Introduction

The political relation between the People’s Republic of China (henceforth: China) and the Republic of China on Taiwan (henceforth: Taiwan) has been stag­nating for more than a decade.[1] Although Beijing has not yet renounced the use of force against Taiwan should it declare independence, the possibility of a military conflict between the two rivals of the Chinese civil war is declining. On the other hand the government in Taiwan is now under ever tremendous domestic and international pressure so that its rapprochement to the Mainland is more and more likely to take place in the near future. All these changes can be deemed started since President Hu Jintao took office in 2003.

1. Core of the problem

The core of the entire problem between China and Taiwan lies in their sovereignty struggle that could be summarized to the so-called “one-China” principle.[2] Accord­ing to Beijing there are no taboos in the cross-Strait dialog or consultation if Taiwan only accepted the “one China principle”. If this outer appearance of China’s political integrity is maintained the real design of “one Chi­na“could be flexibly interpreted. That is the so-called “yi zhong ge biao（一中各表）” policy of “one China”, with interpretations of their own. In other words, if Taiwan should accept the “one-China” principle Beijing should be even willing to dis­cuss sensitive issues such as defence and foreign policy with Taipei. This is, in fact, a kind of “agree to disagree“ compromise between the two sides.

But the government in Taipei rejects it categorically. It claims that all the issues, including the “one-China” princi­ple, should be negotiable without any preconditions.[3] The result is the decade-long political deadlock, one practical example of which is the problem of the “three links”[4] because the two sides are still unable to reach an agree­ment on the composition of the negotiation delegations. In order to accord with the domestic nature of the “one-China” principle Beijing insists on private societies being involved. Taipei, in contrast, stresses on negotiations with government officials to en­hance its independent statehood. Taiwan is keen to be treated as an equal entity on a par with China and doesn’t want to enter negotiation process as mere provincial govern­ment. These obviously insurmountable contrasts have made the bilateral negotiation impossi­ble so that there are still no direct airs and sea connections between the two sides, all goods and passenger traffic must make a detour via Hong Kong or Macao.

2. Stance of China

Since decades Beijing has been constantly upholding its pressure on Taiwan. In order to intimidate Taiwanese from voting for the then president Lee Teng-hui in the 1996 presidential election the Chinese army conducted missile tests along Taiwan’s coast. Since, in Beijing’s view, Lee has shown a strong tendency of Taiwan independence. But, despite all military efforts, the outcome of the election was not in Beijing’s favour. Lee Teng-hui garnered 54% of the votes.[5]

Four years later, during the run-up to the presidential election in March 2000, Chi­nese premier Zhu Rongji warned against voting for the DPP candidate, Chen Shui-bian, and equated this action with a decision for war.[6] Yet, among other rea­sons, mainly because of the split of the biggest and long-time ruling party, the KMT (Kuomintang), Chen was elected with 39.3%. During the parliamentary election at the end of 2001 Beijing kept silent. But still almost the worst scenario in the eyes of the Chinese leaders happened. Also with 39% the DPP became the strongest party in Taiwan’s parliament (Legislative Yuan).[7]

In the presidential election in March 2004 and its aftermath proc­ess were very peculiar. Although Beijing did not intimidate Tai­wan directly they have made a lot of efforts to solicit the US, Ja­pan and the EU to oppose Taiwan’s referendum especially because President Chen had linked it with the election.[8]was a kind of strategy of acting the underdog in order to win sympathy. But on the eve of the election both candidates, President Chen and Vice President Lu were mysteriously shot and lightly wounded during a campaign parade. As a result they were re-elected with a razor-thin margin of less that 30,000 votes. It prompted furious reaction from the opposition because they all believe, to this day, that it was a fraud in order to disgrace them by means of rumouring the assassination was collaboration between the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and the KMT. It

Although, all three examples show the fact that no matter how China deals with Taiwan all results run counter to its original intentions. There are two of Beijing’s major concerns toward Taiwan that deserve closer observation. Firstly, the problem of Chinese national dignity, and, secondly, the fear that Taiwan independ­ence movement could give impetus to a chain reaction that might endanger the territorial integrity of China. Therefore, no one in the Beijing leadership would ever allow such a development and they preserve the right to use force against Taiwan which is mainly directed against possible foreign interference (Textbook 2001).

From a realpolitik point of view, Taiwan is not capable to de­clare independence of its own without aid from outside. Foreign interference in the Taiwan issue will open up old sores of the Chinese people from their colonial past. This is the one of the main reasons why Beijing always reacts so vigorously to Taiwanese efforts towards independence.

