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Nationalists, communists mend
fences in China
By Henry C K
Liu
In the Asia Times Online series US-China: Quest for peace, I
wrote in Part 6 (Forget reunification, nothing to
reunite, January 30, 2004) that the solution
to the Taiwan issue, a Chinese internal affair
left over from an unfinished civil war between two
political parties, lies in a third cooperative
attempt between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
and the Nationalist Party (Guomindang or
Kuomintang, KMT).
The following is the
relevant excerpt from the article:
Until 1991, the ROC (Republic of
China) government in Taipei claimed to be the
sole legitimate government of all China,
including the mainland and Outer Mongolia, which
had become a Soviet satellite as a result of
Moscow entering the war against Japan. In
keeping with that claim to represent all China,
when the GMD [Guomindang] fled to Taipei in
1949, it re-established the full array of
central political bodies that had existed on the
mainland in its civil-wartime capital, Nanjing.
While much of this governmental
structure remained in place, in 1991, president
Lee Teng-hui unofficially abandoned the ROC
government's claim of sovereignty over the
mainland, stating that the Taiwan authorities do
not "dispute the fact that the communists
control mainland China". The National Assembly,
however, has never officially changed the
national borders, since doing so would spell the
de jure end of the ROC and be seen as a prelude
to Taiwan independence. National Assembly
members were anti-communists but they were not
traitors. They had no interest in allowing the
dismemberment of any part of China.
A
fundamental issue is at stake. A [national]
government cannot selectively claim only a
minor, offshore part of the larger nation. It is
either the government of all China, inter-party
disputes of legitimacy notwithstanding, or it is
not a government of China at all.
If the
Taiwan authorities do not claim to be the
legitimate government of China, they also
forfeit their own legitimacy even as a
provincial government of Taiwan, since Taiwan is
an inalienable part of China, a fact
acknowledged by both the GMD and the CCP, the
certified participants in the political dispute.
The whole notion of reunification of
Taiwan is flawed and misleading. The Taiwan
issue is the product of a civil war between two
political parties, not two governments. What is
needed is not a reunification of Taiwan with
China, but a new political accommodation between
the GMD and the CCP to end the protracted civil
war. There were two previous periods of
cooperation between the two parties and there is
no reason a third period of cooperation cannot
be arranged. Under GMD control, Taiwan is a de
facto and de jure part of China. There is
nothing to reunite. Throughout the modern
history of China, there have been many examples
of more than one government existing
simultaneously on Chinese soil - but there has
been always only one China. Last
Thursday, it appeared that a third period of
cooperation between the two political parties had
commenced. Xinhua, the official news agency of the
People's Republic of China, reported that Jia
Qinglin, a member of the Standing Committee of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the
CCP and chairman of the National Committee of the
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC), shook hands with Chiang Pin-kung, vice
chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT - GMD in
pinyin, the transliteration system preferred by
mainland China) during a meeting in the Great Hall
of the People in Beijing after suspension of
direct contact for 56 years. Xinhua referred to
the KMT by its official initials with the
adjective "Chinese" before it.
A
delegation led by KMT vice chairman Chiang spent
five days in China to visit shrines of the Chinese
Nationalist Revolution (Goumin Gemin) and
historical sites of the KMT rule, as an apparent
first step toward a new period of cooperation
between the KMT and the CCP. The delegation
visited the revered Huanghuakang Mausoleum of 72
martyrs who died in an abortive revolutionary
uprising in Guangzhou under the leadership of KMT
founder Sun Yat-sen on March 29, 1911, months
before the Revolution of October 10 that overthrew
the Qing Dynasty and led to the founding of the
Republic of China on January 1, 1912.
Chairman Jia said while meeting the KMT
delegation in the Great Hall of the People: "As
chairman Lien [Chan] has expressed his intention
to visit the mainland, we welcome and invite him
to visit at any time he thinks appropriate." Lien
Chan is the chairman of the KMT, currently the
major opposition party in Taiwan.
The
role of the CPPCC
As the principal
political organ for multi-party cooperation and
consultation, the CPPCC was the appropriate host
to the KMT delegation. The CPPCC is a unique
branch in the Chinese political superstructure. It
is not merely an advisory body as the Western
press erroneously describes it. Its political
status is higher than that of the National
People's Congress. The closest equivalent to it in
Western political systems is the upper house of a
legislature. Multi-party cooperation and political
consultation under the leadership of the CCP is
basic to the political system of socialist China.
