HK polls again spotlight
China-Taiwan By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - At the end of the day the issue might
be only this: what is buried in the heart of Chen
Shui-bian? Is he a zealot who wants independence for his
island at any cost - and a place in history for himself,
as the hero who tore Taiwan away from the continent, or
the martyr who died with his people trying to get it?
Or is the Taiwan president a pragmatist
eschewing ways to deal with the giant next door without
being crushed? There is a huge difference - it is the
difference between life and death, peace and war.
In other words, what is the method in this
madness? Because Chen, despite all warnings from
concerned neighbors and people from all over the world,
and his promises that he will never go too far, is
engaged in a policy of constant brinkmanship that,
perhaps unwittingly, toys every day with the worst fears
in Beijing, stokes the flames of conflict and gives a
lot of room to the worst hawks in China, those who not
only want to reconquer Taiwan with weapons and without
peace, but also want to retreat on many Chinese policies
of reform and opening up.
The issue was further
complicated by the Hong Kong elections for the
Legislative Council on Sunday. There Beijing had to try
to win enough popular support to push forth its own
candidates, avoid a victory of the local candidates who
wanted confrontation with the government in Beijing, and
send a positive message to Taiwan - that the People's
Republic of China is not a tyrant that wants to impose a
dictatorship upon Hong Kong and, in the future, upon
Taiwan.
Beijing's declared policy on Taiwan is
that of peaceful reunification, which might be
considered the Chinese version of the US policy toward
China, the one christened "peaceful evolution" to
democracy.
The Chinese peaceful-reunification
strategy aims at drawing a growing number of people and
resources to the mainland from Taiwan, luring them with
great business opportunity. So far the strategy is
working marvels: more than US$100 billion of Taiwanese
investment has moved to the mainland, some 500,000
Taiwanese are residing in cities on the mainland, and
Beijing this year will record a trade deficit of more
than $20 billion with Taiwan, thus directly financing
the island's welfare. In this way Beijing is drawing
Taiwan closer, and it is seeking to solve by simpler
rules of commerce the more complicated issue of
political reunification.
This strategy is hard
to oppose in Taiwan: it is difficult for any government
to tell its business community not to invest where it
can make money. Besides, the volume of bilateral trade
is such that commerce directly or indirectly benefits
millions in the island. At this stage it is fair to say
that if trade with the mainland were to stop, Taiwan's
economy would plunge into crisis.
One way to
cope with the issue could be for Taiwan to start
immediate negotiations for reunification, knowing that
as trade grows stronger, so will be Taiwan's dependence
on Beijing. Therefore negotiations at this time could be
conducted on better terms than talks in the future.
Taiwan's President Chen, however, has not chosen
this path. As the two economies draw closer across the
strait, he pushes the politics further apart and dangles
before the world the possibility of a referendum to
change the island's constitution. No matter what the
specifics of the new constitution, the fact remains that
there will be 1) a new constitution, and 2) a referendum
to approve it. This will represent a further step away
from the mainland and the hypothesis of reunification.
In fact the Taiwanese people will be called upon to vote
upon a document, the new constitution, marking a
significant new stage in the stage in relations between
the island and Beijing.
An acute observer of
Taiwan's politics, Benjamin Lim, believes Chen is a
pragmatist - it is all shadow-boxing, old Chinese style.
Chen is trying to get as many concessions as he can from
the mainland. To prove their point, Lim and other people
argue that Beijing's tone on the Taiwan issue has become
milder. Beijing now tries to avoid any threat of war
(which ignites anti-Beijing sentiment in Taiwan and
elsewhere) and has returned to the formula rejected in
1992: that the two sides can agree on "one China", and
each side can have its own interpretation of this one
China. One China, two systems.
China, however,
does have some 500 missiles targeted at Taiwan.
Yet even if Taiwan's actions are just bargaining
chips to be used against Beijing, this bargaining comes
with a price. This is a delicate international juncture.
China is involved with North Korea in talks aimed at
dismantling the latter's nuclear program, and the United
States is involved in Iraq. In North Korea China needs
to keep control of the situation, otherwise Pyongyang
can behave irrationally, shouting, threatening and
making everybody nervous. At the same time the US can
feel fed up with seemingly endless waiting over the
Korea nuclear issue. Japan might consider the need to
defend itself and do so without the US defense umbrella.
