Taiwan's Mainland Policy

Taiwan's Mainland Policy: Normalization, Yes; Reunification, Later
Author(s): Jean-Pierre Cabestan

Source: The China Quarterly, No. 148, Special Issue: Contemporary Taiwan (Dec., 1996), pp.
1260-1283
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies
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Taiwan's Mainland
Policy:
Normalization,
Yes; Reunification,
Later
Jean-Pierre Cabestan
Since
1949,
the
spectre
of the
People's Republic
of China
(PRC)
has
constantly
dominated Taiwan's
political stage.
The PRC was considered
until the mid-1960s
by Chiang
Kai-shek,
then President of the
Republic
of China on Taiwan
(ROCOT),
as a
part
of the
country
to be
reconquered
from the Communist bandits
(gongfei).
And since the United States'
de-recognition
in 1979 the reunification with mainland China has re-
mained one of the
key
official
objectives
of the Nationalist
regime.
Yet Taiwan's mainland
policy
has
gradually changed
since
Washing-
ton established
diplomatic
relations with
Beijing
and the PRC
adopted
an
open-door policy
and economic reforms.
Taipei's
international
isolation
forced the
Kuomintang (KMT)
to instil some
flexibility
in its "one China
policy."
For
example,
in the last
years
of
Chiang Ching-kuo's
rule
(1982-88),
Taiwan started to
accept reluctantly
the name "Chinese
Taipei"
in several
international
organizations
where the PRC
represented
China.' In other
words,
in
Taipei's
view,
mainland China
turned
into a
grey
area controlled
by
some Chinese Communist authorities
(zhonggong
dangju)
which,
though
not
recognized
as a national
government,
were
considered as
administering
a
separate entity.
But it was the democratization of the ROCOT which constituted the
biggest changes
in Taiwan's mainland
policy.
Of
course,
one can
argue
that sooner or
later,
because of the PRC's
growing
economic and
political
influence on the world
scene,
the ROCOT would have been
compelled
to
adopt
a mainland China
policy
similar to the one it claims
today;
nevertheless,
initiated
by Chiang
Kai-shek's son in
1986,
the democra-
tization of Taiwan transformed its attitude towards the mainland and
made it more
complicated.
In the first
stage
of
change,
in late
1987,
the
Taipei government
authorized ROCOT citizens to travel to mainland China
through
a third
country
or area
(mostly Hong Kong).
This
drastically changed
mainland
China's
image
on Taiwan:
every year, many
Taiwanese cross the Strait
(1.53
million visits in
1996).
At the same
time,
the KMT liberalized
indirect trade and economic relations with the PRC: in
1996,
two-way
trade reached US$22
billion and Taiwanese investments on the mainland
were estimated at over
US$30
billion. On the
diplomatic
front,
soon after
Lee
Teng-hui
succeeded
Chiang Ching-kuo,
the
Taipei government qui-
etly
moved to a de
facto
"dual
recognition" policy.2
However,
until
1991,
for the ROCOT authorities, the Chinese civil war remained unfinished:
1. Such as the International
Olympic
Committee since 1982
and,
under the name
"Taipei,
China" the Asian
Development
Bank since 1988.
2. In
1989,
for the first
time,
the ROCOT established
diplomatic
relations with Grenada
without
requiring
this
country
to sever its official links with the PRC.
Conversely,
in
1990,
when Saudi Arabia
recognized Beijing, Taipei
did not close its
embassy
in
Riyadh
before
China forced the Saudi
government
to do so.
@ The China
Quarterly,
1996
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1261
Taipei
continued to adhere to the "one China
principle"
and claimed to be
the
only legitimate representative
of China.
Lee
Teng-hui's
decision in
May
1991 to
put
an end to the "Period of
Mobilization for the
Suppression
of Communist Rebellion"
dramatically
changed
not
only
Taiwan's mainland China
policy
but also the ROCOT's
domestic
polity
and international
posture. Though
the
Taipei government
still
pays lip
service to the "one China
principle"
and does not
officially
recognize
the
PRC,
it
acknowledges
- and claims - the co-existence of
two Chinese
political
entities which after a
planned
transitional
period
and under certain conditions are due to
unify.
The German unification in
1990 and the end of the Cold War have
certainly encouraged
President
Lee to make these moves. But the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 and
lingering ideological
and
strategic
confrontation in East Asia have forced
him to remain more than cautious.
The aim of this article is on the one hand to show that the main short
and mid-term
goal
of Taiwan's mainland
policy
is not the reunification of
China but a
gradual
normalization of its links with the PRC. On the other
hand,
it assesses the domestic and outside constraints exerted on this
policy.
The Main Goals
of
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy:
From
Reunification
to
Normalization
Taiwan's democratization has
greatly
widened the
gap
between the two
Chinas
and,
in
spite
of the PRC's
booming
economic
development,
has
clearly
made
impossible
not
only
a
German-style
unification of the
Chinese nation but also the successful
implementation
of
Deng
Xiao-
ping's
"one
country
two
systems"
formula: the
overwhelming majority
of
the Taiwanese are
opposed
to
any
unification with the PRC
and,
more
dependent upon
its
public opinion,
the
Taipei government
has no choice
but to
express
and defend this view.
However,
Taiwan's democratization
has also favoured
fast-growing
human and commercial links across the
Strait. This new situation has forced the ROCOT
government
on the one
hand to frame a
comprehensive
and
updated
discourse on its relations
with mainland China and unification
and,
on the
other,
to set
up
channels
of communication and
negotiation
with the PRC.
Taiwan's
Changing
Discourse on the Relations Across the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan's mainland China
policy
is
presented
in three
major
state-
ments: the 1991 Guidelines for National
Unification,
the 1994 White
Paper
and Lee
Teng-hui's six-point speech
in 1995.
Although
one can
perceive
some nuance and a
gradual
clarification of Taiwan's intention
from the first to the third text, the common denominator of these
statements can be summed
up
in the formula in the title of this article:
normalization, yes; reunification, later.
The Guidelines
for
National
Reunification (March 1991).
The PRC's
constant
pressure
and
propaganda
over the "one
country
two
systems"
1262 The China
Quarterly
formula has forced the ROCOT to reframe its mainland China and
unification
policies.
In late
1990,
Lee
Teng-hui
convened a National
Unification
Council,
officially representing
the
political society though
appointed by
himself,
which
adopted
in
February
1991 a
three-page
text
entitled "Guidelines for National Unification"
(tongyi gangling).
These
Guidelines were
approved by
the Executive Yuan in March
1991.3
Drafted
by
the
KMT,
this short statement reasserts the ROCOT's
commitment to the "one China
principle,"
unification and to "establish a
democratic,
free and
equitably prosperous
China." And for the first time
it defined a unification
process
divided into three distinctive
stages.
However,
the conditions mainland China have to meet to move from one
stage
to another are so difficult that the Guidelines
give
the
impression
that Taiwan militates for a
long-term peaceful
co-existence of two
Chinese
governments
and
relegates
the eventual unification of the
country
to the distant future.
For
instance,
to move from the first
stage,
which Taiwan considers to
be
current,
and which is defined as "a
phase
of
exchanges
and
reciproc-
ity," up
to the second one - "a
phase
of mutual trust and
co-operation"
-
not
only
should both sides of the Strait end the state of
hostility
and
respect
each other in the international
community,
but the existence of
Taiwan as a
political entity (zhengzhi shiti)
should not be denied and in
the mainland area "the
expression
of
public opinion
should
gradually
be
allowed,
and both
democracy
and the rule of law should be
imple-
mented." And it should be recalled that it is
only
in the second
stage
-
medium term
-
that direct
postal, transport
and commercial links should
be allowed and that "mutual visits
by high ranking
officials of both sides
should be
promoted."
Moreover,
to move from the second to the third
stage
- "a
phase
of consultation and unification" - mainland China and
Taiwan "should have established official communication channels on
equal footing"
and "assist each other in
taking part
in international
organizations
and activities."
Finally
-
and this
point
is stated in a clearer
way
in the White
Paper
-
in the Guidelines China is
already
defined as a
geographical
rather than
political reality
divided into two areas
(diqu):
"mainland China and
Taiwan are
parts
of the Chinese
territory" (Zhongguo lingtu).
And,
the
unification
process
should "first
respect
the
rights
and interests of the
people
in the Taiwan area" and be achieved under the
principles
of
"parity
and
reciprocity."
The White
Paper:
Relations Across the Taiwan Strait
(July 1994).
However,
until 1994 Taiwan's new mainland China
policy
remained
rather
vague
and
ambiguous. Although
in
August
1992 the National
Unification Council
published
an authorized
explanation
of the "one
3.
Taipei:
The Executive
Yuan,
Mainland Affairs
Council,
1991.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1263
China"
concept,4
no
comprehensive
statement on Taiwan's relations with
mainland China existed.
Meanwhile,
the ROCOT
government,
in
April
1993,
decided to launch a bid to return to the United Nations. It was the
publication
of
Beijing's
White
Paper
on the Taiwan issue which
triggered
the
drafting by
the Mainland Affairs Council
(MAC)
in
July
1994 of a
long
text entitled "Relations Across the Taiwan
Strait."'
This White
Paper
is a useful clarification of the mainland
policy
presented
in the Guidelines.
However,
the former tends to
go
further than
the latter: it
emphazises
the interests of Taiwan and the
necessity,
before
any
unification can take
place,
of a
gradual
normalization of relations
between the "Chinese
entities,"
after a formula close to the German
model
agreed upon by
Bonn and East Berlin in 1970.
For
instance,
"one China" is for the first time
clearly
dissociated from
the
Republic
of China.