Multi-party democracy operates through the venue
of the CPPCC. Under the leadership of the CCP, the
eight other non-communist political parties
participate in the discussion and management of
state affairs, in cooperation with the CCP.
Political consultation means that under
the leadership of the CCP, whose role is to guide
the building of socialism, all parties, mass
organizations and representatives from all walks
of life take part in consultations on the nation's
basic policies and important issues in political,
economic, cultural and social affairs before
decisions are made and in the discussion of major
issues in the implementation of policy decisions.
Political consultation, through the formal
structure of the CPPCC, is the most important form
of multi-party politics in socialist China. The
CPPCC has a history that predates the founding of
the People's Republic of China (PRC). On September
21-30, 1949, 10 days before the proclamation of
the founding of the People's Republic, the First
CPPCC Plenary Session was held in Beiping (now
Beijing). Altogether, 662 representatives,
including those of the CCP, democratic parties,
mass organizations, various localities, the
People's Liberation Army, ethnic minorities,
overseas Chinese and religious groups, attended
the session.
Among the representatives
were prominent leaders of the KMT, such as Song
Qingling, widow of Sun Yat-sen, He Xiangning,
widow of Liao Zhong Kai, and General Li Jieshen,
former governor of Guangdong and Guangxi
provinces, who were elected vice chairpersons of
the second CPPCC. Song Qingling and Li Jieshen
were also elected as vice chairpersons of the
People's Central Government along with Zhu De and
Liu Xiaoqi, and He Xiangning was elected as member
of the Central Government Council, along with Zhou
En-lai, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun and
former KMT general Lung Yun. Exercising the
functions and power of the National People's
Congress (NPC), which had not yet been
established, the session proclaimed the founding
of the People's Republic of China as the will of
all Chinese people. It adopted the Common Program
of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference, the Organic Law of the Chinese
People's Political Consultative Conference and the
Organic Law of the Central People's Government of
the People's Republic of China.
The CPPCC,
then, is the political conference that provided
the multi-party mandate for the founding of the
People's Republic. The conference approved Beijing
as capital of the republic, designated the
five-star red flag as the national flag, declared
the popular wartime song of "March of the
Volunteers" as the national anthem, and adopted
the solar calendar. During the first session, the
chairman, vice chairmen and members of the Central
People's Government, as well as the first National
Committee of the CPPCC, were elected. Mao Zedong
was elected the first chairman of the CPPCC
National Committee. On June 14-23, 1950, the
second session of the First CPPCC National
Committee was held and the Draft Law of Land
Reforms of the People's Republic of China, the
Report on the Work of the Standing Committee of
the CPPCC National Committee, and the Report on
the Handling of the Proposals moved at the First
CPPCC Plenary Session were passed.
The
meeting solidified the CPPCC's political status
and its right of participation in the deliberation
and administration of state affairs and political
consultation. In addition, the design of New
China's national emblem was also approved at the
meeting. On December 21-25, 1954, the First
Session of the Second CPPCC National Committee was
held. The constitution of the PRC was adopted at
the meeting. According to the document, the Common
Program should be replaced by the country's new
constitution. Chairman Mao Zedong in 1956 wrote
the principle of "long-term co-existence and
mutual supervision" to define the relationship
between CCP and the country's non-communist
parties in his article "On Ten Relationships". On
August 6, 1965, the Fourth CPPCC National
Committee held a tea party in honor of Li Zongren,
former commander-in-chief of the KMT's 4th Group
Army, who was later to become acting president of
Republic of China, and who had just returned from
overseas. Accompanying president Li was his
political adviser, Cheng Siyuan.