Besides, apart from Taiwan, there are two big regions in China’s periphery that also have been showing separatist tendency: namely Xinjiang and Tibet.[9] Visible success of these movements in any of these three regions could encourage the other and Taiwan is in an especially exposed position. Since its foreign interference is the strongest and the Chinese political influence is the least. It seemed that Beijing has reached a dead end in its Taiwan policy. In order to get this situation under control the Chinese have to come up with new ideas.

3. Continuity and Change

If we take China’s White Book on Taiwan from the year 2000 as a start there are three causes belli for Beijing, namely: Taiwan independence, foreign occupation of Taiwan and if Taiwan should endlessly delay negotiations over the reunification affairs with the Mainland.[10] In other words endless delay would mean that Beijing still inclines to use force against the island so long as it should lose patience even if Taiwan didn’t declare independence.

But since the release of the Anti Secession Law in March 2005 things have been changed. Now it stipulates that only when Taiwan independence should become fait accompli, or serious incidences that should lead to Taiwan independence and, last but not least, all possibilities of reunification should be exhausted.[11] It’s clear, between the lines, only if there is any hope of reunification with the Mainland there shall be no use of force against Taiwan. But the content is subject to wide range of speculations. Although, obvious changes in these years are to be established, namely from using force even with no independence to only using force against independence.

Moreover, “no independence no use of force” could also mean maintenance of the status quo and peaceful coexistence only if Taiwan didn’t cross the Rubicon. It also implies the tolerance of the ROC legal structure by Beijing because the current ROC-constitution practiced in Taiwan still insists its de jure claim of the whole China. Besides, much different to their previous attitude, there are clear signs showing that the contributions of the KMT in the Sino-Japanese War in the 1930’s and 1940’s began to be rehabilitated by the CCP.[12] school textbooks in the Mainland, the ROC ceases to exist in 1949 when the PRC is established and Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory. Although, according to all

Given all these changes there are at least two significant reasons to be observed. At first, due to the rapid economic development and the increase of its influences in the world the CCP sees no more necessary to secure its own legitimacy by means of negating the KMT. In other words Beijing feels itself confident enough to face the truth of the past. Secondly, if the legal structure of the ROC in Taiwan should be overthrown by the ruling DPP it would force Beijing a showdown. The consequences of an ultima ratio are rather unpredictable and that’s why Beijing is at heart extremely unwilling to let it happen. Therefore to uphold the KMT as well as the ROC, even reluctantly, serves the best the Chinese interests for the time been. Furthermore Beijing has shown its friendly welcome to the pan-blue opposition parties in Taiwan (KMT, People First Party, PFP, and New Party, NP) because they have already accepted the one China principle in form of the 1992 consensus.

Two months after the release of the Anti Secession Law a KMT delegation led by the then chairman Lian Chan paid a visit to the Mainland. It’s the first official party-to-party contact between the two rivals since 1949 and was followed by the second large opposition party PFP in May and the small NP in July the same year. The impact of this visits are tremendous. Not only it serves as rejection of the DPP for its stance against the Anti Secession Law but also it delivered a clear sign to the people in the Mainland that more then half of the people as well as the parliamentarians in Taiwan are against Taiwan independence. It must have released a lot of the pressure of the Chinese people to their government in Beijing in terms of Taiwan independence. Since the year 2000 as the DPP took office, the media reports of the Mainland have been concentrated on their policies of independence. Now they can feel more relaxed. On the other hand it also enlarged the room of manoeuvre for the rational policy making of the Beijing leaders vis-à-vis Taiwan and the Mainland leaders have been starting to offer Taiwanese people with various kinds of friendly gestures such as purchasing their agricultural products as well as sending Pandas as a present etc.

4. Perspectives of Taiwan

Nevertheless China’s economic attraction for Taiwan’s business world is increasing so that the government in Taipei has tried to take countermeasures. Keeping the hurdle high for cross-Strait trade and building Taiwanese national identity seem to be useful means.[13] But it is an extraordinary phenomenon that in spite of political confrontation be­tween Taipei and Beijing the bilateral trade and exchange are booming rather swiftly.

