Not in the shadows, but rather in the limelight of the visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we now have available China’s white paper, issued freely for all to read. My comments here will not state the obviously expected: China remains determined that Taiwan is a natural, historical and cultural component of the Chinese nation, and of — in a broader spirit — Chinese civilization. All of this is one compounded “indisputable fact.” There seems little point in analyzing this well-known position.
What is of great interest is the manner, if any, in which the present Chinese government manages the details and nuances, especially how far it attempts something of a soft-power strategy — or at least a diplomatic and evolutionary approach. It is also worth querying how far it acknowledges the impact of the US, the likely position of the true global system, especially South Asia and Europe, or provides any gradient of alternatives to a simple once-and-for-all unification.
Does the white paper see the “Taiwan question” in a global context? Yes, there are frequent allusions to “external forces” that have “instigated provocative actions by the separatist forces ... and undermined peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Does China see unification as a natural historical continuation toward an inevitable rejuvenation? Most certainly it does. Much of the document is historical, ranging from ancient times to more detailed interpretations of the years since 1945. There is a neglect of the years from the 1840s to the 1890s when imperial China certainly failed to maintain its responsibilities over Taiwan in the face of commercial aggression and warfare, but otherwise the judgements are not ones that would be condemned by many Western historians.
Does the white paper merely repeat the idee fixe of a non-changing “status quo”? This is restated, but not relied on. The bias of the paper is to emphasize dynamics that will shift the “status quo” through even greater commercial relationships, Chinese efforts at complementarity and interaction, and more effective exclusion of US and other foreign interventions. Japan is not developed in that context, but would probably loom larger if the document was being written today. The Democratic Progressive Party is regarded as a barrier to all such elements.
Is the white paper itself a soft-power document? Yes, throughout it is an address equally to Taiwan and the Western world, and this culminates in the claims of sections 4 and 5 of the text. The main claims are persuasive and broadly socio-cultural, not hard or militant. Importantly, there are several instances describing Taiwan after a peaceful “reunification.”
Here is a fairly representative piece of soft-powering the text: “We maintain that after peaceful reunification, Taiwan may continue its current social system and enjoy a high degree of autonomy in accordance with the law. The two social systems will develop side by side for a long time to come... To realize peaceful reunification, we must acknowledge that the mainland and Taiwan have their own distinct social systems and ideologies.”
This seeming liberalism is based firmly on positive statements concerning economic complementarities and personal and institutional interactions. There is no mention of forced socio-cultural change. As with its own overall governmental system, the Chinese government prefers to focus on progress in economic development through greater liberalism in commercial, economic and innovation institutions, with a shadow assumption concerning improved political freedoms.
This is a reasonable positive position: Between 2011 and this year the Index of Economic Freedom of the Washington based Freedom House for China has improved from 51 to 58.4, the US moving from 78 to 74.8 and the world from 56.6 to 59.1. China is low, but improving alongside the rest of the world in a liberalizing global market system; the US seems to be the important outrider.
Yet the most important repeated theme of the text is the refusal to countenance a forced unification if the matter is resolved bilaterally. Throughout there is the repetition that the alternative military clash could only come about through foreign interference; the latter is seen as progressing through Western interference within Taiwanese politics. The philosophy of the paper is that left to themselves the two systems would evolve over time in such a manner that resolution would not entail any sort of warfare.
I am well aware that the greater media chorus in Taiwan and elsewhere will emphasize the well-known criticisms of China and its ultimate aims. They will emphasize the obvious differences in the “two systems,” the continual importance of a “strong” US position (one that constantly fails to back Taiwanese nationhood as a possibly international target, one that could perhaps be expressed through the UN), and the military might and proximity of China.
However, we are also free to emphasize the elements of evolution and peaceful resolution that we may unearth in this document. My own position is that the second depends on the first, and this is the slightly open window offered by this white paper.
China is nothing like it was in 1950 or 1971, unrecognizable from its status and position in 1895 when Japan colonized Taiwan by force. The paper allows for a continued evolution, whereby the social and economic differences between China and Taiwan will continue to be eroded, not by dictates of government so much as by millions of citizens on both sides of the Strait as they go about their legitimate producing, servicing, trading and investing livelihoods.
On this reading it all seems fairly clear. “Reunification” is seen by the Chinese, as of this month, as one step on the road to a total Chinese rejuvenation, one important measure of China’s attainment of the political status it would have had in the absence of the commercial and gunboat interference of the Western powers and Japan.
The strong hint (or soft-power claim) is that with further Chinese development and unification the world will itself attain a more normal balance of forces, producing a peaceful equilibrium as a matter of mutual economic interests.
This is not in itself any sort of a warrior stance. To affirm in an official white paper that the Taiwanese are “brave, diligent and patriotic” is hardly a militant perspective, and turning it toward something brimming with aggression requires that we work on an unshakable premise that China lies. But then we might expect that such an assertion continues with the claim that all the West tells an unbridled truth.
I prefer to treat any such assumptions as of little utility.
Professor Ian Inkster is a global historian and political economist at the Center of Taiwan Studies, SOAS, University of London, and a senior fellow in the Taiwan Studies Programme at the University of Nottingham, UK. The views expressed in this article are his own.
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