Now,
"one China"
just
"refers
to China as a
historical,
geographical,
cultural and racial
entity."6
At the same
time,
Taipei's
stand remains
fairly
flexible and
open
to some sort of
compro-
mise:
The ROC
government
is firm in its
advocacy
of "one China" and it is
opposed
to
"two Chinas" or "one
China,
one Taiwan." But at the same
time,
given
that the
division between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is a historical and
political
fact,
the ROC
government
also holds that the two sides should be
fully
aware that each
has
jurisdiction (tongzhiquan)
over its
respective territory
and that
they
should
co-exist as two
legal
entities in the international arena. As for their
relationship
with
each
other,
it is that of two
separate
areas
(fenlifenzhi zhi liangqu)
of one China and
is therefore "domestic"
(yiguo neibu)
or Chinese
(Zhongguo neibu)
in
nature.7
In other
words,
Taipei proposes
that
Beijing put
aside the unsolvable
sovereignty (zhuquan) question
but that each side should
respect
the
other's
jurisdiction (guanxiaquan).
Moreover - this
point
is often misun-
derstood - the ROCOT
government accepts
the fact that relations
between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are domestic and not inter-
national
"in
nature." Here is an obvious
space
for
compromise
if other
conditions are met.
Nevertheless,
Taipei
cannot
approve
the "one
country
two
systems"
formula:
In
essence,
the
relationship
between the two
systems
is one of
principal
and
subordinate: one
system represents
the centre and the other the local
authority.
Under
this
arrangement,
Taiwan will be forced to
give up
its freedom and
democracy,
and
to
accept entirely
the
system prescribed by
the CCP
(Chinese
Communist
Party)
regime.8
4.
"Guanyu 'yige Zhongguo'
de
hanyi" ("Interpretation
of 'one
China"'),
in Tai'an
liang'an guanxi shuomingshu (Explanation of
the Relations Across the Taiwan
Strait) (Taipei:
Xingzhengyuan
dalu
weiyuanhui, July 1994), pp.
47-48.
5. Ibid.
pp.
13-40;
English
translation,
(Taipei:
The
Executive
Yuan,
Mainland Affairs
Council,
July 1994).
6. Ibid.
(English version), p.
12.
7. Ibid.
p.
14.
8. Ibid.
p.
13.
1264 The China
Quarterly
And does not show
any hurry
to
unify:
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait should
adopt
moderate unification
policies;
it is
inappropriate
to be too
impatient
as more haste will
only
mean less
speed....
Once
the
ideological, political,
economic and social
gap
between the two sides is
bridged
as result of our
joint
effort,
the unification will come
naturally....For
the time
being,
the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should
intensify
their
exchanges
and resolve
conflicts
by
means of
negotiations
on functional matters.
Only
when a certain amount
of
experience
has been accumulated and certain successes achieved
through
such
negotiations
will it be
possible
for the two sides to start
political
contacts and talks.9
This statement underlines the
importance
that
Taipei assigns
to the
non-governmental
talks with
Beijing
initiated in 1991. But in this
nego-
tiation,
the ROCOT
government
has become a clear advocate of the
interests of the
people
on Taiwan:
A consensus has
gradually
been formed
among
the
people
of Taiwan that we are "all
in the same boat" and that Taiwan is a
Gemeinschaft,
or
community (shengming
gongtongti).
This belief in a Taiwan
community
does not
by any
means
imply
that
Taiwan's 21 million
people
are indifferent to Chinese
history
or that
they
have
abandoned the ideal of a unified
China,
it
simply
means that their future welfare and
security
are
closely
bound
up
with the fate of Taiwan. Another manifestation of this
feeling
of
community
is the
way
in which
public opinion plays
a
guiding
role in
government policy-making.
In the course of
formulating
its mainland
policy,
the
ROC
government
must
periodically
consult a wide
range
of
public opinion.
As
democracy
matures in
Taiwan,
public opinion
will
necessarily
become the
govern-
ment's most
important
reference for
formulating policy.'0
Does this utilization of
political democracy
and the
identity
and
interests of Taiwanese
society
hide a de
facto independence policy?
In a
sense,
yes. Though
the
concept
of nation is not
used,
the KMT acknowl-
edges today
that all Taiwan residents share a common
destiny.
This stand
has contributed to
bring
closer the mainstream of the Nationalist
Party
and the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP)
while
sharpening
the
conflicts between Lee
Teng-hui's
followers on the one hand and the
non-mainstream faction of the KMT and the New
Party
on the other.
In the
main,
the White
Paper
concludes that "cross-Strait interaction is
no
longer
a
game
which one side can win
outright,
it is a
'win-win'
contest in which both sides must be
prepared
to
compromise
and both can
use to further their own interest."" This is a
quiet
statement that
Taipei
renounces the "three nos"
policy (no contacts,
no
negotiations,
no
compromise)
advocated in the 1980s.
Lee's
six-point
answer to
Jiang
Zemin's
eight proposals (April 1995).
Jiang
Zemin's 1995 Chinese New Year overture was the occasion for
Taipei
to air more
specific
views on a number of issues. In a
six-point
address to the National Unification Council made in
April 1995, Lee
Teng-hui
not
only replied
to some of the CCP General Secretary's eight
9. Ibid.
pp.
14-15.
10. Ibid.
p.
25.
11. Ibid.
p.
16.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1265
proposals
but also
presented
a few new
(and unexpected)
ideas which
follow one
single goal
of
"normalizing
bilateral relations" between both
Chinas.12
Lee welcomed
Jiang
Zemin's
proposal
to boost cultural and economic
exchanges
between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Probably
influenced
by
his own academic and
professional background,
he offered
to assist mainland China
agricultural development,
an initiative
highly
emphasized by
the
Taipei
authorities. In order to transform Taiwan into
an Asia-Pacific
Regional Operation
Centre
(APROC),
an idea reactivated
in December 1994
by
Vincent Siew
(Hsiao
Wan-chang),
the then MAC
chairman,
Lee for the first time
contemplated
the
possibility
of establish-
ing
direct maritime and air links with mainland China.
Though preferring
to meet the Chinese Communist leaders
"very naturally"
in an inter-
national
setting,
he did not
directly
exclude the
possibility
of
seeing
them
in
Beijing
or in
Taipei
"in an
appropriate capacity,"
as
Jiang's speech put
it.
However,
Lee's
reply
remains
largely
adamant. He
agrees
to
negotiate
an end of the state of
hostility
with
Beijing
but refuses to start such a
negotiation formally
before mainland authorities renounce the use of
force
against
Taiwan
(though
he indicates that in the meantime his
government
"will
carefully study
and make
plans concerning
issues
connected with
ending
the
hostility").
Moreover,
the ROCOT is
clearly
not
willing
to increase its level of economic links with mainland China:
it is
ready
to "assist the mainland in
developing
its
economy
and
upgrading
the
living
standards of its
people
on the basis of its
existing
investments and trade relations" with this
country.
This will be made
clearer
by
Lee in
August
1996:
today
Taiwanese businessmen are
openly
discouraged
from
investing
in the PRC.
Finally,
in cauda
venenum,
Lee's sixth
point
is a bold
proposition
to
share with the PRC the
responsibility
of
Hong Kong
and Macau's future
after their return to China:
Continued
prosperity
and life under freedom and
democracy
are the common
aspiration
of the
people
of
Hong Kong
and
Macau;
they
are also a
major
concern for
Chinese around the world as well as all countries. What is more
important, they
are
a
responsibility
both Taiwan and the mainland cannot shirk.
Lee
Teng-hui's
visit to the United States in June 1995 and the
subsequent
"missile crisis" which occurred between the PRC and the
ROCOT that summer and
again
in March 1996 did not
modify Taipei's
new mainland
policy.
Since
September 1995,
when the CCP reaffirmed
its
January
overture,
Taiwan has sent some
conciliatory signals.
For
instance,
Lee invited
Beijing
leaders "to come
[to Taiwan]
to take a look
for
themselves.""3
And in late
February
1996 when tension in the Strait
was
growing again,
he
appointed
for the first time a mainlander known to
12.
Zhongyang
ribao
(Central Daily News),
9
April
1995,
p.
1;
English translation,
The
China
Post, 11
April 1995,
p.
5.
13.
Zhongguo
shibao
(China Times),
4
September
1995,
p.
1;
China
News,
25
September
1995,
p.
1.
1266 The China
Quarterly
defend a moderate attitude towards the
PRC,
Chang Ching-yu,
as chair-
man of the MAC
and,
partly
in order to diffuse his rivals'
criticism,
promised
to
sign
a
peace treaty
with
Beijing.14
However,
Beijing's
growing military pressure
has
apparently
not
changed
Taiwan's mainland
policy.
On the
contrary,
March 1996's events -
Beijing's bullying
and
provocative
missile tests in the
vicinity
of the
island,
the United States'
subsequent
move of two carrier
groups
in the area and the landslide
victory
of Lee
Teng-hui
in the
presidential
election
(54 per
cent of the
vote)
- have
encouraged
Taiwan to stick to a firm mainland
policy.
Taipei's
main
goal
therefore remains the normalization of its relations
with
Beijing.
As a first
step, Taipei hopes
that the
non-governmental
talks
with the PRC can be resumed in the near future so that more
agreements
can be
signed (such
as on the
protection
of Taiwanese
investments,
another
proposal
made
by Jiang
in
January).