According to official statistics of Taiwan in 2005 its trade with China amounts to ＄71.7 billion （＋16.3％ than 2004） and it takes 19.3％（＋1.3％） of the whole foreign trade volume of the island. Since 2003 China has become Taiwan’s biggest trading partner.[14]＄31.8 billion, ＋12.6％）surpasses the wohle foreign trade surplus (＄7.8 billion, ＋27.2％）by an amount of ＄24 billion.[15]＄2.15 billion that makes the total volume of this investment to ＄91 billion.[16] Moreover, with the highest record, there are over four million visits to the Mainland made by the Taiwanese in 2005 and only around 160 000 visits from the Mainland to Taiwan due to restriction measures of Taibei. Also in the same year the real investment from Taiwan to the Mainland amounts to More significant is the fact that Taiwan’s surplus of its trade with the Mainland (

Therefore Taiwan’s increasing dependence on the mainland is inevitable. But in the long run, thanks to the WTO membership of the both sides since 2001, rising imports from China (e.g. agricultural products) can simultaneously lead to a gradual decrease of Taiwan’s foreign trade surplus with China. This could mean great challenges for Taiwan. But at the same time increasing trade can also work as a stabilising factor in the Taiwan Strait.

Furthermore there are several indicia which deserve closer observation. Firstly, since the last constitution revision in 2005 the hurdle for later amendments is too high to be reached.[17]％.[18] If the DPP should lose the election in 2008, so that they will no more be able to manupilate the judiciary system, even more scandals would be disclosed. Therefore the ruling DPP is under tremendous pressure at present. After the two-bullet-incident in 2004 what else can not be possible? Therefore a de jure independence is rather unlikely to be realized in the near future and the maintenance of the legal status of Taiwan is exactly Beijing’s vital concern. It could be deemed as an effective security measure in the Taiwan Strait. Secondly, since last fall several devastating corruption scandals of the ruling DPP have been unveiled one after another. While the opposition keeps on exposing the wrong doings of the governing DPP its popularity is down to a record low of around 20

Thirdly, although facing China’s rapid military buildup in recent years, the opposition in Taiwan has been successfully blocking the arms procurement proposition of the government for more then 40 times in the parliament in the last two years.[19]à-via Taiwan. Furthermore, when the worst comes to the worst, according to the Anti Secession Law, the PLA could react even without further authorizations.[21] Especially the Pentagon feels increasingly uneasy and threatened by the emerging cross-Strait military asymmetry in China’s favor.[20] While the ruling DPP prefers to take a power politics toward China by means of closer cooperation with the US, the opposition parties intend to reconcile with Beijing. For the opposition, which occupies the absolute majority in the parliament since 2000: Why do we need so many weapons if we want to make peace with China? Even more significant in this regard is whether the Taiwanese people would stick together when China should attack Taiwan in case of Taiwanese independence? In contrast, due to the rise of China and the Chinese nationalism the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) would have much less concern over their solidarity vis-

Fourthly, along with the rise of China Washington takes increasingly more account of Beijing’s concern including its vital interest toward Taiwan. During the recent visit of President Hu Jintao in April to the US President Bush assured him again that Washington opposes any kind of unilateral changes of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and the Chinese from both sides should avoid confrontation in their disputes.[22] Among other issues, the support of Beijing, especially in North-Korea and Iran entanglements, must have played a significant role in Washington’s strategic calculations.

Last but not least, the relation between Taipei and Washington is deteriorated by President Chen’s recent intentions toward independence.[23] the big nations, the strategic significance of Taiwan as an adversary to China is declining if the island still sticks to its independence stance. As a result Washington downgraded the transit conditions for Chen so that he refused to make stopovers in the US during his trip to Southern American countries in May last year.[24] Although things have been changed a little bit lately but compare to the warm welcome that Washington gave to Chen in the year 2000 and 2001 when he transited the US the contrast is too obvious. Under these circumstances, in the game of power played by

5. Conclusion

In recent years Beijing has been trying hard to collaborate with the USA on the Taiwan issue while offering increasing amount of friendly measures toward the Taiwanese people. This Beijing’s double strategy of carrots and sticks has shown some effect by Washington’s recent anger toward President Chen and the increasing cross-Strait trade and exchange volumes. All this must thank to the fast growth of Chinese influences in the world. Besides the Anti Secession Law and the visits of the opposition parties have changed a lot the cross-Strait confrontation in Beijing’s favour. Plus the unreachable hurdle of Taiwan’s constitutional amendment and scandal crisis of the ruling DPP, the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is likely to be maintained

Furthermore China is becoming increasingly attractive for enterprises, job seekers and also students from Taiwan.[25] Should this development continue Taiwan would be less and less able to withstand this attraction. But according to the functional­ist theory the possibility of using military forces should be decreasing if the interactions between the two sides should be increasing. Hopefully, this change could determine the future development of the cross-Strait relations in peace.

