Over the past 15 years, as China has made rapid strides in economic, military, scientific and technological areas and gradually become a world leader, it began to interact from a position of strength with traditional world powers, including the US.
On Taiwan, it has changed its stance from passively opposing independence to actively promoting unification by explicitly bringing a timetable into the discussion, thus retiring “indefinitely delaying unification” as a viable option.
As a result, under the dual geopolitical pressures of the Thucydides trap caused by Sino-US hegemony and the urge for unification as ignited by the dream of rejuvenating the Chinese nation, in the next 10 years Taiwan will inevitably come into conflict with China in the form of a political and/or military struggle, with the stakes being the existing democratic way of life that its people currently enjoy.
As for what strategy is best to handle this prospective struggle, there are currently three prevailing propositions in Taiwan. The first, adopted by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, asserts that Taiwan is a nation independent of China and would go all-out to defend this sovereignty, while leveraging the military might of the US as much as possible to deter or contain China’s aggression.
The second, as advocated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party, recognizes Taiwan as a part of China and is willing to conduct political negotiations with China to achieve peaceful unification while maintaining Taiwan’s existing democratic way of life. However, if China forces unification upon Taiwan without offering credible guarantees on the latter’s democratic way of life, Taiwan should rise and fight against China’s aggression.
The third comes from local pacifists, who insist that under no conditions should Taiwan turn into a battlefield. This proposition differs from the second proposition in that even if China cannot satisfactorily guarantee Taiwan’s existing democratic system after unification, Taiwan should still not confront China militarily. “Peace, even the most groveling kind, is still peace” is their motto.
In terms of the highest political priority, it is national sovereignty for the first proposition, Taiwan’s existing democratic way of life for the second proposition, and human life and property for the third proposition. As for implementation measure, the first and second propositions require a war readiness plan for military confrontation against China, while the second and third propositions require a separate action plan for unification negotiations so that Taiwan could secure the strongest assurances from China.
Although different political parties might choose different strategic propositions to deal with China’s aggression when they rise to power, as a whole the best way to defend Taiwan is to devise a comprehensive readiness plan that covers both military confrontation and political negotiations.
Judging from newspaper reports and official government publications, Taiwan’s current war readiness plan is entirely geared toward military conflict, and is largely blank with respect to the potential political war of unification negotiations.
Political parties and the public are embroiled in debating the strengths, weaknesses, and pros and cons of these strategic propositions, rather than focusing on the development of concrete measures, detailed mechanisms and the creative thoughts required for a peaceful unification agreement that meets real-world political constraints and is practically realizable to both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Given the time pressure for an imminent showdown with China is so high, it is precarious and unwise for Taiwan to be so one-sided in its preparations for the upcoming war, military or political.
“Only being well-prepared for war can you prevent war” is a consensus shared by both the ruling and opposition parties, and wider society, but Taiwan has to be both militarily and politically prepared, because the significant imbalance between Taiwan’s and China’s military strengths suggests that political negotiations at some point are all but inevitable, as evidenced by the evolution of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
To prepare itself for unification negotiations that could potentially impact Taiwan for the next 100 years, first Taiwan should gather together first-rate legal, political, economic, diplomatic and business experts from home and abroad, analyze the lessons of Hong Kong’s fall and the EU’s formation, pervasively survey concerns, opinions and ideas from all walks of life within Taiwan, and, through war game-like simulations of a great multitude of likely evolutions of global political and economic scenarios, devise and identify all possible peaceful unification arrangements that both guarantee Taiwan’s democratic way of life and are politically acceptable to China.
However, perhaps the most important and challenging preparation that Taiwan needs but is yet to have is for all its major political parties to reach, in advance, a consensus on the when, what and how of unification engagement with China.
That is, regardless of whether a political party agrees with the peaceful unification policy, it must be willing to participate in and help complete the development of Taiwan’s own peaceful unification proposal, so that should the time come to negotiate with China, Taiwan can present a unified front and speak with one voice, with the aim of maximizing post-unification security guarantees for Taiwan.
Chiueh Tzi-cker is a professor in the Institute of Information Security at National Tsing Hua University.
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