Then,
as Lee
Teng-hui put
it
himself,
Taiwan "will
try
to
forge
a national consensus and make a
priority
of
ending
cross-Strait confrontation with a
peace
accord."15
To
build this
consensus,
a National
Development
Conference was convened
in December 1996.16 At the same
time,
as a show of
goodwill (and
pragmatism
- the transformation of Taiwan into an
APROC), Taipei
has
accepted
a
gradual
and careful establishment of direct maritime links
across the Taiwan Strait. But in its
view,
and in the view of KMT's
mainstream
faction,
these
objectives
should not
jeopardize
Taiwan's
sovereignty,
de
facto independence
or
foreign policy objectives.17
Thus,
in
spite
of the renewed
lip
service
paid
to the
idea,
China's unification is
today
far from
being
on the
agenda
of the Taiwanese leaders. And the
1996 missile crisis could
only
feed the sentiments on which this
strategy
is based.
The
Implementation of Taipei's
New Mainland China
Policy:
Towards
Government to Government
Negotiations?
In
February
1991,
just
a month after the establishment of the Mainland
Affairs
Council,
the
government agency
in
charge
of
planning
and
conducting
mainland
policy, Taipei
set
up
the Straits
Exchange
Foun-
dation
(SEF).
This
non-governmental organization
was founded to
"handle
practical
issues
arising
from cross-Strait
relations."'"
After
per-
sisting
for a few months with its
request
for CCP-KMT
negotiations,
Beijing reluctantly
decided in November 1991 to set
up
a sister
organiza-
tion,
the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait
(ARATS).
Since 1992 when
they
had their first
meeting,
the SEF and the ARATS
have constituted the main channel of communication between the two
Chinas.
However,
because of
Taipei's
intention since
early
1995 to
14. The China
Post,
24
February
1996,
p.
1.
15. Interview to The Asian Wall Street
Journal,
27 March
1996,
p.
8.
16. Free China
Review,
Vol.
47,
No. 3
(March 1997), insert,
pp.
2-3.
17. Cf. n. 15.
18. Relations Across the Taiwan
Strait, p.
11.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1267
involve more
government
officials in its
negotiations
with
Beijing
and the
PRC's decision in June 1995 to
suspend
sine die the SEF-ARATS
meetings,
other channels of discussion have
recently opened
which
may
favour the future establishment of unofficial
government-to-government
contacts.
The SEF-ARATS talks. The SEF-ARATS talks are well known and
often too much has been
expected
from them. One
big difficulty
the SEF
has had to face from the
very beginning
is the
unbridgable gap
between
its own
objectives
and those of the ARATS. On the one
hand,
the SEF
is
formally
a
non-profit-making private organization
whose
objective
is to
"promote
contacts and
exchanges among
Chinese from both sides of the
Taiwan
Strait."19
However,
the SEF must abide
by
rules laid down
by
the
MAC and is
mainly
financed
by
the
government (80 per cent). Moreover,
its
chairman,
Koo
Chen-fu,
the fourth richest man on the
island,
sits on
the KMT Central
Standing
Committee,
and its vice-chairman and
general
secretary,
Chiao Jen-ho since December
1993,
must
implement
the
mainland
policy
defined
by
the MAC and
constantly
consult this
govern-
ment
agency.
On the other
hand,
working
under the direct
leadership
of the CCP
Central Committee Office for Taiwan Affairs headed first
by Wang
Zhaoguo
and since
January
1997
by
Chen
Junlin,
the ARATS was set
up
to
promote
the "three direct links"
(postal,
trade,
and maritime and
air)
between Taiwan and mainland China and more
importantly
to
"carry
out
the
peaceful
reunification task on the basis of 'one
country,
two
sys-
tems'."20
This difference of
objectives explains
to a
large
extent the slow
pace
of the SEF-ARATS talks and the
meagre
results so far
achieved,
and more
generally
underlines the
growing
distance between the two
Chinas' unification
policies.
From 1991 to
1996,
the SEF-ARATS talks
developed
into four
successive
stages. During
the first
stage (November
1991 to March
1993),
the
organizations
learned about each other. No
agreement
was
signed
then,
in
particular owing
to
Beijing's
desire to include the "one China"
principle
in an accord related to the control of
smuggling
and
pirating
in
the Taiwan Strait. It was
only
in
May
1992 that the two sides
"agreed
to
disagree"
on their
respective interpretation
of the "one China"
concept
and to leave this
question
aside. This
change opened
the
way
for
organization
of a summit
meeting
between the SEF and the ARATS.21
Signing
of
agreements
and
optimism
characterized the second
stage
(April
1993 to March
1994). Originally planned
for October
1992,
the
SEF-ARATS summit
meeting
could not take
place
before
April
1993.
The SEF, although
invited to
Beijing, preferred Singapore
for this first
historic encounter between unofficial
representative
of the two Chinas.
19. Haixia
jiaoliu jijinhui,
bashinian nianbao
(Strait Exchange Foundation,
1991 Annual
Report) (Taipei: SEF, 1992), p.
16.
20.
Zhongshi
wanbao
(China
Times
Express),
17 October
1991,
p.
1.
21. Chiu
Hungdah, Koo-Wang
Talks and the
Prospect ofBuilding
Constructive and Stable
(With Documents) (Baltimore:
School of
Law,
University
of
Maryland,
Occasional
Papers/Reprints
Series in
Contemporary
Asian
Studies, 1993), p.
10.
1268 The China
Quarterly
There,
Koo Chen-fu and
Wang
Daohan,
the ARATS chairman and a
retired
Shanghai mayor,
met and
signed
four documents: the
joint agree-
ment of the
Koo-Wang
talks,
and
agreements
on document au-
thentification,
compensation
for lost
registered
mail,
and the
establishment of
systematic
liaisons and communication channels be-
tween the SEF and the ARATS. These documents were
signed
twice,
once in
original
Chinese characters for
Taipei,
once in
simplified
charac-
ters for
Beijing.
The
major
achievements of the
Koo-Wang
talks were to break the ice
between the two
Chinas,
to show the world that
Taipei
and
Beijing
were
actually negotiating
and able to reach and
sign
accords
- to date the
only
ones ever
signed by
the SEF and the ARATS22 - and to institutionalize
the relations between these two unofficial
organizations (vice-chairmen
or
secretaries
general
should meet at least
every
six months while emer-
gency
contacts can be set
up
at
deputy secretary general level). However,
there is a blatant
discrepancy
between the
technicality
and a narrow
scope
of the
agreements signed by
the ROCOT and PRC
representatives
in
Singapore
in
April
1993 on the one
hand,
and the
impact
this summit had
not
only
on the Taiwanese
public opinion
but also on numerous
policy-
makers in the Asia-Pacific area and the West on the other. This
gap
explains
the
disappointment many
felt when in March 1994 the SEF-
ARATS talks encountered difficulties.
The
optimism
caused
by
the
Singapore
summit did not last
long.
In
March
1994,
the
Qiandao
lake incident
-
in which 24 Taiwan tourists
were
slaughtered, probably by
demobilized soldiers at a
Zhejiang beauty
spot
-
froze for four months the SEF-ARATS talks,
which started
again
in late
July
in a much less relaxed
atmosphere.
When
they
were sus-
pended by Beijing
in June
1995,
these
negotiations
had not
produced any
new
agreements.
Soon after the
Singapore meeting, conflicting
views
appeared
in Tai-
wan on the mainland China
policy.
The then MAC chairman
Huang
Kun-huei steadied the SEF's ambition to
speed up negotiations
with
Beijing.
Forced to
adopt
a firmer
attitude,
Cheyne
Chiu
(Chiu Ching-yi),
the then SEF
secretary general, preferred
to
resign
and was
replaced by
Chiao
Jen-ho,
a former MAC vice-chairman.
However,
in
February
1994
in
Beijing,
Chiao and
Tang
Shubei,
the ARATS
secretary general,
had
reached a "consensus" on the three main issues under discussion: the
resolution of
fishing disputes,
the
repatriation
of
illegal immigrants
and
the return of
hijackers.
Thus,
the
Qiandao
lake incident
substantially
slowed down the
negotiation process.
Though
in
August
1994,
at the end of
Tang
Shubei's first visit to
22. Two other
agreements
had been
signed by
the PRC and Taiwan before: the first between
the Chinese
Taipei Olympic
Committee and the Chinese
Olympic
Committee in
April
1989
in
Hong Kong
on the Chinese name of the Taiwanese teams
(Zhonghua
Taibei and not
Zhongguo)
-
this allowed
Taipei's
athletes to
compete
in the
PRC;
and the second between
the two Chinas' Red Cross Associations in
September
1990 in Kinmen in order better to
organize
the
repatriation
of PRC's
illegal immigrants
to Taiwan. Both
agreements
are still
in
force;
cf.
Ralph Clough, Reaching
Across the Taiwan
Strait,
People-to-People Diplomacy
(Boulder:
Westview
Press, 1993), pp.
63-65 and 87-88.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1269
Taipei,
the above-mentioned issues were solved "in
principle,"
six
months
later,
in
January
1995,
none of the three accords
prepared
could
be
signed.
The main reason was
disagreement
over the delicate
phrasing
of the
respective
zones of
jurisdiction
for
handling fishing disputes.23
Yet
in
early May
1995,
Vincent Siew was
optimistic enough
to launch
unilaterally
a
plan
to transform
Taiwan,
and more
precisely Kaohsiung
harbour,
into a
trans-shipment
centre for
cargo ships sailing
to and from
mainland China.
Beijing's
refusal,
for both
political
reasons
(to
force
Taipei
to
open
the three direct
links)
and economic reasons
(to
exclude
non-Chinese
shipping companies
from this
trade), apparently surprised
the ROCOT
government
which had no choice but to
put
this
project
on
hold.
