The forum involving the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that had been suspended for nine years is to resume this month, media reports said, likely as a prelude to a meeting between KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in March.
The Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Culture Forum was proposed in 2005 by then-KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) during Lien’s so-called “ice-breaker” trip to Beijing, and was held annually from 2006.
However, it has been suspended since 2017, one year after the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) defeated the KMT in the 2016 presidential election. Its suspension was attributed to Beijing’s perception that the forum was ineffective in swaying the political preferences of Taiwanese.
Online news Web site Meihua Media on Friday last week reported that the KMT and the CCP are to hold the forum from Jan. 27 to 29 in Beijing. The KMT delegation would be led by Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), and aims to set up a Cheng-Xi meeting, the report said.
Although the KMT has been tight-lipped about a potential meeting, Cheng, who has expressed her willingness to meet with Xi since her inauguration as KMT chair, said the party is preparing to resume formal dialogue with the CCP and has topics to discuss.
The danger is that China typically manipulates such events to promote its “united front” operations. The controversial Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed in 2010 and the 2013 Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, which raised concerns over opaque legislative procedures and national security risks, led to the widespread protests of the Sunflower movement. Both were derivatives of the KMT-CCP forum.
Agreements made at the forum always contain explicit political statements such as “people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China” to echo Beijing’s “one China” principle, which denies the existence of the Republic of China in Taiwan. They also avoid the KMT’s so-called “1992 consensus,” including “one China, different interpretations.”
The resumption of the forum and the push for a meeting with Xi could be a strategic move by Cheng to claim a place in the history of cross-strait relations, as well as to solidify her control over the KMT and pro-China forces in Taiwan.
However, there is likely to be backlash, especially as China escalates its coercive tactics. Pundits have warned that the KMT’s engagement with the CCP might come at the expense of Taiwan’s sovereignty and security.
Trips to China by Hsiao and fellow KMT Vice Chairman Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) have shown that such fears might not be unfounded. During a meeting with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤), Hsiao reportedly pledged to oppose Taiwanese independence and support China’s “unification” with Taiwan. Media reports said that Beijing gave the KMT several conditions for a Cheng-Xi meeting, including blocking the defense budget proposed by the DPP government, as well as legislation “limiting Chinese spouses’ freedom” and Chinese investment in Taiwan. It also demanded the removal of institutional obstacles to unification, such as the phrase “opposing communism” in the KMT’s charter.
Although the KMT has denied the reports, its legislators have consistently blocked defense budgets and proposals to prevent Chinese infiltration.
The military drills that Beijing launched late last year showed the ineffectiveness of the KMT’s actions in swaying China. The exercises began shortly after Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) attended the Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum in China and called for peace across Taiwan Strait, highlighting how the KMT’s appeasement of Beijing and engagements with the CCP fail to protect Taiwan.
A survey by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation showed that more than 50 percent of respondents perceived the KMT as identifying more with China than with Taiwan, while more than 67 percent said the KMT no longer has a firm anti-communist stance. The results indicate that the public has seen through the KMT’s chameleon-like nature in China-related policies.
The engagements between the KMT and the CCP are likely to show more clearly whether the opposition party and its leaders would stand up to hegemony, or, as before, seek political gain at the expense of Taiwan’s dignity.
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