China has repeatedly made clear its vision for Taiwan. Wishful thinking over interdependence won’t change this, says Daniel Lynch.
A few months back, a small delegation from a Chinese foreign policy think tank visited a US university. Over lunch, the conversation turned (semi-jokingly) to the supposed naïveté of Americans. One of the American academics present readily admitted that he and his fellow citizens could, indeed, often be naïve. But then he added: ‘Here’s the most naïve thing you can imagine: There are many Americans who remain genuinely convinced that if Taiwan would only stop pursuing formal independence, you (China) would give up the quest for unification. They think you’d be willing to maintain the status quo indefinitely!’
The delegation leader laughed and pointed out that China has said time and again that it’s inevitable China and Taiwan will be unified.
‘Will it happen in the 2020s?’ the American asked. ‘I’ve read Chinese writers who claim that will be the decade.’
‘It could happen in the 2020s—or even sooner,’ he replied.
Why stress this exchange? Because many people still believe that expanding cross-strait exchanges (economic, social, and cultural) will create groups in the two societies that are determined to push their respective governments toward moderation. Their argument is that eventually this will result in peaceful coexistence, because interdependence naturally promotes peace.
This argument was frequently made in the 1990s and 2000s, when many commentators criticized Taiwanese Presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian for ‘pushing the envelope’ and 'trying to change the status quo' through provocation. If only Taiwan would stop being a troublemaker, the argument ran, then China would calm down and eventually accept Taiwan’s de facto independent status. Embrace the ‘one-China principle’ and Beijing might even be willing to sign a formal peace agreement with Taipei.
But this has always seemed a wildly optimistic reading of the situation. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party’s commitment to annexing Taiwan in one form or another seems to go to the very core of the party-state’s identity. This puts Taiwan policy in a different category from policies that can truly be affected by interdependence. Identities are fundamental in international relations—they can change, but not easily. As international relations scholar Alexander Wendt puts it:
‘Identities refer to who or what actors are. They designate social kinds or states of being. Interests refer to what actors want. They designate motivations that help explain behavior…Interests presuppose identities because an actor cannot know what it wants until it knows who it is, and since identities have varying degrees of cultural content, so will interests.’
Photo Credit: Flickr / My Day
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Political debates, such as the one that started the Taiwan issue in the first place, will never end. However, so far it would seem that the majority have blissfully ignored one critical factor. Military. More precisely, nuclear power.
China is a known nuclear power. Taiwan, on the other hand, is not. At least publicly it is not. However, Taiwan was developing nuclear weapons decades ago until intelligence leaked and it was asked to stop. Is everyone so naive to that the Taiwanese made no advances in the past three decades? Is everyone so sure that there are no secret weapons in secret bunkers somewhere?
At the very least, they should have the capability to fully assemble a nuclear weapon within minutes of notice. That was their capability in the late 80′s and early 90′s. Imagine what have actually now, 2 more decades later.
Hwang Sze Ming
The problem of Taiwan was created by the US.Taiwan can only be independent if the US were to station US forces and nw on Taiwan itself.
It can be done if the US wants to dismember China. But it aint going to be easy.
It will include the immense not assured destruction of the US.
The President who starts the war with false pretences should be impeached and hanged upside down for causing millions of daeth including countless Americans.
Vietnam was a needless war and 50000GIs died while the politicians who started it lived to a ripe old age.
RJ
The Communist Party should consider carefully what reunification would bring to China. Taiwan is full of millions of Chinese who know there is no contradiction between development and multiparty democracy. Millions of Chinese who know that democracy is not a “white man’s” system but a system that the Chinese have proven that they are perfectly capable of operating as well. A system that the greatness of Chinese civilization will eventually demand.
Annexing Taiwan would make its people free to move about China, spreading the democracy idea. Taiwan is like a huge virus for democracy, and annexation would spread this infection throughout the Middle Kingdom. Just look at how Poland’s democratic tradition eventually brought down the Soviet empire. Taiwan would be a far stronger virus, as mainlanders would see them as the same people, and wonder why Taiwanese could have democracy while the mainlanders can’t.
In fact, the best strategy for Taiwan would be to express a desire for REUNIFICATION COMBINED WITH DEMOCRATIC REFORM on the mainland. They would have the world’s sympathy and the ear of the average Chinese mainlander. The Communist party would have a new rival, the Koumintang, whose credentials on both economic growth and multiparty democracy far exceed the Communists.
Given the penchant for control that the Communist party has, they might reconsider whether the current ambiguous relationship is better for their rule than infecting the entire Chinese nation with the values of democracy. Is Taiwan really worth it?