However,
later in
May,
when Chiao Jen-ho and
Tang
Shubei met
again, they
were
sufficiently
confident to announce a second
Koo-Wang
summit due to take
place
in
Beijing
around 20
July.
On that
occasion,
the
three documents under discussion for
nearly
two
years
would have been
signed
and talks on an
agreement
on the
protection
of Taiwanese invest-
ments in mainland China would
probably
have been initiated. In the
atmosphere
of Lee
Teng-hui's triumphal trip
to the United
States,
opti-
mism seemed to
regain
some
ground
in Taiwan.
But,
though
late in
coming, Beijing's
reaction
put
a
quick
end to these
hopeful
moments. On 16
June,
the PRC decided to
postpone unilaterally
and
indefinitely
the SEF-ARATS talks because of the
"poor atmosphere"
between the two
sides.24
Since then a fourth
phase
has started in which
confrontation seems to
predominate
over
negotiations.
Indeed,
twice in
the summer of 1995
(21-26 July
and 15-25
August),
the
People's
Liberation
Army (PLA)
tested
guided
missiles some 140 km north of
Taiwan and
approximately
55 km from
Pengchiayu (Pengjiayu),
the
nearest island under the ROCOT's control.
Moreover,
Beijing's propa-
ganda apparatus
launched an
unprecedented
attack on Lee
Teng-hui
and
asked Taiwanese
society
to
sweep
their
president
"into the historical
garbage dump."25
In the
following
months
up
to March
1996,
Beijing
increased substan-
tially
its
military pressure
on Taiwan both to influence the result of the
legislative
and
presidential
elections and to force the
Taipei government
to
adopt
a more
conciliatory
mainland
policy.
Several
military
manoeu-
vres took
place
in October and in
February-March
in
Fujian,
a
province
facing
Taiwan,
the
Nanjing military region
was
ostensibly
turned into a
"war zone"
(zhanqu),
and
through
well-chosen
Hong Kong newspapers
the CCP
published
a number of
alarming
invasion or attack scenarios. In
23.
Tang
Shubei refused to annex to the
agreement
on
fishing disputes
the internal
regulation concerning
the 24-mile zone from China's shore in which PRC
courts,
police
and
customs are allowed to settle
disputes. Conversely,
this accord would mean for
Taipei
a
recognition by Beijing
of a similar zone off the Taiwan shores.
So,
this
point
would have to
be included in the
agreement per
se in one
way
or another. Interview with Chiao
Jen-ho,
10
February
1995.
24.
Xinhua,
16 June 1995.
25.
Xinhua,
24
August
1995,
Lianhe bao
(United Daily News),
25
August 1995,
p.
2.
1270 The China
Quarterly
March 1996 the PLA
again
tested unarmed missiles some 40 km off
Keelung
and
Kaohsiung
harbour,
which handles 70
per
cent of Taiwan's
maritime traffic.
However,
contacts between the SEF and the ARATS did not
stop
completely.
For
instance,
in
July
1995 the latter sent a
message
of
protest
to the former about
fishing
incidents which had occurred in the South
China Sea. Later in the
month,
after
having
been hurt in a car
accident,
Chiao Jen-ho received from
Tang
Shubei a letter of
regards
and wishes
for a
prompt recovery.
And the SEF sent a
message
of
sympathy
for the
victims of a
major
flood which devastated the
Yangzi
basin.26 Further-
more,
telephone
communication between the SEF and the ARATS were
never
stopped.
It is true that
high-level meetings
between the SEF and the ARATS
have not so far been restored. In
September
Lee
Ching-ping,
a SEF
deputy secretary general,
was barred from
travelling
to
Beijing
to attend
an art exhibition. But lower-level visits took
place,
in
particular
before
the end of 1995. For
instance,
in October
Ou-yang
Shen-en,
director of
SEF cultural
affairs,
accompanied Cheng Liang-jen,
MAC cultural and
educational affairs
director,
to China in a tour of national museums
organized by
China's National Bureau of Cultural and Historical Muse-
ums.
During
this
trip, Cheng
met Sun
Xiaoyu, deputy
director of the PRC
Taiwan Affairs Office.27 And in
December,
Wu
Shu,
another SEF direc-
tor,
was invited
by
the ARATS to travel to
Beijing
for an art
event.28
One
may expect
that SEF-ARATS
high-level negotiations
will resume
in the near
future,
possibly
after the CCP's 15th
Congress
in October
1997. The relative
softening
of
Beijing's
attitude since the U.S.
Navy
intervention,
together
with the
triumphal
re-election of Lee
Teng-hui
on
the one hand and
Taipei's apparent
readiness to include
political ques-
tions such as the "one China" issue in the talks on the
other,
may
be
forerunners of a fifth
phase
of unofficial but
probably
less technical
negotiations
between the two Chinas.29
However,
Taipei's
decision to allow
government
officials to take
part
in
meetings
between these two
organizations,
which was made as
early
as
February
1995,
will
probably
contribute to diminish the
importance
of the
SEF,
officially relegated
in late
August
from the status of
"principal
negotiator"
to a
"supportive
role."30
Though
talks between
high
civil
servants of the two sides will still be
organized by
the SEF and the
ARATS,
actually Taipei
has
quietly questioned
its
long
ban of direct
contact with PRC's
high-ranking government
officials. This trend will
probably
be confirmed when and if
political
and
security negotiations
open.
26. China
News,
19
July
1995,
p.
1;
The China
Post,
30
July
1995,
p.
12. Funds
given by
the Taiwanese for flood victims in the PRC were nevertheless much lower than in 1991
(5
million NT$
against
900 million
NT$).
China
News, 11 July 1995, p.
2 and 19
July
1995, p.
1.
27. Lianhe
bao,
15
September
1995,
p.
1; Zhongguo
shibao,
24 October
1995,
p.
2.
28. China
News,
9 December
1995, p.
1.
29.
Zhongyang
ribao,
5 March
1996,
p.
2.
30.
Zhongguo
shibao,
29
August
1995, p.
3.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1271
Other channels
of
communication. Since
1987,
both
Taipei
and
Beijing
have used various channels to communicate. But since
early
1995,
these
channels have diversified
substantially.
Vincent Siew seems to have militated for this
policy.
One month after
allowing
the MAC and other ministries' senior civil servants to take
part
in
negotiations,
he lifted the ban on visits to Taiwan of chiefs of PRC
economic
organizations, excluding provisionally
minister-level cadres.31
In
August,
he eased the
coming
to Taiwan of PRC
professionals
and
though
the
regulations
have not
yet
been
changed,
mainland officials
holding
Communist
Party, political
or
military positions
have
already
been
authorized,
on a case-to-case
basis,
to enter Taiwan.32 A month
later,
PRC financial
experts
were allowed to visit the island. In late
November,
the MAC announced
specifically
that
Beijing government
vice-ministers
would be authorized to set foot on
Taiwan.33
And in
May
1996,
in his
inaugural
address,
Lee
Teng-hui
announced a further relaxation of restric-
tions on contacts between
Taipei
and
Beijing permitting governors,
mayors
and
county magistrates
to visit China as
private
individuals.34
Moreover,
in the same
period, though consistantly
denied
by Taipei,
secret
negotiations
have
apparently
become more
frequent.
For
instance,
it was
reported
in
February
1995 that Liu
Tai-ying,
the
powerful
head of
the KMT economic
empire,
had met PRC officials several times as an
emissary
for Lee
Teng-hui.35
In
April,
New
Party legislator
Yok
Mu-ming
accused Su
Chih-cheng,
director of Lee's
Secretariat,
and Mrs
Cheng
Shu-min,
chairman of the Cultural
Planning
and
Development
Council,
of
having
had secret talks with mainland China leaders.36
Besides,
it is
probable
that
Taipei
and
Beijing secretly
communicated at the time of the
"missile crisis."37
However,
Taiwan's democratization does not allow
non-transparent
channels of communication to
play any
critical role in
cross-Strait relations.
After the "missile
crisis,"
rather than resume formal SEF-ARATS
talks,
the PRC has
encouraged
the
exchange
of visits of business
delega-
tions. More
generally, Taipei
and
Beijing
are
gradually moving
towards
de
facto government-to-government
contacts and
negotiations.
It is true
31.
Opening Speech
of the "Internatonal Conference on Cross-Strait Relations and
Policy
Implications
for the Asia-Pacific
Region," organized by
the Institute for National
Policy
Research,
Taipei,
27 March 1995.
32. China
News,
19
August
1995,
p. 16;
for
instance,
in
September 1995,
a discreet
delegation
of Research
Academy
of Ballistic
Missiles,
headed
by
one of its
vice-presidents,
Long
Lehao,
visited Taiwan.
Though
under the formal
supervision
of the Chinese
Aerospace
Administration,
this
academy
is controlled
by
the PLA.
Zhongyang ribao,
4
September 1995,
p.
1.
33. Asian Wall Street
Journal,
21
September 1995,
p.
9;
Lianhe
bao,
28 November
1995,
p.
1.
34. Lianhe wanbao
(United Evening News),
21
April
1996,
p.
1.
35.
Zhongguo shibao,
20
February
1995,
p.
1.
36.
According
to some
reports,
Mr
Su,
a
university
mate of Lee's
son,
Lee
Hsien-wen,
and
Ms
Cheng
met
Zeng Qinghong,
the head of the CCP General
Office,
in Shenzhen in
March;
Xinxinwen
(The Journalist),
No. 424
(23-29 April 1995), pp.
15-19.
37. Lianhe
bao,
22
August
1995,
p. 1;
according
to some
officially
denied
reports,
Lee
Yuan-tse,
the
president
of the Academia
Sinica,
met Liu
Huaqiu,
PRC Vice-Minister of
Foreign Affairs,
in the United States on 10 March 1996.
