A Washington conference held on Wednesday to coincide with the release of a new Rand Corporation National Security Research Division study on China and Taiwan heard how Taiwanese identity and public resistance in Taiwan to unification with China could eventually test Beijing’s patience given the recent warming in ties.
The study, entitled A Question of Balance, states that “it is in these very expectations of a new and more accommodating Taiwan government that the seeds of disappointment and future crisis may lie.”
“Among the more profound changes to affect the political balance between Beijing and Taipei has been the growth of a widespread independent Taiwan identity, a sense of distinct ‘Taiwanese-ness,’” the study says.
“The changes in the political, social and cultural identity of [Taiwan’s] population are genuine, significant, and enduring, and these realities strongly suggest that even the most flexible Taipei government will reach its limits of possible accommodation well short of Beijing’s desired position,” the report said.
“The unbridgeable distance between these two positions is not likely to shrink in the coming decade; the opposite may indeed be the case, regardless of which party rules Taiwan,” it said.
China’s growing military power, the study says, may convince its leaders that China possesses credible options that go beyond rhetoric and economic harassment if — “more likely, when” — the next cross-strait crisis erupts.
But it adds that under the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) no one on Taiwan may be inclined to “push the envelope” on independence or related issues any time soon.
One panelist said that under certain circumstances a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) win in the next Taiwanese presidential election could trigger a military attack.
Roger Cliff, a senior political analyst with the Rand Corporation, said that the scenario worried him.
He said it could happen if at the time of the next Taiwanese presidential election the Chinese government was under pressure from domestic critics for not delivering on issues such as the economy, social stability and foreign policy.
China is currently comfortable Ma’s policies but Ma’s popularity ratings are very low, Cliff said.
He added: “Ma has a couple of years to recover but if the DPP should win the next presidential election, that could be a situation where Beijing might feel compelled to use force in order to hold off those domestic critics.”
The conference, organized by the Center for National Policy, heard earlier from China analyst Toy Reid that “history teaches us that there have been cases in which governments such as the one in China find themselves in domestic hot waters and turn their attention outward in order to distract their people from the lack of good governance at home and ineffective policies.”
“But under the current conditions it would be difficult for the Chinese to concoct such a situation when the president of Taiwan has gone out of his way to accommodate Beijing’s desires,” Reid said.
Cliff said China’s military was in the midst of a transformation that would lead it in the next five to 10 years to become the world’s No. 2 military power. At that point, it could probably prevail against the US in a conflict near its own shores.
He said Beijing had made a sustained effort to become capable of forcing Taiwan to accept unification even if the US intervened militarily.
The study concludes that in the longer term the US and Taiwan must confront a fundamental strategic dilemma — Taiwan lies close to China and very far from the US.
“This geographic asymmetry combined with China’s growing capabilities and the lack of basing options for US forces in the vicinity of the strait, call into question Washington’s ability to credibly serve as guarantor of Taiwan’s security in the future,” the study says.
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