A new report by a US think tank on January’s presidential election predicts that if President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is re-elected, pressure will build in China to launch political talks.
“Ma represents mainland [sic] China’s best chance to secure an agreement that would rule out independence for Taiwan,” according to the study by Bonnie Glaser and Brittany Billingsley of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“Even though Chinese leaders are loath to see a referendum conducted on Taiwan, they may be willing to tolerate a plebiscite if it is a necessary hurdle to signing a cross-Strait peace accord and [if] there is a high-degree of certainty that it would pass,” said the study, titled Taiwan’s 2012 Presidential Elections and Cross-Strait Relations — Implications for the United States.
“In the event that opening talks on a peace agreement is deemed premature by Ma in a second term, there is still potential for agreement on the implementation of military CBMs [confidence building measures] aimed at reducing the risk of accident and miscalculation and at enhancing mutual trust,” the study said.
Glaser, a senior fellow, and Billingsley, a research associate, said that if Ma were re-elected, Beijing could become impatient for faster progress toward unification and “put pressure on Ma’s government to launch talks aimed at settling political differences.”
“Absent a domestic consensus on the island, cross-Strait political talks could be extremely divisive with possible negative repercussions both within Taiwan and between the two sides of the Strait,” they wrote.
A victory by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) could mean that cross-strait interactions would slow, they said, adding: “In a worst-case scenario, tensions that characterized the era of the first DPP president, Chen Shui-bian [陳水扁], could reemerge.”
“Beijing is watching the presidential campaign with great concern and China’s leadership is pessimistic about the prospects for maintaining cross-Strait stability and progress if the DPP returns to power,” they wrote.
The authors traveled extensively and held private talks with leaders in the US, Taiwan and China to write the study.
“A decision by Taipei to pursue cross-Strait military CBMs would receive US support, as would the opening of cross-Strait political talks, assuming that such initiatives were backed by the majority of the people of Taiwan and were undertaken voluntarily rather than as a result of coercion,” they wrote.
While the US is not supporting any particular candidate, Glaser and Billingsley said: “Sustaining cross-Strait peace and stability is especially critical as the US manages friction with Beijing on a broad range of economic, political and security issues.
China is anxious about a possible DPP return to power and is “especially suspicious of [DPP Chairperson] Tsai Ing-wen,” in part because of her role in former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) administration.
“One mainland [sic] official implied that Beijing is bracing itself for a DPP presidency that from the outset might be confrontational and provocative,” they wrote.
“Since the mainland’s [sic] ability to influence the election is strictly limited, but so much is at stake for Chinese interests, some mainland [sic] Chinese urge the US to help boost Ma’s reelection prospects by publicizing American concern about the possibility of a setback in cross-Strait relations should the DPP return to power,” they wrote.
Despite warnings from Beijing of serious repercussions should DPP policies be “unacceptable and even provocative,” Glaser and Billingsley wrote that “there have been no hints in either public or private statements about any consideration of taking military action.”
“Should Tsai Ing-wen be elected president, the intervening four months prior to her inauguration would likely be a probing period in which Beijing and Taipei each seek to maximize their advantage and extract concessions from the other,” they wrote.
“Active diplomacy by the US would be critical to persuade both sides to demonstrate maximum flexibility and reach a compromise that would enable negotiation channels to remain open and cooperation to continue,” the study said.
China would “undoubtedly be tempted,” they said, to use economic and other means to punish pro-independence forces in Taiwan.
The newly elected DPP government could point to these punitive actions as further evidence of China’s malevolent intent and respond with tougher policies of its own, “further agitating” tension.
“Faced with this conundrum, Beijing might seek to pursue a policy that preserves past gains but at the same time deters the DPP from challenging the mainland’s [sic] bottom line, and wait for the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] to return to power,” the authors wrote.
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