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（本文原刊於新加坡的Asia Europe Journal 2006年12月號第555到第562頁，本文代表作者個人意見。）



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[1] We can set the Cornell visit of the former President Lee Teng-hui in summer 1995 as the start of the current stagnation of the cross-Strait relations because it triggered the PLA’s military manoeuvre in the Taiwan Strait. Since then, except a short period of rap­prochement in autumn 1998, the bilateral relations have never been improved. See: Tang 2002: 1-14; www.future-china.org.tw/csipf/press/quarterly/pq2000-1/pq2000-1_4.htm; www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/taiwan_strait.htm; www.cdiss.org/China_Essay.htm.
[2] 'White book of the CP China on one China principle and the Taiwan question’ (Chin.), United Daily, 2000.2.22, p. 14. and 39. ‘Beijing’s ges­ture toward DPP just a diplomatic trick. Recognizing “one China” principle still precondi­tion for resuming’, Taiwan News, 2002.2.5, p. 9; ‘China’s premier insists on dia­logue “one China”’, Taiwan News, 2002.3.6, p. 1.
[3] 'New Years greetings of President Chen’ (chin.), China Times, 2001.1.1, p. 2; ‘Lu Shui-lian: Vice-President of Taiwan: One China is a theme but not a prerequisite’ (chin.), China Times, 2002.2.17, p. 11; United Daily, 2002.3.8, p. 4; ‘As Beijing eases up, Taipei presses its separate identity’, International Her­ald Tribune (IHT), 2002.3.8, p. 1.
[4] Three Links (San Tong) means trade, post, and traffic. Since the problem in the first two parts are almost solved only the transport links still remains a problem, eNews China Times, 2002.7.1 and 2002.7.4.
[5] Tensions ease after Taiwan Election, http://www-cgi.cnn.com/WORLD/9603/taiwan_ elex/day_after/; www.ly.gov.tw/ly/index.jsp.
[6] Taiwan’s Presidential Election, http://taiwansecurity.org/TSR-President.htm.
[7] 'Taiwan (In) dependence’, http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/dateline/0,8782, 185609,00.html.
[8] http://www.cdn.com.tw/daily/2003/07/29/text/920729j1.htm.
[9] 'Xingjian, China’s Restive Northwest’, http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/china-98/sj_ xnj2.htm; http://www.chengmingmag.com/new_page_199.htm; http://www.tibet.com/.
[10] 'White book of the CP China on one China principle and the Taiwan question’ (chin.), United Daily, 2000.2.22
[11] http://news3.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2005-03/14/content_2694168.htm.
[12] The role of the KMT militries in the war against Japan is clearly displayed in the Musuem of Anti-Japanese War in Beijing. In 2005 it is also the first time for Beijing to celebrate openly the 60th anneversary of recovery of Taiwan from Japanese occupation in 1945.
[13] For instance changing the passages in primary school textbooks etc. see IHT, 2002.3.8, p. 1.
[14] http://big5.fmprc.gov.cn:89/gate/big5/www.chinaconsulatechicago.org/chn/zzxw/t70686.
[15] http://www.trade.gov.tw.
[16] http://bbs.cctv.com.cn/forumthread.jsp?id=7725023.
[17] 3/4 of the parliamentarians plus 8.4 million yes-votes through referendum out of 17 million voters. http://info.gio.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=13370&CtNode=904&mp=1.
[18] http://times.hinet.net/news/20060518/headline/caa484fa92f2.htm.
[19] http://mag.udn.com/mag/news/itempage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=136&f_SUB_ID=409.
[20] http://www.mnd.gov.tw/modnews/mininews/matter.aspx?PublicID=3047&NodeID=3.
[21] Paragraph 8 of the Anti Secession Law.
[22] http://news3.xinhuanet.com/english/2003-06/02/content_899579.htm.
[23] President Chen abolished the „Guidelines of Reunification“ and the „Council of Reunification“ in Feburary last year which was deemed by Beijing and Washington as a step forward to Tawian independence. http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/trad/hi/newsid_4710000/newsid_4712200/4712278.stm.
[24] High ranking officials such as Presiden and Vice President of Taiwan are barred to visit the US due to „one-China“ principle.
[25] 'Letter from Taiwan: Go to the Mainland for advanced studies’ (chin.), http://news.bbc.co. uk/hi/chinese/china_news/newsid_2173000/21734322.stm