Ziyou
shibao
(Liberty Times),
15
March
1996, p. 2;
The China
Post,
27 March
1996, pp. 1,
14.
1272 The China
Quarterly
that
meetings
will remain "unofficial" and most of them will continue to
be
organized,
as mentioned
above,
by
the SEF and the ARATS.
However,
both the ROCOT and the PRC seem to find an interest in
moving
in that
direction,
the former because it
hopes
that this will
eventually
ease a
normalization of its relations with the
Beijing government,
and the latter
because it estimates that this will sooner or later force
Taipei
to embark
on
political negotiations.
Which
country
takes the most
advantage
of this
move will
depend
to a
large
extent
upon
the domestic and outside
constraints of Taiwan's mainland China
policy.
The Domestic and Outside Constraints
of
Taiwan's Mainland China
Policy
A number of factors constrain Taiwan's
policy
towards mainland
China. These factors have
changed quite substantially
in the last
couple
of
years.
Four
major inputs
have
played
a
key
role in that
respect:
Taiwan's economic
dependence upon
China,
its
democratization,
the
PRC's
growing power
and the
increasing
concern
of the
international
community.
Taiwan's Economic
Dependence Upon
China
Over the
past
few
years,
Taiwan's
economy
has become more and
more
dependent upon
China.
Today,
the PRC is the ROCOT's third
largest
economic
partner (after
the United States and
Japan),
second
buyer (US$19
billion in
1996)
and
probably
first investment destination
($2.8
billion in 1995
against
$1.8
billion in Thailand and
$1.2
billion
in Vietnam - and $248
million in the United
States).38 Thirty
thousand
Taiwanese
companies
are
represented
and over
100,000
ROCOT
nationals live on a
permanent
basis in mainland China. All this offers the
Beijing
authorities a
strong
lever on the Taiwanese business
community
which exerts more and more
pressure
on their
government
to soften its
stance towards the PRC. The
expected gradual
establishment of the
famous three direct links across the Strait underlines the
growing
influence of business interests on the
drafting
of Taiwan's mainland
policy.39
These interests will also
play
a
key
role in the
policy Taipei
is
going
to
develop
towards
Hong Kong
after 1997.
Receiving
in 1996 23.1
per
cent
($26.8 billion)
of Taiwan's
exports,
the PRC's future
Special
Administrative Zone is about to
become,
in
spite
of the 1995-96
"missile
crisis,"
the first destination of Taiwan's sales after the United States
(23.2
per
cent of Taiwan's
exports
and $26.9
billion in
1996).
In order to
keep
its intense air and sea links with
Hong Kong
and,
more
generally,
to
become an APROC
(though agreements
were
reached
on
these
matters in
38. China
News,
3
February
1996, p.
10 and 17
February
1996,
p.
9. In
1996,
Taiwanese
investment in the PRC reached $3 billion.
39. In
April
1996,
a
group
of 80 law-makers
(from
the
KMT,
the DPP and the New
Party),
businessmen and scholars set
up
an "Association for the
promotion
of direct
transport
links
across the Strait"
(liang'an zhihang cujinhui)
to accelerate the establishment of such links.
Lianhe
bao,
24 March
1996,
p.
4;
The China
Post,
24 March
1996, p.
15.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1273
June 1996 and
January
1997
respectively),
Taiwan will
probably
have to
accept
most of the conditions
put by
China in the future.
The 1995-96 "missile crisis" has not for the moment
clearly
dimin-
ished this
dependence.
Of course in 1995
only
490 investments
(total
capital
$1.09
billion) against
934 in 1994
(total capital
$962
million)
were
approved by
the ROCOT
government,
and in 1996
only
383
(total capital
$1.23
billion).40 However,
since
1994,
not
only
has the amount and
duration of each investment tended to increase but the ROCOT
govern-
ment now screens less than half the Taiwanese
money poured
into the
PRC
economy.
Moreover,
under the
pressure
of the World Trade
Organization,
Taiwan
has
gradually
liberalized China's
imports (5,000
items in 1996
against
2,900
a
year before).
The PRC's
growing
sales to the ROCOT
($3.06
billion in 1996 and $3.1
billion in 1995
against
$1.9
billion in
1994)
will
not
only
shrink
Taipei's major
source of
surplus
-
$16.1
billion in
1996,
the
only surplus
able to cover most of Taiwan's trade deficit with
Japan
($14 billion)
- but also increase its
dependence upon Beijing's cheap
consumer
goods.
In other
words,
Taiwan's
economy
is
increasingly
unable to
ignore
mainland
China,
a market which
provides
it with the
lion's share of its outside revenues. Taiwan would also suffer from
any
economic sanctions
(such
as the
suspension by
the United States of the
Most Favoured Nation
clause)
taken
against
mainland China.
The Side
Effects of
Taiwan's Democratization
Taiwan's democratization has
gradually
modified both the
scope
of the
debate on mainland
policy
and the
place
this debate
occupies
on Taiwan's
domestic scene. It has also
complicated
the elaboration and the im-
plementation
of this
policy.
The
emergence of diverging
mainland
policies.
Before
1987,
Taiwan
had
just
one
single
mainland
policy.
It was
propagated by
the KMT and
contemplated
the final unification of the Chinese nation in a
political
system
based on Sun Yat-sen's "three
principles
of the
people."
Since
then,
at least three
major
mainland
policies
have
competed
with each
other: the Taiwanese
government's
which is
also,
as shown
above,
the
KMT mainstream
faction's,
the
DDP's,
and the New
Party's
which is
very
similar to the
policy
advocated
by
the non-mainstream faction of the
KMT.41 Taiwan's
government
has been forced since 1993 to deal with
two kinds of
pressure:
the
independence lobby
led
by
the
DPP,
and what
could be called the "conciliation
lobby"
headed
by
the New
Party
and
supported
to a certain extent
by
the business
community.
The most
annoying
constraint does not
necessarily
come from the
strongest oppo-
sition
party.
40. The China
Post,
3 March
1997,
p.
19.
41. Other mainland
policies
defended
by
minor
parties
are not
presented
here. For
instance,
a small
party
called "The 51st Club" militates for the
entry
of Taiwan in the United States
of America as the 51st state of the Union. Founded in
September
1994 and chaired
by
Chou
Wei-lin,
this
party hopes
in so
doing
to reconcile the mainlanders and the Taiwanese...
1274 The China
Quarterly
In
fact,
one of the few
points
on which the Taiwanese
government
and
the DPP
disagree
is the final
stage
of the "Unification Guidelines."42
The
other
aspects
of Lee
Teng-hui's strategy
are not
only fully accepted by
the DPP but were often initiated
by
it
(such
as the UN
bid). Moreover,
for a few
years,
under
pressure
from both the Taiwanese electorate and
China's
growing
threat,
several
key
members of the DPP have admitted
in
private
that if and when their
party
comes to
power,
it will neither
declare
independence
nor even submit this
question
to a referendum. The
missile crisis of 1995-96 contributed to make this new
policy public.
In
September
1995 when
visiting
the United
States,
Shih
Ming-teh,
the then
DPP
chairman,
confirmed this
change
in
declaring
that Taiwan had been
independent
since 1949.43
Five
months
later,
though
confident of Tai-
wan's
military capability
to defend
itself,
Peng Min-ming,
DPP
presiden-
tial candidate and so-called "father of Taiwan's
independence,"
reluctantly
endorsed this new
policy
in order to
prevent
a
political
disaster." The DPP is
severely
divided
by
its March 1996 electoral
setback and is now chaired
by
Hsu
Hsin-liang,
a
key
member of the more
moderate Formosa
faction,
so it
may
soon water down the
independence
principle
enshrined in its charter. This
gradual change
was in a
way
confirmed
by
the establishment in October 1996 of the Taiwan
Indepen-
dence
Party,
formed
by
the DPP's
arch-independentists.
Thus,
PRC
unjustified
accusations
notwithstanding,
the DPP and Lee
Teng-hui
share
the same concern for the
preservation
of the status
quo
which means in
other words the de
facto independence
of Taiwan.
This view is
harshly
criticized
by
the New
Party (14 per
cent of the
electorate)
and most of the members of the non-mainstream faction of the
KMT,
even
though
ex-KMT non-mainstream faction members such as
Lin
Yang-kang,
Chen
Lu-an,
the two rebel KMT candidates for Taiwan's
presidency
in March 1996 and former Premier Hau
Pei-tsun,
the candi-
date for the
vice-presidency
on Lin's
ticket,
and even New
Party
leaders
such as Jaw
Shau-kang
and
Wang
Chien-hsien,
endorsed the 1991
"Guidelines." In
fact,
they
are more anti-Communist than
any
other
Taiwanese
politicians
and
they
do not
contemplate
a
quick
unification.
However,
afraid above all of
"provoking" Beijing, they
favour a more
conciliatory
attitude towards
China,
and are
supported
in this
by
the
majority
of the business
community.
Hence
they
militate for the
rapid
establishment of direct sea and air links with mainland China and
estimate that Lee
Teng-hui's
mainland and
foreign policies
have
put
Taiwan in
jeopardy.45
For
example,
the New
Party
thinks that
any
return
to the UN should be "non-hostile" to China and under the
principle
"one
country,
several seats"
(yiguo duoxi); moreover,
it
proposes
to
negotiate
42. Another source of
disagreement
is the
opportunity
of
high-level meetings
between PRC
and ROCOT leaders.
However,
on this
question,
DPP officials are not all
opposed
to such
meetings.
The China
Post,
4 October
1995,
p.
16.
43. The China
Post,
16
September
1995,
p.
