The fourth plenary session of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, which was held over four days toward the end of last month, discussed and adopted a decision on comprehensively advancing the rule of law. For six straight days after the plenum, the People’s Daily ran editorials and opinion articles stressing the importance of the rule of law for achieving the “Chinese dream.” However, the party’s idea of rule of law is one that is in conformity with “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
For outside media and critics familiar with the party and its ways, there is absolutely nothing new about the resolution, which in essence calls for the rule of law under the CCP’s leadership.
One point that is worthy of attention, however, is what the decision says about using juridical means to complete the task of the “peaceful unification of the motherland.” The decision states that Beijing should apply juridical means to uphold the “one China” principle and oppose Taiwanese independence, as well as promote and uphold a common recognition of the “one China” framework, and promote the peaceful unification of the motherland. This is expressed in terms that stress achieving unification by non-military means, so as to mitigate the strong animosity toward the move that has been prevalent among Taiwanese since opposition to the cross-strait agreement on trade in services sparked the Sunflower movement on March 18.
Presumably, in the CCP’s judgement there is no need — at present — to move toward annexation by military force. Rather, the party thinks that a military threat is sufficient to strengthen its indirect influence over Taiwan. This strategy, combined with the flow of people and money, does indeed amount to a very strong influence. Of course, China does not exclude the option of applying the “one country, two systems” framework to Taiwan by more forceful means when the time is right.
This situation highlights the way in which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authorities have, over the past few months, been wantonly cooperating with Beijing by throwing Taiwan’s doors wide open to China.
Since the Sunflower movement, various events have rekindled discussion about the “China factor.” These include admitting Chinese visitors to the outlying islands of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu with landing visas; the takeover of cleaning product maker Magic Amah Household (Taiwan) Co by Chinese investors; the inclusion of Chinese students in the National Health Insurance scheme; allowing a Chinese engineering vessel to work on a domestic solar energy project (even if that permission was later rescinded); and the presence of China-registered cars on Taiwanese roads.
Further measures that have been suggested include extending the time limit for Chinese tourists’ visits to Taiwan to one month; shortening the amount of time that Chinese spouses of Taiwanese have to wait before they can buy stocks and shares; and so on and so forth. That is not to mention the service trade agreement and the planned free economic pilot zones, which would involve opening up important sectors such as finance to Chinese investment, and which have provoked a strong backlash. Not to be forgotten, of course, are the Want Want China Times Group’s attempts a year or two ago to acquire cable television services and a big stake in the Next Media Group’s media assets in Taiwan.
Taken one at a time, these incidents and issues might not be particularly worrying, but when one considers the overall extent and speed of the opening-up, one may be alarmed to see how far along China is in its piecemeal takeover of Taiwan. While people may still wishfully believe Taiwan is “maintaining the so-called ‘status quo,’” the “China factor” has been at the fore since 2012, when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was re-elected to a second term, and this has led to a lot of qualitative changes that have since turned into quantitative ones.
The biggest concern for many people is possibly the economic problems and inequalities in the distribution of resources that these qualitative changes have brought about. The original decision to allow direct cross-strait travel increased the number of Chinese travelers in Taiwan from none to some. At first, they were only allowed to visit in groups, but later on, the door was opened to individual travelers too.
These qualitative changes have been followed by quantitative issues about the number of visitors allowed and how long they can stay. Even Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) admits the existence of so-called “through-train” operations, under which Chinese businesses run all aspects of tours from start to finish. This reflects how the nation’s tourism resources are being consumed by Chinese people and businesses, and how the best of its scenic resources are being used up. Domestic travelers are being squeezed out, while the economic and living conditions of people working in locally owned travel-related businesses have not improved greatly.
Admitting students from China may not be as controversial as letting workers in, but, aside from the drain on educational resources, if these students are brought under the National Health Insurance program, even if they pay full premiums, they are sure to consume medical resources. If the government succeeds in pushing through the service trade agreement and establishing free economic pilot zones, large numbers of Chinese will take jobs in Taiwan and the consequences of that go without saying.
Even if people are not concerned about resources getting used up, something even more worrying is the negative political impact that population movements bring. If one is even slightly familiar with what is going on in Hong Kong these days, it will not be hard to see what effect a change in population structure engineered by the Chinese authorities can have in terms of building support for unification. Even though many people who grew up in Hong Kong regard Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying (梁振英), who was not elected by universal suffrage, with contempt, he still enjoys the support of nearly 30 percent of the population.
East Turkestan (China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) and Tibet are two regions that have been experiencing an influx of outsiders and an exodus of locals, as well as the resulting negative effects of Sinicization, over a long period of time. Under the CCP’s policies of taking over a local economy bit by bit and moving outside Chinese in, these settlers effectively become pawns in the game of annexing the territory of other ethnic groups. These people are not to blame for that policy, but, for the sake of safeguarding their own group’s interests, they can at times become tools of repression in the hands of the party.
The CCP sees Taiwan as being like Hong Kong 12 or 20 years ago, or East Turkestan and Tibet several decades ago, and deals with the nation accordingly. If Taiwan does not immediately start preventing qualitative changes to its economy and population, and halting the various kinds of quantitative changes that are already going on, it is likely to regret it in the future, when it will be too late.
As well as refusing to negotiate a cross-strait peace agreement that would wipe Taiwan off the map, an even more important way of preventing such an outcome is to start the internal process of normalizing Taiwan as a nation-state, giving priority to establishing charters that really belong to the Taiwanese public, finding a new national title to replace the “Republic of China” and delineating the state’s boundaries. Until Taiwan is normalized as a nation-state, the “China factor” will in reality be the “CCP factor,” so it is essential to check the spread of all the kinds of small qualitative change that have been taking place.
Leung Man-to is a professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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