chairman Xi Jinping, as a leader of a large country and who sees himself as a leader, can show a pattern and flexibility, use a different angle to look at cross-strait relations, and allow the future of cross-strait ties to have a different kind of pattern,” she said.
Since Tsai took office in May last year, Beijing has frozen official communications and engagement with Taipei. Beijing has exerted immense pressure on Taiwan by delaying meetings mandated by the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), barring Taiwanese officials from attending meetings in China, restricting the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan and cutting imports of Taiwan’s agricultural and industrial products.
Chinese authorities have also penalized Taiwanese businesspeople in China to make them keep their distance from the Tsai government and refrain from supporting Taiwanese independence.
Hai Pa Wang International Group, which runs a major food supply chain in China, was investigated for a breach of regulations. It was forced to publish a front-page advertisement in Taiwanese newspapers in December last year to disassociate itself from Tsai’s government and proclaim its adherence to China’s policy that “both Taiwan and the Mainland belong to one China.”
In addition, Beijing has tried to limit Taiwan’s diplomatic space, isolate Taiwan in the international community and employ various political measures against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.
In February last year, shortly after the devastating defeat of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Taiwan’s general elections, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) convened a Taiwan Work Conference to review its policy toward Taiwan.
Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲), a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, second in command of the CCP Taiwan Work Leadership Group, and chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), instructed party cadres to place great emphasis on “strengthening engagements and exchanges with all the political parties and groups that recognize that both Taiwan and the mainland belong to China.”
In plain language, this is Beijing’s classic divide and conquer strategy, a CCP-KMT united-front operation to weaken and undermine Tsai’s government.
Thus, in November last year, the CCP sponsored an annual CCP-KMT dialogue (renamed the Cross-Strait Peaceful Development Forum) in China and invited KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) to meet with Xi in Beijing.
Hung had a rather weak base of support in the KMT and she had been severely criticized due to her audacious pro-China policy, but her ideas were much to Xi’s liking. After all, more than any other KMT chairperson, Hung has advocated full acceptance of Beijing’s “one China” principle and supported Taiwan’s unification with China, and under her stewardship, the KMT adopted a new peace-centered policy platform in September last year.
As part of Beijing’s political warfare and united-front operation against the DPP government, China’s enablers in Taiwan — Taiwanese tycoons — have collaborated with the CCP to acquire newspapers and TV outlets. Beijing directs these mouthpieces to engage in political polemics, propagate “correct” information, promote Beijing’s agenda on Taiwan and attack Tsai’s policy platform as well as supporters of Taiwanese independence.
China’s relentless pressure has failed to make Tsai yield. Xi might wonder why China has not been able to win over the hearts and the minds of Taiwanese. Has Xi ever been informed that the ECFA only enriches a handful of compradors, business tycoons and corrupt cadres in China’s Taiwan-policy apparatus?
Xi appears to understand that ordinary Taiwanese have been alienated as they suffer from the flight of Taiwanese capital and the relocation of production facilities to China, resulting in unemployment and stagnant wages, especially among young people.
It is late, but better than never, for the policymakers in Beijing to develop a new approach to Taiwan affairs. People’s Liberation Army Air Force Major General Huang Zhicheng (黃植誠), a member of the CPPCC, was quoted by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post as saying: “I understand the central authorities are seriously considering a change in their policy toward Taiwan, with some approaches definitely different from the previous one.”
Huang’s boss at the CPPCC, Yu, reportedly changed tack at the annual session in March and called on delegates to engage Taiwan’s grassroots and youth.
Henceforth, Beijing might scale down its decades-long reliance on inter-party dialogue between the CCP and KMT and seek to engage Taiwanese from all walks of life through local civic organizations.
In line with this new approach, Beijing has been reshuffling its Taiwan policy apparatus.
In February, Zhou Zhihuai (周志懷), a famed Taiwan expert and director of the Institute of Taiwan Studies, a front organization of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), resigned and was replaced by Yang Mingjie (楊明杰), an expert on US and international affairs and associate dean of the MSS-affiliated China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.
Gong Qinggai (龔清概), standing deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, was purged and sentenced to 15 years in jail for corruption and other crimes. He was replaced by Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔), an experienced senior cadre. Dai Bingguo (戴秉國), previously a state councilor and China’s top diplomat, was appointed chairman of China’s National Society of Taiwan Studies — an official organ — in an indication that the CCP leadership looks to change its policy.
Will Beijing’s shift of focus to Taiwan’s young people and small businesses do wonders? It is too early to say. Most important of all, Xi must develop new thinking and free himself from the constraints of the Communist bureaucracy.
As if speaking to Xi through the Reuters interview, Tsai said: “Why not say we both are facing a new exam? We also look forward to China using a different perspective to face this new exam. China now needs to have its own sense of responsibility. The world is changing and China must change too.”
The World Health Assembly will meet in Geneva in two weeks, but Taiwan has not received an invitation due to Beijing’s objection. Tsai has reminded Xi that China’s decision would be an important benchmark for relations between the two sides.
In his message to Taiwan over the years, Xi has called for ethnic solidarity and national unity, and extolled the glorious rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Such appeals do not strike a responsive chord with most Taiwanese, especially young people. They care more about democracy, freedom and human rights, are apprehensive about China’s harsh crackdown on dissent and are further alienated by the detention of Lee Ming-che (李明哲), a young Taiwanese rights activist, by China’s security apparatus.
If Xi wishes to fulfill his “Chinese Dream,” Chinese officials must be taught to respect universal values and practice the rule of law.
Parris Chang is president of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic, Strategic Studies, a former deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council and professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University.
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