Cheng was
born in 1908, a native of Binyang, Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region; with no party affiliation;
postgraduate from Rome University, PhD in
political science. From 1930-34, Cheng worked as
political secretary to Li Zongren. From 1934, he
served as secretary to Bai Chongxi, then deputy
chief of staff of the KMT National Military
Council, chief of service section and director of
the Central Committee of Three People's Principles
Youth League, director of the Political Department
of Guangxi Pacification Headquarters, a member of
Standing Committee of the KMT Sixth Central
Executive Committee, a member of the KMT
Legislation Committee, and deputy secretary
general of the Wartime Committee of the KMT
Central Committee. Cheng lived and worked as a
columnist for a newspaper in Hong Kong from
1949-65. From 1978-83, he was a member and deputy
secretary general of the Standing Committee of the
National Committee of CPPCC, member of the
Standing Committee of the NPC, and vice chairman
of the NPC Foreign Affairs Committee; from
1983-88, he was a member of the Standing Committee
and deputy secretary general of the CPPCC National
Committee; after 1993, he was vice chairman of
Eighth NPC Standing Committee and vice chairman of
the Standing Committee of the Ninth NPC.
In February 1978, the CPPCC resumed its
work after the interruption of the Cultural
Revolution (1966-76). On June 15, 1979, Deng
Xiaoping, chairman of the Fifth CPPCC National
Committee, said during the opening of the second
session of the committee that China's united front
had changed into an alliance of socialist laborers
and patriots in support of socialism, under the
leadership of the workers and on the basis of the
alliance of workers and farmers. The CPPCC has a
national committee and regional committees and is
a united front organization with broad
representation. It is an important organ of
multi-party cooperation and political consultation
under the leadership of the CCP. It is composed of
the CCP, other political parties, mass
organizations, and representative public
personages from all walks of life, representatives
of compatriots of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as
well as of returned overseas Chinese and other
specially invited personage.
The major
function of the CPPCC is to conduct political
consultation and exercise democratic supervision,
and organize its members from various
non-communist political parties, mass
organizations and public personages from all walks
of life to take part in the discussion and
management of state affairs. Political
consultation covers socialist material and
spiritual construction, the building of a
democratic legal system, important policies and
planning of the reform and opening up program,
reports on the work of the government, national
financial and fiscal budget, economic and social
development planning, major issues in political
reform, drafting of major national laws,
evaluation of candidates for state offices
proposed by the CCP Central Committee, changes in
the administrative division at the provincial
level, major policies in foreign affairs, major
policies in regard to the unification of the
motherland, major issues involving people's
livelihood, affairs of common interest of the
political parties, important affairs of the CPPCC
and other important issues in regard to the
patriotic united front. Political consultation
takes the forms of plenary sessions, standing
committees and meetings of the chairmen of the
National Committee of the CPPCC, discussion
meetings of Standing Committee members of the
CPPCC, special committee meetings of the CCP,
consultation meetings participated by people from
various political parties, representative public
personages without political party affiliation,
mass organizations, ethnic minorities and
patriotic figures from different walks of life and
activities of local people's political
consultative conferences at various levels.
Democratic supervision covers such areas
as the implementation of the constitution, laws
and regulations of the state, implementation of
major policies formulated by the CCP Central
Committee and state organs, the implementation of
the national economic and social development plans
and financial budget, the conduct of duties, law
observance, and honesty of state organs and their
staff, the execution of decisions and the
regulations of the CPPCC on the part of its units
and individuals. Democratic supervision takes the
forms of plenary sessions, Standing Committee
meetings and meetings of the chairmen of the CPPCC
submitting proposals to the CCP Central Committee
and the State Council; various special committees
of the CPPCC putting forward suggestions and
reports; inspection, proposal, exposing and other
forms of criticism and suggestion by individual
CPPCC members; taking part in investigations
organized by the CCP Central Committee and the
State Council as well as activities organized by
local people's political consultative conferences.
This includes organizing investigations and
research of issues that the general public is
concerned with, causing the attention of the CCP
committees and departments of the State Council
and which the CPPCC is capable of doing; actively
making constructive suggestions to CCP and the
government at various levels, maximizing the role
of CPPCC members and their specialty to offer
suggestions and services to the program of reform,
opening up and the modernization drive.
All political parties and mass
organizations who support the charter of the CPPCC
may sit on the National Committee or local
committees, upon agreement by the National
Committee or local committees after deliberation.
Individuals, invited by the National Committee or
the standing committees of local committees, may
also become members of the National Committee or
local committees. The relationship between the
National Committee and local committees and
between higher level committees and lower level
committees is one of guidance. Local committees
have the obligation to observe and carry out
national decisions adopted by the National
Committee and lower level committees have the
obligation to observe and carry out regional
decisions adopted by the higher level committees.