15.
44.
Peng
maintained his intention
formally
to declare
independence
in the case of PRC
attack. The China
Post,
2
February 1996, p.
16.
45. China
News,
27
April
1995,
p.
2;
The China
Post,
3 October
1995,
p.
20.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1275
with
Beijing
the establishment of a confederal
entity,
followed at a later
stage by
a federation
embracing
the two Chinese states.46
Nevertheless,
domestic
political
reasons also
explain
this
group's
attitude. Its hatred of Lee
Teng-hui,
who,
in its
view,
is
responsible
for
all the misfortunes of
Taiwan,
has
pushed
most of its members
(Hau
Pei-tsun and a few others
excepted)
to defend
arguments
similar to the
ones
put
forward
by Beijing,
in
particular
in its
July
1995-March 1996
vitriolic attacks on the Taiwanese
president.47
In other words,
this
group
seems to be
ready
to
compromise
with
Beijing
in order to
prevent
at
any
cost Taiwan's
independence.
For
instance,
though
its
majority initially
supported
Lee
Teng-hui's
June 1995
trip
to the United
States,
after
Beijing
became
upset
it
changed
its mind. And in March 1996 Lin
Yang-kang,
Chen Lu-an and the New
Party
did not hesitate to
oppose
the
U.S.
Navy
move in the Taiwan
area,
considering
this decision as an
interference in Chinese affairs.48 More
generally,
the conciliation
lobby
thinks that Taiwan has not the
military capability
to
guarantee
its de
facto
independence
or,
because the
majority
of its members are of mainland
origin,
refuses to
pay
the
price
of this
independence
and estimates that no
country including
the United States and in
spite
of the Taiwan Relations
Act,
would
support
Taiwan's cause in the case of war with the PRC.
The conciliation
lobby
received 25
per
cent of the vote in March 1996
(Lin
15 and Chen 10
per cent).
Its
political
influence should not constitute
a
major
constraint to Lee
Teng-hui's
mainland
policy.
However,
domi-
nated
by
the mainlanders who were
over-represented
in Lin's and Chen's
electorate and
supported by
noticeable
segments
of the business com-
munity,
this
lobby's growing
contacts with
Beijing49
and unnuanced
opposition
to the current Taiwan
president may
become a
subject
of
concern
for the
security
of the
country
in the future. More
generally,
the
rise of the conciliation
lobby
underlines the
danger
of
"Finlandization,"
if
not of
"Hongkongization,"
which Taiwanese
society
is
facing today.50
The mainland China
policy
as a central theme
of
domestic
political
debate. Taiwan's unclear
international
status tends to
put
the
question
of
the future of the ROCOT and
consequently
its mainland
policy
at the
centre of the
political
debate. The
strength
of the
independence
move-
ment,
German unification in
1990,
the
collapse
of the Soviet Union a
year
later,
and the
growing political
and
military pressures
of the PRC on the
eve of
Hong Kong's
return
to
China,
have all contributed to
putting
aside,
every
time
something happens
in the Taiwan
Strait,
most domestic
46.
Xindang zhengce
baibishu
(New Party Policy
White
Paper) (Taipei:
New
Party,
November
1995), pp.
41-43,
105-108.
47. For
instance,
in
September
1995,
Lin
Yang-kang urged
the ROCOT
government
to halt
its
campaign
to
rejoin
the UN and to
postpone
the
military
exercise scheduled for October
1995. The China
Post,
12
September 1995,
p.
16 and 16
September 1995, p.
15.
48. The China
Post,
15 March
1996,
p.
19;
China
News,
19 March
1996,
p.
1.
49. The
meeting
between
Liang Su-yung,
a former
Speaker
of the
Legislative Yuan,
and
Jiang
Zemin,
which took
place
in
Beijing
in late
April
1996 is
probably
an
example
of such
contacts which are
nothing
but
encouraged by
the PRC authorities.
50. Cf. Jean-Pierre
Cabestan,
Taiwan
-
Chine
populaire: l'impossible reunification (Paris:
Ed.
Ifri-Dunod, 1995), pp.
167-68.
1276 The China
Quarterly
political
issues. The fact that
any party
which tried to define itself outside
the
unification-independence
line was
quickly marginalized
illustrates
this
specificity
of the Taiwanese
political
debate."
In other
words,
this debate has become a
hostage
of the mainland
(and
foreign) policy.
Under such
circumstances,
it is
becoming
more and more
difficult for the Taiwanese
government
not to take into account the
changing
desires of
public opinion
as far as mainland China is
concerned.
Today,
as the March 1996
presidential
election has
shown,
Taiwanese
society mainly supports
its
government's policy.52
But
things may change
if,
in the
future,
the economic and financial
price
Taiwan would have to
pay
to
keep
the status
quo
increases too much. Thus the
importance
of
mainland
policy
in Taiwan's domestic debate will
probably
constitute a
growing
constraint for the ROCOT
government's strategy
towards the
PRC.
The
making
and
implementation of
Taiwan's mainland
policy:
a
complex process.
In
principle,
the MAC is in
charge
of
making
and
co-ordinating
Taiwan's mainland
policy.
However,
the
growing diversity
of contacts influential
people
in the ROCOT have
developed
with their
PRC
counterparts
has
rapidly complicated
the
process
of
decision-making
in this area.
First,
President Lee
Teng-hui plays today
a crucial role in the
making
and
implementation
of the ROCOT mainland China
policy.53
All deci-
sions
go
to him to be
given
their final
approval.
However,
several
key
state
agencies
take,
under the
co-ordinating power
of the
Premier,
an
active
part
in the
decision-making process:
not
only specialized organiza-
tions such as the MAC and the SEF but
also,
to
varying degrees
and in
their domain of
competence (in
a
probable descending order),
the
security
organs,
the National
Security
Council and the Defence
Ministry, political
and
propaganda
bodies such as the
Foreign Ministry
and the
Government
Information
Office,
and economic
agencies
such as the ministries of
economic
affairs,
transport
and communications. Think-tanks such as
Chengchih University's
Institute of
International
Relations or the Ever-
green-financed
Institute for National
Policy
Research also have an im-
portant say.
Formal
organizations
such as the National Unification
Council,
though
chaired
by
Lee
Teng-hui
himself,
tend to
play
a rubber-
stamp
role:
they just
endorse
proposals
drafted
by
Lee's close advisers.
The
respective
roles of the MAC and the SEF
provide
a
problem
which
has never been
fully
settled,
in
particular
because of the
ever-moving
division of labour between the two
agencies.
The former
organization
51. For
instance,
set
up
in 1990
by
Chu
Kao-cheng,
the small Social-Democratic
Party
never
managed
to take off. It
merged
with the New
Party
in 1994.
52. There is a
striking similarity
between the outcome of the
presidential
election and the
results of most
opinion polls
on the
unification-independence question.
However,
at the
height
of the March 1996
crisis,
only
9.5% of the Taiwanese
supported independence,
13.5%
unification and 56.2% the status
quo. Zhongguo
shibao,
6 March
1996,
p.
3.
53. John
Fuh-sheng
Hsieh, "Chiefs, staffers, Indians,
and others: how was Taiwan's
mainland China
policy
made?" in
Tun-jen Cheng,
Chi
Huang
and Samuel S.G. Wu
(eds.),
Inherited
Rivalry, Conflict
Across the Taiwan Straits
(Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, 1995),
pp.
137-152.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1277
does lead and control the
implementation
of mainland
policies, especially
by
other
government agencies.
However,
the failed
launching
in
May
1995 of the
Kaohsiung trans-shipment
centre
proposal clearly
shows that
there is a lack of co-ordination between ministries involved in
negotia-
tions with the PRC. The frustration Vincent
Siew,
the then MAC chair-
man,
felt at that time
explained
to some extent his decision to leave the
Executive Yuan and
willingness
to run for a
legislative
seat in the
December 1995 election. In
any
case,
the MAC remains more than ever
under the
tight supervision
of the President and the Premier.
Relations between the MAC and the SEF have never been
easy.
However,
while
probably transforming
the latter into a convenient but
powerless fagade
of the former when the Taiwanese
government
deals
with PRC
officials,
the
expected integration
of the two
organizations may
smooth
away
the constant
bickering
which the Taiwanese
public
wit-
nessed before
July
1995.
Moreover,
since the
beginning
o'f
that
year,
some officials have
thought
that the SEF was not the
proper
channel to
commence more
crucial,
"political" negotiations
with the
PRC.54
This
does not mean that Koo
Chen-fu,
the SEF chairman and a KMT
Standing
Committee
member,
is not himself influential as far as mainland China
policy
is
concerned.
But even in this
realm,
his
power
as a business
tycoon
seems to be more critical than his influence as SEF chairman.
The leaders of the business
community
also
play
an
important
if not
always
consistent role. For
instance,
in
early August
1995,
in the midst
of the "missile
crisis,"
Kao
Ching-yuan,
the chairman of President
Company
and the head of the Chinese National Federation of
Industries,
called for a halt of investments in mainland China.55 But a few weeks
later,
he
urged
Taiwan's
politicians
to avoid
"antagonizing"
mainland
China,
fearing
the tension across the Strait would
"bring
an
extremely
huge
blow to businesses."56 Another
example
is the initiative taken
by
Chiayi city
officials in June 1995 to
negotiate
with the
Fujian
authorities
on the establishment of direct maritime links between Putai harbour and
Xiamen.
Though disapproved
of
by
the Taiwanese
government,
this
initiative was
discreetly supported by
Vincent
Siew,
a native of
Chiayi,
while he was
preparing
to
campaign
to
represent
this
city
in the
Legisla-
tive
Yuan.57
Indeed,
the close links between Taiwanese
entrepreneurs
and
political parties explain
the
complex
influence the former can exert on
mainland
policy.
