Tue, Oct 24, 2017 page8

• Growth of China’s Taiwan policy

  • By Tang Shao-cheng 湯紹成
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  Earlier this month, the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of China’s State Council appointed former Chinese permanent representative to the UN Liu Jieyi (劉結一) as its new vice minister, and made him first among the office’s four vice ministers.

  This unprecedented move suggests that Liu is to take over from TAO Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) following the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP)19th National Congress, which opened in Beijing on Wednesday last week and is to conclude today.

  In July 1954, the CCP Central Committee established a Central Group for Taiwan Affairs, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) set up a corresponding department, but there was no communication between the two.

  In 1987, then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) started allowing people who had followed the KMT to Taiwan to visit their families in China, giving rise to complicated issues concerning property and inheritance. This finally spurred new developments in relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

  In August 1988, Taiwan established the Mainland Affairs Committee, which in January 1991 became part of the Cabinet and was renamed the Mainland Affairs Council.

  China established the TAO in 1988 to enable the two sides to talk through corresponding agencies.

  China has a one-party system in which the CCP exercises leadership over the government, so the highest policymaking department for Taiwan affairs is the CCP Central Committee’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, which took over the duties of the Central Group for Taiwan Affairs in 1979 and is always headed by the general secretary of the CCP.

  Subordinate to the Central Leading Group is the CCP Central Committee’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which leads the work of the TAO.

  This arrangement forms a structure under which the same officials effectively operate under two different titles, one part of the party and the other a governmental body.

  The head of the TAO was originally called “director” in English. Later, the English title was changed to “minister,” although the Chinese title remains unchanged.

  The TAO’s early directors were leading figures in domestic policy affairs. This was true of Wang Zhaoguo (王兆國), originally director of the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, who headed the TAO from 1991 to 1996, and his successor, Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), who was director from 1996 to 2008 after serving as governor of Heilongjiang Province.

  Then came Wang Yi (王毅), who was head of the TAO from 2008 to 2013 after being transferred from the post of vice minister in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thus forming a closer connection between China’s policies regarding Taiwan and its foreign policy and indicating the importance of foreign relations in relation to the Taiwan question.

  Zhang, like Wang Yi, was vice minister of foreign affairs before taking up the TAO post.

  In February, Dai Bingguo (戴秉國), a former state councilor in charge of foreign affairs, became president of China’s National Society of Taiwan Studies, and in the same month, Yang Mingjie (楊明杰), an expert in international military and Asia-Pacific affairs, became director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Taiwan Studies.

  These appointments show how much importance Beijing attaches to international affairs in relation to its Taiwan policies.

  Liu has now been appointed as vice minister of the TAO and is likely to become the minister. That these three leaders in China’s Taiwan policy are so highly qualified in their international outlook and experience shows that China wants to strengthen the international aspect of its work regarding Taiwan, which will pose even tougher challenges for Taipei.

  Liu is 59 years old and has been working in the diplomatic field for nearly 30 years, working his way from third secretary in the foreign ministry all the way up to permanent representative to the UN. He acted forcefully during his time at the UN, occasionally locking horns with his UK and US counterparts and sparing no effort to uphold China’s interests.

  Taiwan is seeking to take part in the annual World Health Assembly and in other UN-related organizations — a field with which Liu is highly familiar.

  In contrast, 46 years have passed since Taiwan withdrew from the UN, leaving the nation relatively unfamiliar with this field, while it has failed to cultivate many talented diplomats. This disadvantage will make it even harder for Taiwan to break out of its international isolation.

  Liu’s wife, Zhang Qiyue (章啟月), is also a professional diplomat and holds the post of China’s consul general in New York. She has experience in handling a major diplomatic incident involving Taiwan.

  When Taiwan established diplomatic relations with Macedonia in February 1999, Zhang Qiyue was spokeswoman of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and she was still in that position in June 2001, when Macedonia reverted to having diplomatic relations with China. This experience surely made her extra vigilant about preventing diplomatic breakthroughs by Taiwan.

  China’s national power has been growing, and a stronger China can be expected to become more steadfast with regard to its foreign policy. It will stick even more firmly to its principles regarding Taiwan and employ tougher means to achieve its ends. This will put Taiwan in a difficult position with regard to its China and other foreign relations.

  This is all the more true since Premier William Lai (賴清德) expressed his support for Taiwanese independence and following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) reiteration in her Double Ten National Day speech of her administration’s “new four noes” policy on cross-strait relations — no changes in its pledges, no changes in its goodwill, no bowing to pressure and no reversion to the old path of confrontation.

  These developments have made the Democratic Progressive Party’s posture of “soft Taiwanese independence” more clear-cut and will prompt Beijing to further tighten its policies.

  However, only after the congress is over and after US President Donald Trump’s visit to China next month will it be clear what China actually does about it.

  When the time comes, a new peak in Beijing’s Taiwan policies can be expected.

  Tang Shao-cheng is a research fellow in the Division of American and European Studies at National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations.

  Translated by Julian Clegg
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