All units and individuals taking part in the CPPCC
have the right to take part in political
consultation, democratic supervision, discussion
and management of state affairs, through the
meetings, organization and activities of the
CPPCC. Decisions of the plenary session and
Standing Committee of the National Committee and
local committees will become effective only after
the majority of the committee members have voted
in their favor. All participating units and
individuals have the obligation to observe and
carry out the decisions. In case of different
opinions, they may state their reservation on the
precondition of firmly implementing them.
Participating units and individuals who have
seriously violated the charter of the CPPCC or the
decisions of the plenary sessions or Standing
Committee shall be disciplined by the National
Committee or standing committees of local
committees, ranging from warnings to stripping
them of their qualifications for joining the
CPPCC.
The number and specific candidacy
of the participating units and members of the
National Committee are nominated by the Standing
Committee of the outgoing National Committee of
the CPPCC. During every term of office, when it is
necessary to increase or change the number or
candidacy of the participating units or members,
it is to be nominated by the Standing Committee of
the present National Committee of the CPPCC. The
present National Committee is composed of members
of 34 units, ie, the CCP, China Revolutionary
Committee of the Kuomintang, China Democratic
League, China Democratic National Construction
Association, China Association for the Promotion
of Democracy, Chinese Peasants' and Workers'
Democratic Party, China Zhi Gong Dang, Jiusan
Society, Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League,
public personages without party affiliation, the
Communist League of China, All-China Federation of
Trade Unions, All-China Federation of Women,
All-China Federation of Youth, All-China
Federation of Industry and Commerce, China
Association of Science and Technology, All-China
Friendship Federation of Taiwan Compatriots,
All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese,
representatives from the cultural and art circles,
the fields of science, technology, social science,
economics, agriculture, education, physical
culture, journalism, publishing, medicine, social
welfare, religion, and among ethnic minorities and
the circle of friendship with foreign countries,
specially invited people from Hong Kong, Macau and
other especially invited personage.
The
present National Committee has 2,196 members,
among whom 290 are members of the Standing
Committee. The National Committee serves for a
term of five years and holds a plenary session
once every year. The National Committee has a
chairman, 25 vice chairmen and a secretary
general. It sets up a Standing Committee that
presides over the work of the National Committee.
The Standing Committee is composed of the
chairman, vice chairmen, secretary general and
members. Candidacy of members to the Standing
Committee is proposed by political parties, mass
organizations, and people representing various
walks of life of the CPPCC, and elected by the
plenary session of the National Committee. The
chairman of the National Committee presides over
the work of the Standing Committee and the vice
chairmen and secretary general assist the chairman
in his or her work. The meeting of the chairmen is
composed of the chairman, vice chairmen and
secretary general and deals with the important
aspects of the day-to-day work of the Standing
Committee. The provinces, autonomous regions,
municipalities directly under the Central
Government, cities divided into districts,
counties, autonomous counties, as well as cities
not divided into districts and districts under the
jurisdiction of cities, where there are conditions
for setting up the CPPCC, shall establish proper
organizations of the CPPCC.
At present
there are more than 3,000 CPPCC local committees
at various levels made up by a total membership of
over half a million. Local committees of the CPPCC
serve a term of five years. The composition,
election, function, major working organs of local
committees and their standing committees should
correspond to those of the National Committee.
Cooperative relations between the CCP and other
political parties are based on the principle of
"long-term co-existence and mutual supervision,
treating each other with full sincerity and
sharing weal or woe". This refers to the eight
other political parties beside the CCP. These
eight parties, established before the founding of
the People's Republic of China in 1949, had been
dedicated to the building of a bourgeois republic
in China and had supported the CCP in the latter's
effort of overthrowing the rule of a KMT captured
by the reactionary right wing.
They are
independent in organization and enjoy political
freedom, organizational independence and legal
equality under the Chinese constitution.
Multi-party cooperation occurs through
participation in the formal discussion of state
affairs. Under this mechanism, members of various
non-communist parties take part in the
deliberation and implementation of major policies,
laws and regulations of the country, take part in
the consultation on major political issues and the
choice of leaders of the state and take part in
the running of state affairs. Consultation between
the CCP and other political parties mainly takes
the following forms.