In other words, things could just too easily escalate
and deteriorate - eclipsing the crisis in Iraq, some
say. For all this to happen, Beijing would have to lose
its focus and overreact on the Taiwan issue.
The
US already has its hands full with Iraq, and doesn't
want even to think about a double crisis in Taiwan and
North Korea. In other words, the US cannot effectively
deal with all problems at once - Iraq, North Korea and
Taiwan - and if something must be sacrificed, it will be
Taiwan. This is even more likely since President Chen
has been pushing the envelope while China wants to
maintain the status quo. Besides, as the United States
favors the policy of "peaceful evolution", it also
openly supports the idea of "peaceful reunification" of
Taiwan and the mainland. As for China, it certainly
favors peaceful reunification, and it can also be argued
that it agrees with the idea of "peaceful evolution", a
phrase erased from the often derogatory political
vocabulary. Therefore in principle the US and China
could be seen in agreement. So, why then does Chen
disagree?
Taiwanese commentators may argue:
because Chen knows all too well that Beijing is a bully
that only chi yingde, bu chi ruande - gives in to
the hard ones, not to the soft ones. Beijing on the
other hand retorts: Chen is not a fair dealer, he just
wants to pursue by any means his road to independence.
He is a political gambler, as evidenced by his swiftly
exploiting the still mysterious assassination attempt
against him on March 19, the day before the presidential
election. He believes that China will not wage war to
reclaim Taiwan, risking a US intervention.
The
two sides bitterly distrust each other and find proof
for it in Hong Kong. Beijing sees Chen's hand everywhere
in messing up the situation and stoking the flames of
protest against the mainland. The poor political
handling of Hong Kong is a clear proof to Taiwan that
Beijing will do the same, if not worse, to the island,
if it were to return to the mainland. This is not a
simple matter of leadership. Public opinion in Beijing
thinks Taiwan must be retaken by any means and it bears
a deep resentment against the Hong Kong people whom it
considers guilty of being rich, spoiled, paying no taxes
to the central government, and simply interested in
getting money out of other Chinese people.
The
Taiwanese see affairs on the mainland without nuance:
they are communist and they or their heirs have little
or no traditional manners, they are bullies and they
only think that Taiwan must kowtow to Beijing.
Beijing feels it must break the deadlock,
otherwise only the huge gates of war will swing open.
Taipei feels no need to break any deadlock: Beijing must
be treated from a position of strength.
One way,
perhaps the only way, for Beijing to try to break the
deadlock would be to improve the situation in Hong Kong.
Through actions in Hong Kong, by winning the support of
the Hong Kong people, Beijing could prove to Taiwan and
the whole world its good intentions. Short of that, the
situation could easily escalate.
Yet Beijing
feels somehow powerless in Hong Kong. By arresting
opponents for womanizing or intimidating them, it is as
if Beijing admits it cannot win fair and square the
heart of the Hong Kong people. This is a very dangerous
feeling, perhaps the most destabilizing feeling of all.
Stephen Kotkin in Armageddon Averted
(Oxford 2001) details how the Soviet Union in the late
1980s committed political suicide. The collapse of the
USSR, Kotkin explains, was caused by a lack of trust of
the Soviet leaders in themselves and in the ideology
they upheld. They thought they could not make it, people
and their dissent could not be cracked down anymore,
therefore they gave up and the empire fell apart.
With hindsight, one must say that they were
probably right, their communism was unbearable, so much
so that even the leaders could not stand it anymore, but
are the Chinese reformers likewise finished? Is the
momentum of reform exhausted - so much so that Beijing
cannot find a way to win over people in Hong Kong?
Perhaps these questions are bigger than the
issue of whether one can or cannot deal with that rogue,
Chen Shui-bian, because if Beijing can win in Hong Kong
it can also win over Chen, whatever his motives. If
Beijing cannot win in Hong Kong, then any Chen Shui-bian
down the street in the world is in for a piece of
Beijing political action.
Francesco
Sisci is the director of the Institute of Italian
Culture in Beijing. This article represents his views
alone and not those of the institute.
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