However,
under the
opposite pressure
of the
"security
lobby" (such
as the
military),
the
government
has for
quite
a
long
time
managed
to resist the most
daring proposals
of the business
community
(three
direct
links).58
54. In March
1995,
Vincent Siew hinted that an
end-of-hostility agreement
could not be
negotiated by
the
SEF.
The China
Post,
10 March
1995,
p.
1.
55. Lianhe
bao,
11
August
1995,
p.
3.
56. The China
Post,
30
August
1995,
p.
16.
57. China
News,
30 June
1995,
p.
I and 11
September
1995,
p.
3.
58.
Tse-Kang Leng,
"State, business,
and economic interaction across the Taiwan
Strait,"
Issues and
Studies,
November
1995,
pp.
40-58.
1278 The China
Quarterly
The
increasing complexity
of the
making
and
implementation
of this
policy
constitutes one of the side effects of Taiwan's democratization.
However,
facing
a
highly
authoritarian
power
whose Taiwan
policy
is
very
centralized,
the
Taipei government
cannot but see its room for
manoeuvre
narrowing.
That is a common weakness of
democracy.
But
does Taiwan
possess
the
strong points
of this
system?
The PRC's
Growing
Power
This
section,
rather than
assessing
China's
growing power per
se,
focuses on the Taiwanese
perception
of it. For some
time,
the PRC has
managed
to convince most Western countries and its
neighbours
that it is
a
great power.
A closer look at mainland China's
military capabilities
and
force
projections
tends to show that far from
being
a world
power,
it is
gradually becoming
a
regional power. Examples
of this
quest
are numer-
ous in the last few
years:
the incident between a PLA submarine and the
American seventh fleet in December 1994 in the East China
Sea,
the
occupation by
the PRC
Navy
of Mischief Reef in the South China Sea in
February
1995 and the 1995-96 series of missile tests and
military
manoeuvres around Taiwan.
The
ROCOT,
as a close
neighbour
of the
PRC,
cannot but be con-
cerned
by
this evolution.
Although
most
experts
estimate that in the next
ten
years
the PLA will remain unable to
conquer
or even to
impose
a
blockade on
Taiwan,
the ROCOT's
long-term security
seems to be
already
at risk. In a
way,
the New
Party expresses
this fear. To a certain
extent,
the
question today
is how
long
Taiwan will be able to
guarantee
its
security
and its de
facto independence.
Of course the
efficiency
of
Beijing's military pressure
should be
reassessed. After the 1995 missile
tests,
opinion polls
show that
though
the
percentage
of
people
in favour of
independence
decreased
(26 against
33.2
per
cent a few weeks before
according
to a DPP
poll
and 12
against
18
per
cent
according
to a
Zhongguo
shibao
survey),59 partisans
of the
status
quo
increased to 46
per
cent from 34 whereas
partisans
of
unification were weaker than ever
(20 per
cent
against 26).60
This trend
was
emphasized by
the March 1996 missile
crisis.61
More
surprisingly,
in
July
1995 some 71
per
cent of the Taiwanese declared not
having
been
scared
by
these missile
tests62
and nine months
later,
82.5
per
cent of them
declared that their vote would not be influenced
by Beijing's bullying
manoeuvres.63 Nevertheless,
a few
alarming
moves did take
place during
this crisis
underlining
Taiwan
society's uncertainty
about its future.
First,
the stock market fell
dramatically, losing
1,000
points (-
19
per
cent)
between 19
July
and
mid-August
and around US$3-4 billion left the
country
in the same
period. Though
in
September
the stock market
59. Lianhe
bao,
4
August
1995,
p.
7; Zhongguo shibao,
28
July
1995,
p.
3.
60. Lianhe
bao,
22
July
1995,
p.
3.
61. Cf. n. 52.
62. Ibid.
63.
Ziyou
shibao,
11 March
1996,
p.
1.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1279
regained
half the
ground
it had lost
(5,035
on the
weighted
index
Taiex
in
early
October
against
4,503
on 19
July),
in
February
1996 the
Taipei
government
had to establish a
$7.3
billion
provisional
stabilization fund
- of which
$2.2
billion was
spent (in
late
April
the
Taiex
reached
6,182).
Secondly,
between
July
1995 and March 1996 at least
$10
billion
($20
billion
according
to some
estimates)
left the
country,
was used to
buy
foreign
currencies or was transformed into
gold
bars.6
Consequently,
the
government spent
more than
$15
billion to
keep
the New Taiwan dollar
below 27.5
NT$
per
US$.
Foreign
reserves which rose above
$100
billion
in late June 1995 fell to
$82.5
billion nine months later. Of
course,
part
of the
money spent by
the Taiwanese authorities was recovered. How-
ever,
one can
speculate
about the economic
consequences
of a real
military
crisis in the Taiwan Strait. In
any
case,
Taiwan's economic
growth
in 1996 has been affected and will be at least 1.3
per
cent lower
than
originally expected.65
More
generally,
the "missile crisis" has shown
that
though
Taiwan can
turn
into an APROC in
specific
sectors,
for
security
reasons it will never be able to become a financial centre such as
Hong Kong.
Thirdly,
in
spite
of
Taipei government
black-out on the
figures, appli-
cations for
emigration
to the
major
host countries
(the
United
States,
Canada,
Australia and New
Zealand)
have
dramatically
increased since
the
beginning
of 1995.
According
to some
unpublished opinion polls
conducted in
early
1996,
in the case of
military
confrontation with the
PRC,
25.6
per
cent of the
respondents
would
emigrate
and 27.3
per
cent
apply
for a
foreign passport.66
Although
mainland China cannot invade
Taiwan,
it is
already
able to
disorganize
its
economy
and increase its
society's anxiety.
The Attitude
of
the International
Community
The future of Taiwan's mainland
policy
is also
increasingly dependent
upon
the attitude of the
international
community. Today,
in
spite
of the
concern
showed
by many
countries at the
height
of the "missile
crisis,"
this attitude remains far from
being supportive
of
Taipei's security policy
and
pragmatic diplomacy.
The
only country
which
may
assist Taiwan in the case of war with the
PRC is the United States. But more and more
people
on the island have
some doubt about American
military
involvement in such a
conflict,
including
sober
strategists
such as New
Party legislator
Lin
Yu-fang,
who
strongly
criticized the bestseller
August
1995's ideas.67
Indeed,
the
very
64. The Far Eastern Economic
Review,
18
April
1996,
p.
76.
65. Less than 5% instead of
6.3%;
The China
Post,
6
April
1996,
p.
11.
66. Interview with Tim T.Y.
Ting,
Chief
Representative
of
Gallup organization, Taipei,
1 March 1996.
67. Lin
Yu-fang,
Weixian de
yuyan, po "runbayue"
de misi
(A Dangerous Prediction,
Break the
Myth ofAugust 1995) (Taipei: Danjiang
daxue
guoji
shiwu
yu
zhanliie
yanjiusuo,
1995), p.
68ff.;
Chen
Lanping, Yijiujiuwu runbayue, Zhonggong wulifantai shiji
da
yuyan,
T
Day (August
1995,
the Great Prediction
of
the
Century:
Chinese Communists' Attack
of
Taiwan) (Taipei: Shangye
zhoukan, 1994).
1280 The China
Quarterly
uncertainty
of this involvement contributes to
protect
Taiwan and since
the United States' firm reaction to the PRC's
provocative
missile tests in
March 1996 the Taiwanese have felt more secure.
However,
the United
States'
growing
reluctance to send
troops
abroad,
the
ambiguities
of its
"one China"
policy
and the need for both the Clinton administration and
the American business
community
to be on
good
terms with the PRC
have led more and more Taiwanese to doubt
any
American
military
intervention in the case of war in the Strait.
The 1995-96 crisis has made Taiwan even more
dependent upon
the
United States not
only
for its
security
but also
politically.
In the
future,
therefore,
in order to
keep
the balance between
Taipei
and
Beijing
which
it
perceives
as best for its interests in the
region, Washington may
exert
more
pressure
on Taiwan's
pragmatic diplomacy
and mainland
policy.
The United States
may
also be
tempted
to
give
its
support
to the more
conciliatory policies
defended
by
the New
Party (which ironically
relies
the least
upon
this
country's protection).
Since the 1995-96 "missile
crisis," Japan
and to a lesser extent the
ASEAN have been more and more worried about the
prospect
of a war
in the Taiwan Strait. But these countries have at the same time showed
their
unwillingness
to
support
Taiwan even
politically. Tokyo
has since
1994
adopted
a more
daring policy
towards
Beijing.
After the
occupation
of the Mischief Reef
by
the PLA in
early
1995,
Tokyo
showed a
growing
concern for the
security
of the sea lanes in the South China Sea and the
PRC's
increasing
defence
spending,
a move which
compelled
the Chinese
leaders to
give
Prime Minister
Murayama during
his visit to
Beijing
in
May
1995
public
assurances of their
peaceful
intentions. And in June and
August
1995,
Japan
did not hesitate
symbolically
to cut aid to China after
this
country
conducted
underground
nuclear tests.
On the Taiwan issue
also,
Japan
seems to be
reassessing
its
policy.
In
November
1994,
in
spite
of the PRC's
protests, Japan gave
the ROCOT
Vice-Premier
Hsti
Li-teh a visa to attend the Asian Games. In June
1995,
for the first time since
1972,
it sent an ambassadorial rank
emissary,
Uchida,
to Taiwan to
prepare
for the November 1995 APEC
meeting.68
And at the time of the Taiwan missile crisis
Tokyo loudly expressed
its
concern several times to
Beijing.