Democratic
consultation. Leaders of the CCP invite,
usually once a year, leaders of other political
parties and representative personages without
political party affiliation to a meeting at which
CCP leaders hear and solicit their opinion on
major policies and principles that the CCP puts
forward.
High-level talks. CCP
leaders invite leaders of other political parties
and representative personages without political
party affiliation for small-scale meetings at
which they exchange opinions on questions of
common concern whenever there is a need for such a
meeting.
Bi-monthly meetings.
Chaired by the Central Committee of the CCP, the
meetings are attended by people from other
political parties and representative personages
without political party affiliation. At these
meetings, the CCP Central Committee informs the
participants of major events, exchanges views with
them, relays important documents of the CCP
Central Committee and hears the opinion and
suggestions of the participants or conducts
discussions on specific topics. When necessary,
there will be meetings between the bi-monthly
ones.
Written suggestions or exchange
of views in person. Leaders of non-communist
political parties and representative figures
without political party affiliation may, at any
time they wish, submit in writing their
suggestions to the CCP Central Committee on major
state policies or specific issues or they may see
leaders of the CCP Central Committee in person to
exchange views.
Along with consultation is
democratic supervision, which means that the
non-communist political parties exercise
supervision of the CCP and the government organs
under its leadership, within the framework of the
multi-party cooperation and political
consultation. The supervision may be conducted in
the following manners: putting forward opinions,
suggestions and criticisms to the CCP Central
Committee at the meetings of the CPPCC; making
known their suggestions and criticisms on major
political, economic and social issues of the state
on the basis of investigation; deputies to the NPC
and members of the CPPCC who are members of
non-communist political parties may conduct
supervision through putting forward bills,
proposals and inspection reports; and members of
non-communist political parties may exercise their
supervisory role by serving as special
supervisors, inspectors, auditors and education
supervisors of the government. Finally,
non-communist political party members hold leading
positions in the government and judicial organs at
various levels upon recommendation by the CCP.
New beginning for party-to-party
dialogue
During the reception for the KMT
delegation, chairman Jia of the CPPCC said the
chairmen of other political parties in Taiwan that
accept the 1992 Consensus oppose "Taiwan
independence" and support the development of
cross-strait ties are also welcome to visit the
mainland. The high-profile move was apparently
aimed at boosting Beijing's political consultation
with Taiwan's main opposition parties, including
the KMT and the People First Party (PFP).
Lien Chan, chairman of the KMT,
immediately expressed his pleasure and willingness
to accept the invitation and will fix a date for
the mainland visit. At a press conference in Tokyo
the next day, Lien described his upcoming (but
still unscheduled) visit to the mainland as a
"trip of peace" across the Taiwan Strait. Chinese
leaders have refused to contact the ruling
pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party
(DPP) in Taiwan, which rejects the one-China
principle that both the mainland and Taiwan belong
to one and the same China. CPPCC chairman Jia
hailed the visit of KMT delegation led by vice
chairman Chiang as the opening of a KMT-CCP
dialogue and told the delegation: "[Your visit]
opens party-to-party dialogue between our two
parties for the first time in more than 50 years.
It has important significance. This is a major
event in cross-strait relations."
During
the meeting, the senior CCP leader also warned
that the fight against secessionist forces and
their secessionist activities remains grim and
complicated. The intensified push for independence
by Taiwanese secessionist forces, he warned, risks
creating persistently tense and volatile
cross-strait relations and even will threaten to
bring the situation to the brink of danger.
Jia urged the resumption of cross-strait
negotiation on the basis of the 1992 Consensus,
which refers to an informal agreement, reached
orally between Taiwan and the mainland in November
1992, that both sides should adhere to the
one-China principle. Jia stressed that the fact
that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one
and the same China remains unchanged. "This [one
China] is the cross-strait status quo, which is
not only recognized by us, but is also evident in
the existing stipulations and documents in
Taiwan," he said.
As part of its visit,
the KMT delegation paid homage at the cenotaph of
Sun Yat-sen, the KMT founder and a pioneer of the
Chinese Democratic Revolution, in Beijing's Biyun
(Blue Cloud) Temple. Sun died on March 12, 1925,
and his remains stayed for four years in the
temple at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain before
being buried in Nanjing's Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum on
June 1, 1929. It is likely that June 1, 2005, will
be the date for the visit of KMT chairman Lien
Chan to the mainland.
