When the Democratic Progressive Party (
On Sept. 20, 1999, Chen, as the DPP's presidential candidate for the year 2000, unveiled a five-point China policy platform for normalizing cross-strait relations. In addition to advocating a comprehensive dialogue with Beijing based on equal footing and the establishment of military confidence-building mechanisms (CBMs), Chen also expressed his willingness to sign a peace agreement or treaty with China, to make a personal visit to the mainland once he is elected as the president next March, and allow a conditional lifting of the ban on direct links between Taiwan and China.
What has changed Chen's mentality and his idea of Taiwan's relationship with China? Is he ready to convince people that he is a responsible leader who could alleviate tension and instability across the Taiwan Straits? To what extent can Chen develop a feasible approach, to distinguish himself from Lien Chan (
To understand Chen's concept of cross-strait relations, we have to retrace the evolution of the DPP's China policy.
For the past decade, the DPP's cross-strait policy has been affected primarily by the interplay of domestically generated and institutionalized identity issues and changing international norms. That is, the appeal to independence was not only a way to enlarge its support base domestically, but also a strategy to demonstrate Taiwan's independence to the world. However, the strategic thinking, based largely on electoral consideration, also constrained its policy options, especially in the face of international pressure.
Old style DPP leaders might suggest making an early bid for de jure independence, rather than waiting for some future time when the growth of the PRC's military capabilities could change the balance of power in East Asia. This self-interested and security-oriented approach runs the risk of overestimating the nature and scale of US military support in the wake of a potential attack from Beijing. Furthermore, it also creates a "security dilemma" whereby attempts by any state to strengthen its security by increasing its own military power (in this case Taiwan's pursuit of de jure independence) provokes other states to follow suit, thereby rendering the initiating state as insecure as before.
In the post-Cold War era, DPP leaders started to modify their position on independence in1994. Former Chairmen such as Shi Ming-teh (
The 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis and the 1997 Clinton-Jiang Zeming (
Just because Chen played an insignificant role in the debate does not mean he had no idea of DPP's evolution on cross-strait policy. Instead, through pragmatic examination of cross-strait relations and external changes, the party itself has become the backbone for flexible policy adjustments.
Since President Clinton announced the "three no's" policy (
When the media attention was on President Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) July announcement that the relation between Taiwan and China is a "special state-to-state relationship"(特殊國與國關係), people seemed to forget that this was simply a reflection of DPP's long-time position on cross-strait relations. Even Chen, during a trip to Washington this April, publicly called for Taipei and Beijing to develop an "international special relationship" (國際特殊關係). The essence of this relationship entails the recognition of "two distinguishable ethnic Chinese countries," namely, ROC and PRC. What exactly is a suitable framework for this future relationship, according to Chen, should be worked out by both governments working on an equal footing. In this regard, the DPP and Chen deserve real credit for consistently safeguarding Taiwan's independent statehood and making efforts to work out future relations with Beijing.
As for the China policy platform Chen has recently laid down, it displayed what he called a "new middle way" (
First of all, the KMT's passive strategy of "no rush, be patien," (
Furthermore, in contrast to James Soong's position on opening the three links (
The extent to which the proposals revealed by Chen would work remains to be seen and more concrete policies will have to be formulated to fulfill them, ie, setting up the preliminary work for negotiation and the contents for a peace agreement. However, one thing is certain: this has demonstrated Chen's and the DPP's determination to face the real world of post-Cold War international politics.
Liu Shih-chung is the deputy director of the Democratic Progressive Party's Department of International Affairs.
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