TAIPEI - Taiwan has spent decades debating what kind of relationship it should
have with mainland China and what distance it should keep from its rival across
the Taiwan Strait. No conclusion has ever been reached, but after 10 years of
constant tension, Taiwan is now gearing up for the resumption of dialogue with
China, hoping to boost its relatively sluggish economy and address its
isolation in the international community.
As announced, China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits
(ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) will resume dialogue on
June 11-14 in Beijing. This will be the first meeting of the two semi-official
negotiation bodies since 1998, when top negotiators from the two sides held a
summit in Shanghai. With agreements on direct weekend
charter flights and opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists already reached through
backdoor channels, the ARATS-SEF talks will be the first-ever between the two
sides where deals had been struck beforehand.
However, whether the once-tense cross-strait relationship will become more
harmonious is not certain, as political disputes between the two sides persist
and as Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party intensifies its interference in
the process.
"The next three months could be a honeymoon period for the cross-strait
relationship, and whether the dialogue can continue smoothly remains to be
seen, especially when political issues are brought up," said Chang Wu-ueh, an
associate professor with Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of Mainland
China Studies.
Some analysts, however, are more optimistic and suggest that active engagement
with China will be the trend after the past eight years of restrictions on
interaction under the strained relationship.
Yang Kai-huang, a professor at Ming Chuan University's Department and Graduate
School of Public Affairs, contended that Beijing would seize the historic
opportunity presented by the next four years (with the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou as
Taiwanese president) and actively improve ties with Taiwan.
The key premises allowing Taiwan and China to return to the negotiating table
are Ma's declaration of not pursuing Taiwan's de jure independence from China
and accepting the so-called "1992 Consensus". The latter is a term coined by
Taiwan's then Mainland Affairs Council chairman, Su Chi, in 1999, in an attempt
for the two sides to sidestep defining Taiwan's status, even though they hold
different interpretations of what it actually means.
China defines the term as meaning that both Taiwan and China agreed in Hong
Kong in 1992 that "there is only one China", while Taiwan argues that both
sides agreed that there is "one China with respective interpretations" - China
interprets it is the People's Republic of China (PRC) while Taiwan says it is
the Republic of China (ROC)).
Recalling the negotiations, Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui and former
top negotiator Koo Chen-fu both concluded that Taiwan and China failed to agree
with one another on the definition of "one China" in Hong Kong in 1992. What
both sides did agree to was to put aside the political dispute and continue
negotiating on issues related to people-to-people affairs. Koo had suggested,
on several occasions and in his own biography published before he passed away
in 2005, that it would have been more appropriate to replace the term
"consensus" with "understanding" or "accord".
The website of China's Taiwan Affairs Office says the "1992 Consensus" came
from Taiwan's insistence in 1992 that there is only one China, both Taiwan and
China belong to that China, and that Taiwan would continue pursuing
unification.
Intending to actively engage with Taiwan before the self-governing island
leaned too far from China, Beijing chose to tolerate the divided interpretation
while carefully calculating the potential economic benefits.
Yu Keli, director of the Institute of Taiwan studies at the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences, explained that the "1992 Consensus" is enough for Beijing and
there is "no need to get into details". For Beijing, the priority is putting
aside the dispute and promoting economic interaction, he said.
Within weeks following Ma's inauguration last month, China agreed to reopen the
ARATS-SEF negotiation channel. Beijing abandoned the channel after former
president Lee Teng-hui declared that Taiwan and China's relationship was
"state-to-state" in 1999.
As a consequence of political maneuvering, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
and Taiwan's KMT both intended to elevate the party-to-party platform as the
highest level of cross-strait interaction. Beijing has been eager to
marginalize the authority of the Taiwan government, while the KMT has hoped to
dominate the government through increasing its influence in cross-strait
affairs.
Weeks prior to the resumption of ARATS-SEF talks, KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung
held a summit with his CCP counterpart, President Hu Jintao. Wu avoided using
the term "president" when he referred to Ma, suggested that he "felt" China
would not invade Taiwan, and violated diplomatic practice by disclosing the new
director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office would be former ambassador to Japan,
Wang Yi.
Wu Yu-san, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science,
suggested that the CCP has been delighted to deal again with the KMT, a rival
it was familiar with while fighting, and eventually defeating, in China's civil
war in the late 1940s.
The rushed schedule for the resumption of dialogue was specifically established
to help Ma fulfill his campaign promises that nonstop cross-strait charters on
weekends and the arrival of more Chinese tourists in Taiwan would begin by July
4. The Taiwan Strait Tourism Association and China's Cross-Strait Tourism
Association, which have been negotiating the issues since 2006, were originally
expected to sign the agreement before the SEF-ARAT talks were scheduled. To
deliver on his promises, Ma will tolerate, at least for now, China's withdrawal
from the agreement on charter cargo flights, which Taiwan has been eager to
reach since 2003.
"Most of the negotiations for the passenger and cargo charter flights and
Chinese tourists' visiting Taiwan were completed in 2007, but Beijing decided
to delay signing them and await for the KMT to return to power," said a senior
Taiwan cross-strait affairs official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
"The [KMT] administration had no choice but to give up the deal on charter
cargo flights because of the July 4 deadline," the official added.
Beijing has been reluctant to grant operating rights for cargo flights to
Taiwan out of concern that Taiwan's well-equipped carriers would dominate a
market that Chinese airlines are still in the process of developing.
The KMT administration's compromise has been challenged by the opposition
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Lin Cheng-wei, director of the DPP's international affairs department, argued
that the KMT administration is obligated to explain how and why the original
cargo agreement was dropped, and especially why KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung
failed to bring the issue up at the Beijing summit.
"The KMT not only dominates the government, but has seemingly complicated the
implementation of cross-strait policies," Lin said.
According to the former DPP administration's plan, currency convertibility,
protecting Taiwanese businessmen's investments and their personal safety in
China, cleaning up pollution in the Taiwan Strait, cracking down on
cross-strait crime, and setting up a financial supervision mechanism were the
priority issues for the two sides to discuss.
In the first summit between the KMT and CCP in 2005, the two sides had
different issues on the agenda, agreeing to promote cross-strait agricultural
cooperation, ink a peace treaty and provide Taiwan with more international
space.
In a summit with KMT chairman Wu, the CCP's general secretary and China's
President Hu again repeated China's intention on assisting Taiwan in its bid
for participation in the World Health Organization and to expand its
international presence.
The senior cross-strait affairs official doubts, however, that Beijing will
make any substantial moves to benefit Taiwan, citing China's "anti-secession
law" that was enacted in 2005. Based on the regulation, Beijing could grant
Taiwan "some appropriate international space" to stimulate the unification of
China. Analysts in Taiwan suggested one test of China's sincerity would be how
it would react to Taiwan's candidacy to the annual leaders' summit of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in September.
Most voters in Taiwan are now eager to benefit from a potentially more robust
economy spurred by the warming cross-strait relationship. But how long the
passion will last, especially if no significant economic gains are obtained,
remains to be seen, analysts said. Some strategic observers are concerned about
the higher risk caused by the KMT government's exclusion of Washington from the
cross-strait dialogue.
"During the DPP era, Americans would interfere in crises with China. But when
the KMT chooses to interact with China directly and excludes the Americans,
there is no cushion and it could lead to higher risks should the two sides
clash," said Antonio Chiang, former National Security Council deputy secretary
general in the DPP administration.
Ting-I Tsai is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
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