The impetus behind
the pending third period of inter-party
cooperation after 56 years is of course the
escalating threat from the common enemy, the
Taiwan independence movement, fanned by anti-China
elements in the United States in defiance of
official US policy. This obstinate trend has
forced the two major political parties to return
to the fountainhead of Chinese nationalism as
advocated by the father of the Chinese revolution,
Dr Sun Yat-sun, resolving half a century of a
left-right ideological struggle, uniting all
Chinese around the world to put aside their
opposing ideologies and to join in a historic
common effort to seek indigenous responses to deal
with global challenges facing China today and in
the future. As the most populous nation on Earth,
China has the capacity to rise beyond narrow
ideological disputes, and open itself to absorb
the eclectic best of diverse approaches of
development and national rejuvenation. All over
the vastness of China, the weather and climate are
not uniform; so it's natural that a diversity of
approaches must be incorporated to fit local
conditions under a theme of national cohesion.
History of the KMT-CCP rift
The
Chinese Civil War was a conflict between the KMT
and the CCP that began in 1926 with the takeover
of the KMT by the reactionary right wing under
Chiang Kai-shek, who launched bloody purges of
leftists and communists within the KMT. Major
fighting ended in 1949 when the KMT fled to
Taiwan, and a situation of no-war, no-peace
persisted for more than half a century, with US
interference. If the US keeps it hands off Taiwan,
Chinese on both sides of the strait can resolve
their differences peacefully within a very short
time (see US-China: Quest for Peace Part 4: 38th Parallel leads straight to
Taiwan).
In the political chaos
of the early years of the Republic of China, there
emerged provincial military governors and regional
military groups known as warlords, all based on
their personal loyalties. To establish central
control, the rule of warlords who had seized
control of much of Northern China since the
collapse of the Qing Dynasty had to be defeated.
Kuomintang leader Sun Yat-sen, assisted by his
able comrade Liao Zhong-kai (1877-1925), realized
that the Western imperialist countries would
maintain a divided China in order to continue
their plundering of China by supporting the
warlords; and so in 1921 they turned to the new
Soviet Union and communism, the only
anti-imperialist force. The Western democracies
were proving themselves to be happy heirs to
overseas empires whose imperial governments they
overthrew at home.
In 1923, a joint
statement by Sun and a Soviet representative in
Shanghai pledged Soviet assistance for China's
national unification. The Comintern sent Soviet
advisers such as Mikhail Borodin to China to aid
in the reorganization and consolidation of the KMT
along the lines of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. CCP members were encouraged to join
the KMT as individuals, forming the First United
Front. The CCP was still small at the time, having
a membership of 300 in 1922 and only 1,500 by
1925. The KMT in 1922 already had 150,000 members.
Soviet advisers also helped the KMT set up a
political institute to train propagandists in mass
mobilization techniques, and in 1923 Chiang
Kai-shek, one of Sun's lieutenants from Tongmeng
Hui days while in exile in Japan, was sent for
several months' military and political study in
Moscow. After Chiang's return in late 1923, he
participated in the establishment of the Whampoa
Military Academy (Huangpu Junxiao) as its
commandant, with Liao Zhong-kai as political
commissar for the KMT and Zhou En-lai of the CCP
as the deputy commissar.
In 1923 when Sun
Yat-sen started to reorganize the KMT and
installed a government in Guangzhou, Soviet
advisers A A Yoffe and M M Borodin proposed that
the KMT and the CCP form a united front (Guo
Gong Hezuo) against the Beiyang warlords'
regime, and double memberships of the parties was
common for communists. Sun Yat-sen had lost faith
in the will of the Western imperialist powers to
cooperate with China and leaned more and more
toward the Soviet Union.
In 1924 Sun held
the first national congress (Guomindang diyici
quanguo daibiao dahui), during which he
stressed the Three People's Principle (sanmin
zhuyi - nationalism, democracy, people's
livelihood - minzu zhuyi, minquan zhuyi,
minsheng zhuyi) as a doctrine against
imperialism. Within the KMT-CCP united front, Sun
adopted three major policies (sanda
zhengce): alliance with the Soviet Union
(lian Su), alliance with the CCP (lian
gong), and supporting peasants and workers
(fuzhu nonggong).
