China's Taiwan Affairs Office has issued a tough statement
in response to President Chen
Shui-bian's (
First, although the tough statement was directed at Chen,
I am afraid it also offended the Taiwanese general public.
Taiwanese public opinion has lately been focusing on the idea that "The Republic of China [ROC] is a Taiwanese treasure, and its protective charm." This is a new way of protecting the old viewpoint that "Republic of China is the nation's title."
In the wake of the recent chaotic movement to rectify the national title, and as a result of both domestic and international pressure, Chen's statement
that "The Republic of China
is Taiwan, and Taiwan is the Republic of China" was directed at Taiwanese mainstream
opinion.
The pan-blue camp was mightily distressed at seeing Chen move faster than they did, because they felt he stole a sentence that would be of extraordinarily good use when attempting to relieve massive domestic pressures for localization and avoid a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Unexpectedly, the Taiwan Affairs Office highlighted this sentence in the speech as an expression of "naked Taiwan independence."
With the ROC national title thus having been attacked as being an expression of "naked Taiwan independence," Taiwan's government no longer knows how to adjust its discourse.
Some say this calamity was caused by saying that the ROC is Taiwan, and that it would be better to simply say that the ROC is the Chinese mainland and Taiwan.
Indeed, saying that the ROC equals Taiwan plus the Chinese mainland would be much more welcome in Beijing, but it would not affect China's threat to invade.
On the contrary, with Taiwan and the China united as one country, there would be a Republic of China on Taiwan to rival the People's Republic of China, that is to say, the two would meet the conditions of a civil war, and Taiwan would be seen as a rebellious part of China.
In such a situation, a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan would be nothing but a domestic affair.
Any country trying to deal with that situation would be violating the international principle excluding interference in the domestic affairs of other states.
Beijing could thus hammer away at Taiwan to its heart's content, because, with Taiwan itself asking for a beating, Beijing would only be too happy to oblige.
Since Taiwanese independence would be a reason for launching an attack, China would be even happier to attack a rebel group. I truly cannot understand wherein the cleverness lies when the Taiwanese public chooses to place itself in the position of a domestic Chinese rebel group.
Judging from Beijing's response, it should be abundantly clear that the ideas of a "Nation of Taiwan" and "The Republic of China is Taiwan" make up Taiwan's first and second external lines of defense.
Since Chen has abandoned the first line of defense, Beijing is launching a merciless attack on the second line of defense.
If the second external line of defense is abandoned, China will then be certain to enter Taiwan and engage in close range combat.
Second, Beijing never used to talk about the so-called "1992 consensus."
The 1992 consensus was an invention by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which said it meant "one China, with each side having its own interpretation." Taiwanese public opinion joined in. This was the first time the Taiwan Affairs Office officially stressed that the 1992 consensus should be adhered to, pleasing the public.
In the past, the ROC was pushed into a corner by China, making action difficult. During the 1992 meeting in Hong Kong, China's representative demanded that Taiwan's representative verbally state the "one China" principle.
Taiwan's representative wanted the verbal statement to be in the interests of Taiwan, and managed to change the original "each side stating that there is one China" to "one China, with each side having its own interpretation."
No conclusion was reached, but in order to deal with domestic political enemies, the KMT insisted a consensus had been reached. Beijing now takes advantage of the situation and, saying there was a consensus, uses it to force Taiwan into submission.
Beijing has of course decided that the consensus is that there can be no "one China, with each side having its own interpretation" meaning that there is no Republic of China. The KMT is not a very clever organization, but showing themselves off as smart alecks, they have brought harm to us all.
Finally, there are a few more points we should pay attention to.
First, Beijing responded to Chen's 2000 inauguration speech in a couple of hours, while it took them four days to respond to his second inauguration speech in May.
Second, Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Zhang Ming-qing (張銘清) only read a statement and was unwilling to answer any questions, wearing an exceptionally stiff expression making it clear that he was unhappy to respond to Chen's speech.
Third, the statement was fairly chaotic, with many
contradictions.
Chen's unambiguous statement that he will not change the national title was met with, on the one hand, a great fuss over changing national title and, on the other hand, by severe criticism, with China saying it did not understand what "the Republic of China" means.
Fourth, and most important, former Chinese premier Qian Qichen (錢其琛) had said previously that politics and economics should be kept separate, that "one China" was not a premise for direct links and that transportation links could be described as "special."
Beijing has now gone and changed all that.
On paper, they stress the "one China" premise and say they are ready to sacrifice everything for domestic affairs.
Then they make a major political change and build great obstacles to the opening of direct links while saying that they want to separate politics and economic issues. Contradictions abound.
There are several reasons for China's contradictory attitudes and caution.
First, they want to take advantage of US displeasure with Taiwan.
Second, they predict that the US Democratic Party and their Chinese experts, who are even more unfriendly toward Taiwan, will win the US presidential election.
Third, they want to keep a low profile during Taiwan's election campaign and year-end legislative vote.
Fourth, China's Taiwan policy is in a transition period between old and new.
What ever happens, these phenomena imply that China's Taiwan policy is going from overtness to covertness, making a breakthrough difficult. More cross-strait friction is to be expected.
Lin Cho-shui is a Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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