Moreover,
in March
1996,
highly
worried
by
the
impact
of PLA manoeuvres on sea and air
traffic,
the
Japanese Navy
sent a
coastguard
cutter close to the test area "as a
precautionary measure."69
In
fact,
Beijing's bullying policy
towards Taiwan has
re-emphasized
the fact that
Japan
cannot exclude this area from its
security perimeter.
This idea was
specified
a month after the crisis in the Clinton-Hashimoto
Joint Declaration on
Security:
"the two leaders
agreed
on the
necessity
to
promote
bilateral
policy co-ordination, including
studies on bilateral
68. China
News,
27 June
1995,
p.
1.
69. The China
Post,
9 March
1996,
p.
1.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1281
co-operation
in
dealing
with situations that
may emerge
in the area
surrounding Japan
and which will have an
important
influence on the
peace
and
security
of
Japan."70
This statement has
discreetly
but
largely
restored the
spirit
of the 21 November 1969 Nixon-Sato Joint Statement
according
to which
(4th clause)
"the maintenance of
peace
and
security
in the Taiwan area is a most
important
factor for the
security
of
Japan."71
However,
what
Japan
would do in the case of war between the two
Chinas remains an
open question.
And for the time
being,
not
ready
to
embark in a
policy
too hostile to
Beijing, Tokyo
would
probably
also be
tempted
to use its
good
connections in the KMT to exert some
pressure
on
Taipei
in order to
prompt
it to
adopt
a more flexible mainland
policy.
Other countries in the
region,
in
particular
the ASEAN
nations,
have
also
adopted
a firmer
policy
towards the PRC. In the wake of the
Mischief Reef
incident,
ASEAN for the first time
managed
to force
Beijing
to
accept
multilateral talks on the South China Sea issue. How-
ever,
their timid reaction to
Beijing's military provocations against Taipei
in 1995-96 showed the
growing
influence of the PRC in the
region.
Though
often linked to the United States
by security agreements,
the
ASEAN countries have
developed
a neutral attitude on the Taiwan issue
which
clearly plays against Taipei's
interests.
It is in this context that Lee
Teng-hui
aired views on the
possible
establishment of an Asian
security system including
Taiwan and con-
straining,
if not
containing,
mainland China. These ideas were deliber-
ately
released in late
August
in
Kaohsiung
before
Japanese
and
Taiwanese
political
scientists.72 But here
again,
on which countries can
Taiwan count?
Though Japan
or even Indonesia would not be
totally
opposed
to such a
plan,
this
question
remains
today completely
unan-
swered.
Finally, through
the 1995-96
crisis,
Europe
has shown how distant and
aloof it is from the Taiwan issue. Some countries have
courageously
welcomed Taiwan
high
officials,
such as the Czech
Republic
which
hosted Premier Lien Chan in June 1995.
But,
anxious to
get
a
bigger
share of the China market in order to ease their
unemployment problem
and unable to
play any security
role in East Asia
(arms
dealers
included),
such
major European
countries as
Germany
and France are
incapable
of
following
this
example.
Thus the members of the
European
Union cannot
do more than
promote
closer
economic,
cultural and sometimes
-
if
they
have not too
many
commercial interests at stake in the PRC
-
political
links with Taiwan.
Although
these countries have also
expressed
their
grave
concern about China's missile
tests,
they
are unable to
provide any
support
to Taiwan.
70.
U.S.-Japan
Joint Declaration on
Security, Tokyo,
17
April
1996,
p.
3.
71.
Washington D.C.,
Weekly Compilation of
Presidential
Documents,
24 November
1969,
pp.
1633-1937.
72. The China
Post,
22
August 1995,
p.
4.
1282 The China
Quarterly
Conclusion
In the
past
nine
years,
Taiwan's mainland
policy
has
changed quite
dramatically.
From a
policy
of no contacts with the
PRC,
the ROCOT has
moved towards one the main features of which are the
approval
of
economic and human
exchanges
with this
country
and the
recognition
of
the status
quo
in the Strait. For
Taipei,
unification remains the official
final
goal,
but because of
lingering discrepencies
between the PRC and
the ROCOT societies and the
pressure
of the
DPP,
normalization has
clearly
taken the lead.
Beijing
has not
completely opposed
this
strategy.
The SEF-ARATS
meetings
have
suggested
that the two Chinas can
agree
on a number of
things,
in
particular improvement
of the
day-to-day operating
of cross-
Strait relations.
Nevertheless,
the PRC remains adamant in its will to
impose
the "one
country
two
systems"
formula and
relegate
Taiwan to
provincial
status.
Moreover,
the 1995-96 "missile crisis" has shown that
some leaders in
Beijing apparently
want to
speed up
the reunification
process
and thus increase the
political
and
military pressure
on
Taiwan.73
Is
Taipei's
current mainland
policy adapted
to these new
challenges?
Can the ROCOT boost its international status
and,
in so
doing, guarantee
its
long-term
survival? In other
words,
should Taiwan abandon its
pragmatic diplomacy
and more
generally
its
ambition
to be considered as
a true
nation-state,
as the New
Party
and KMT non-mainstream faction
leaders advocate? Or should it
keep
the line it
adopted
in the
early
1990s
and continue to seek international
recognition?
It is too
early
to answer these
questions fully
because the menace
threatening
Taiwan's de
facto independence
has not reached a level
which would
compel
the
government
to address the issue
directly.
However,
Taiwan's future will
depend upon
how
powerful
the few
major
constraints are.
First,
Taiwan's economic
dependence
vis-a-vis mainland China re-
mains rather limited
and,
more
importantly
is
increasingly reciprocal.
The
current level of
dependence
(10
per
cent of Taiwan's
foreign
trade and
16.5
per
cent of its
exports
are with the
PRC)
is much lower than the one
which links for instance France and
Germany
and it will take time before
such a level is reached
(25
per cent).
And
global
Taiwanese investments
in China have been for a few
years
balanced
by roughly
the same amount
of accumulated investments
($25 billion)
in the ASEAN countries.74
Besides,
the economic
development
of the PRC's
key provinces
(such
as
Guangdong, Jiangsu, Fujian)
relies more and more on Taiwan's
products
and
money,
and if the former revives its
military
intimidations,
it will
73. In
September
1995,
Shaw
Yu-ming,
the director of the ROCOT's Institute of
International
Relations,
declared that the PRC was
seeking
to
reunify
Taiwan within 15
years.
Zhongguo
shibao,
5
September
1995,
p.
2.
74.
Gary
Klintworth,
New
Taiwan,
New
China,
Taiwan's
Changing
Role in the
Asia-Pacific Region (Melbourne: Longman, 1995), pp.
142ff.
Taiwan's Mainland
Policy
1283
certainly
affect the level of the latter's investments." More
generally,
economic
interdependence
does not
necessarily jeopardize political
inde-
pendence.
Secondly, beyond
the weaknesses of Taiwan's democratic
system,
the
diverging
mainland
policies
advocated
by
the
major parties
and the
pressure
of the
companies
which have invested in the
PRC,
there is much
consensus on the island not to
question
the de
facto independence
and
long-term
existence of the ROCOT. The 1995-96 crisis contributed to
reinforce this consensus and to feed a
genuine
Taiwanese nationalism
shared
by
most sectors of
society.
For
nearly
half a
century,
Taiwan's
residents have been used to
ruling
their own affairs and do not find
any
interest in
transferring
to a remote
northern
government
even
part
of their
powers
and
competence.
Thirdly,
China remains
today
far less
powerful
than
many perceive.
Having
to tackle formidable economic
problems
and
having
embarked on
a difficult succession
battle,
the PRC
leadership appears
to some extent as
a idol with feet of
clay.
Moreover,
the 1995-96 crisis has not
only
shown
the limits of PLA
capabilities
but also contributed to a view of China as
a
major
threat to the
peace
and
stability
of the Asia-Pacific
region
and
more
generally
as the new
"empire
of evil" whose
political
future remains
the
biggest question
mark of the end of this
century.
Finally,
this trend has favoured a
gradual change
of attitude of the
international
community
towards Taiwan.
Diplomatically
isolated,
the
ROCOT is however not without friends. Most countries
just pay lip
service to
Beijing's
"one China
policy"
and have
long
considered Taiwan
as a de
facto
nation-state. And the 1995-96 crisis has forced the island's
main
political partners
and
neighbours
to make their
position
clearer and
show the PRC the line which it should not cross. The reassertion of the
American commitment to Taiwan and
Japan,
and,
to a lesser
extent,
ASEAN's
growing
concern
for the
security
of the ROCOT have
strength-
ened Taiwan's
international
posture
and therefore the
legitimacy
of its
mainland
policy.
Thus,
in
spite
of the
important
constraints on Taiwan's room for
manoeuvre,
the ROCOT
government
has no reason to
change
its funda-
mental mainland
policy.
It will
probably
in the foreseeable future make
a few moves to show its
goodwill (three
direct
links)
and
try gradually
to
build
up,
if not
normalization,
at least a modus vivendi with the PRC.
But,
supported by
the
majority
of Taiwanese
society,
it will continue to defend
the island's
security
and its de
facto independence.
75. Cf. statements made in March 1996
by
Kao
Ching-yuan,
the head of
Taipei's
Chinese
National Federation of
Industries,
and Wu
Chang-ming,
chairman of the Association of
Taiwan Investors. The China
Post,
13 March
1996,
p.
15 and 19 March
1996,
p.
14.

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Author(s): Jean-Pierre Cabestan

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Taiwan's Mainland Policy