A few months
after Sun's death on March 12, 1925, Liao Zhogkai,
leader of the left wing of the KMT, was
assassinated on August 20, 1925, at age 48 at the
behest of the right-wing leaders of KMT. Chiang,
as commander-in-chief of the National
Revolutionary Army, with communist help, set out
on the long-delayed Northern Expedition against
the northern warlords to unite China under KMT
control. By 1926, the KMT had divided into
left-wing and right-wing factions. Neither wing
had any use for Western democracy, which presented
itself as an agent of imperialism. The left turned
toward communism while the right turned toward
fascism. The KMT did put up a facade of democracy
until the US got involved in Chinese politics
during World War II. If the current president of
the United States, George W Bush, is really
serious about spreading democracy around the
world, he needs to realize that the world will not
accept Western democracy unless and until it rids
itself of its pugnacious role as an agent for
neo-imperialism.
By 1926, communist
influence within the KMT was growing fast. In
March 1926, Chiang abruptly imposed restrictions
on CCP members participation in the top
leadership, and emerged as the pre-eminent KMT
leader on an anti-communist platform. By early
1927, the KMT-CCP rivalry led to an open split in
the revolutionary ranks. The CCP and the left wing
of the KMT moved the seat of the Nationalist
government from Guangzhou to Wuhan.
After
Chiang Kai-shek seized power in the KMT and
achieved initial successes in the Northern
Expedition with communist help, the communists
were expelled from the KMT. On April 12, 1927, a
workers' movement in Shanghai was brutally
suppressed by Chiang (Si-yi-er zhengbian),
and he as well as Wang Jingwei, who later were to
form a traitorous puppet government under Japanese
tutelage, began an anti-communist purification
program within the KMT (qingdang qugong)
and drove out communists and leftist KMT members
such as Song Qingling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen,
and He Xiangning, the widow of Liao Zgong-kai,
ending the first alliance between the KMT and the
CCP.
Chiang, riding on the bipartisan
success of the Northern Expedition, set his elite
forces out to destroy the Shanghai CCP apparatus.
Chiang Kai-shek, with the aid of Western
imperialists and the Shanghai underworld
criminals, arguing that communist activities were
socially and economically disruptive, turned on
communists and unionists in Shanghai, arresting
and summarily executing hundreds without trial on
April 12, 1927. The purge obliterated the urban
base of the CCP that laid the ground for the rise
of Mao Zedong with his strategy of a rural peasant
revolution. Chiang, expelled from the KMT for his
reactionary moves, formed a rival reactionary
government in Nanjing. There now were three
political capitals in China: the foreign
imperialist-recognized warlord regime in Beijing;
the communist and left-wing Kuomintang coalition
government at Wuhan; and the right-wing
reactionary military regime at Nanjing, which
would remain the Nationalist capital for the next
decade.
The CCP adopted a strategy of
armed insurrections in both urban and rural areas
in preparation for an expected rising tide of
revolution. Unsuccessful attempts were made by
communists to take cities such as Nancang,
Changsha, Shantou and Guangzhou. A successful
armed rural uprising, known in history as the
Autumn Harvest Uprising was staged by peasants in
Hunan province, led by Mao Zedong. But in
mid-1927, the CCP was at a low ebb. Their
left-wing KMT allies in Wuhan were toppled by a
military regime led by Wang Jingwei. The KMT
resumed the campaign against the warlords and
captured Beiping (now Beijing) in June 1928, after
which most of eastern China came under Chiang's
control, and the Nanjing government received
prompt international recognition as the sole
legitimate government of China. The Nationalist
government announced that in conformity with Sun
Yat-sen's formula for the three stages of
revolution - military unification, political
tutelage, and constitutional democracy - China had
reached the end of the first phase and would
embark on the second, which would be under KMT
political tutelage. After Adolf Hitler came to
power in Germany in 1933, the KMT turned to the
Nazis as a model both in political organization
and in military modernization.
During the
Japanese invasion and occupation of the northeast
(Manchuria), Chiang still saw the CCP as a greater
threat, and refused to ally with the CCP to fight
against the Japanese. On December 12, 1936,
Kuomintang generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang
Hucheng kidnapped Chiang Kai-Shek while he was
visiting Xi'an and forced him to a truce with the
CCP. The event became known as the Xi'an Incident.
Both parties agreed to suspend fighting and form a
Second United Front to focus their efforts against
the Japanese. However, the alliance existed in
name only. The level of actual cooperation and
coordination between the CCP and KMT during World
War II was minimal. While CCP forces were fighting
the Japanese, Chiang was reserving his best troops
for dealing with the CCP after the war. US General
Joseph Stillwell was openly critical of the KMT
leader and was advocating US assistance to the
People's Liberation Army (PLA), which was
prosecuting the war in earnest with inadequate
supplies and equipment. The situation came to a
head in late 1940 and early 1941 when KMT forces
attacked PLA forces. In December 1940, Chiang
Kai-shek demanded that the CCP's New Fourth Army
evacuate Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, promising
safe conduct. When the New Fourth Army commanders
complied in order to preserve inter-party
coalition, their forces were ambushed by
Nationalist troops and suffered great losses in
January 1941. This treachery, known as the New
Fourth Army Incident, weakened the CCP position in
Central China and in effect ended any substantive
cooperation between the KMT and CCP.
The
use of atomic bombs caused Japan to surrender much
more quickly than anyone in China had imagined. As
insurance in the event that the bomb might not
work, US president Harry Truman had pressured the
Soviet Union to open an eastern front against
Japan. Under the terms of the unconditional
Japanese surrender dictated by the United States,
Japanese troops were ordered to surrender to KMT
troops and not the PLA. With the sudden end of the
war in East Asia, Soviet forces flooded into the
northeastern provinces to seize Japanese positions
and to accept the surrender of the 700,000
Japanese troops still stationed in the region.
Later in the year Chiang Kai-shek came to the
painful realization that he lacked the resources
to prevent a CCP takeover of the northeast after
the scheduled Soviet departure. He therefore made
a deal with the Russians to delay their withdrawal
until he had moved enough of his best-trained men
and modern arms into the region. The Soviets spent
the extra time systematically dismantling the
entire Manchurian industrial plant built by Japan
with Chinese slave labor and shipping it back to
their war-ravaged motherland.
The US
role
There is of course a linkage between
the nuclear proliferation issue in Korea and the
Taiwan issue, as I wrote in January 2004 (see
US-China: Quest for peace Part 2: Cold War links Korea,
Taiwan):
The Taiwan issue was created by the
US in response to an escalation of the Korean
civil war. It is not surprising, therefore, that
the current crisis over renewed Chinese war
warnings on escalating Taiwan maneuvers toward
independence is also linked to a mounting crisis
over the North Korean nuclear-weapons program
... If history is any guide, there is little
reason for optimism that the current
negotiations over the Korean nuclear issue will
proceed with less entanglement or that the
Taiwan issue can be resolved peacefully without
fundamental changes in US
policy. There a Chinese saying: He who
ties the knot can also be the one to untie it. The
Taiwan issue, unless allowed to be resolved
peacefully among the Chinese themselves, will
eventually destabilize peace in Asia and perhaps
the whole world. US policymakers should understand
that hanging on to Cold War policies and
strategies with updated slogans does not serve
long-term US interests in Asia. Beijing's recently
adopted Anti-Secession Law, designed to prevent
military conflict brought on by Taiwan
independence adventurism, is in reality a
countermeasure against the Taiwan Relations Act, a
US domestic law that interferes with Chinese
internal affairs and requires the US president to
help Taiwan defend itself against the PRC's
attempt to recover it by force. The Anti-Secession
Law is receiving overwhelming support from all
neutral nations around the world. The only
opposition comes from the US and its dwindling
number of reluctant allies.
What the US
needs to do is immediately repeal the Taiwan
Relations Act, which serves no purpose except to
fan a dangerous cross-strait arms race. The US
should allow a peaceful solution for Taiwan to
proceed as a Chinese internal affair without
foreign meddling. What determines the outcome of
military conflict is national will, not weapons,
which only serve to escalate the degree of blood
and violence - not the ultimate outcome. Selling
Taiwan advanced weapons systems will not deter
Chinese determination to defend its territorial
integrity. It will only make the conflict more
deadly. China needs no help from the US on
domestic political development. The Chinese were
solving intricate political problems with
sophistication when many Westerners were still
running around without the benefit of written
languages.
Henry C K Liu is
chairman of the New York-based Liu Investment
Group.
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