WILL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION BETWEEN MAINLAND CHINA AND TAIWAN LEAD TO A CONGENIAL POLITICAL CULTURE?
Chien-min Chao
Abstract Although economically highly interdependent, Taiwan and mainland China are nevertheless antagonistic in the political arena. This is because two very dif- ferent sub-political cultures have germinated in the respective lands. For Tai- wan, a new cultural identity has emerged, featuring an emphasis on individualism, an embrace of local values, and a growing identification of Tai- wan as a political community. This mind-set differs from the collective-minded Chinese way of thinking prevalent on the mainland in which neo-collectivism and nationalism have taken a center seat. The identity crisis that the two have suffered has made their policies less amenable toward each other.
It can now be said that three theorems are currently working toward integrating the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. The first one can be referred to as the cultural integration theorem; it argues that the people of Taiwan and mainland China are of the same ancestry, sharing the same culture, language, customs, and traditions. Their common culture is consid- ered important in a new world order in which the old forces of ideology and power alignment have given way to the cultural factor as the most vital deter- minant of the new order. 1 The cultural thesis is reinforced by the fall of the
Chien-min Chao is Professor at the Sun Yat-sen Graduate Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. Email:
1.Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations: Remaking of World Order (N.Y.: Touchstone Books, 1996), p. 125.
280 CHIEN-MIN CHAO 281 Former Soviet Union and its cohorts in Eastern Europe, resulting in what Francis Fukuyama termed the “end of history.” For this theorem’s advocates, the convergence of beliefs and values may help diminish the decades-old cross-Strait animosity that still exists. It is hoped that the end of the socialist system as a viable model for economic as well as political development, and Beijing’s shift to an economy more analogous to that of Taiwan’s, may one day revive the old conviction that there is indeed the possibility of a systemic and institutional convergence between the two opposing systems across the Taiwan Strait. The second theorem of integration is that of economics. Extracted from the European Union (EU) experience, this hypothesis argues that economic integration can ramify and generate spillover effects; over time, exchanges between nations can move to higher levels, and thus a more integrated com- munity will emerge. Although whether or not a political community without borders will ultimately surface remains debatable, the EU has come a long way in bringing uniformity to previously divergent nations in areas such as finance, the rule of law, and defense. The third theorem of integration is political. It is believed that as mainland China grows in power, nations and sub-national regions in the continental vicinity will be sucked into its orbit and become satellites. Even now, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is fast becoming a dominant regional power, and not inconceivably may one day surpass Japan as the largest econ- omy in the world, next only to the United States. In fact, reports conducted by major international financial institutions using new statistical methods have reached the conclusion that China’s economy is already larger than Ja- pan’s.2 Evidence seems to indeed substantiate the view of integrationists. While there was barely any kind of political contact between the two sides before the 1980s, by the end of the last century business and other exchanges had multiplied: two-way trade amounted to a whopping US$32 billion in 2001, while Taiwan business people have cumulatively poured roughly $60 billion of contract-investing capital into the mainland Chinese market. 3 In 2001, Taiwanese people made 3,441,960 trips to the mainland. 4 Cumula-
2.Using a new method, Purchasing Power Parity, the World Bank suggests that China’s ac- tual gross domestic product may be second only to that of the United States. See Zhongguo xinwenshe (China News Agency), May 9, 2002. 3.The figure is based on statistics released by the PRC’ Customs. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council puts the figure already in use at $US19.9 billion. See Mainland Affairs Council, Liangan jingji tongji yuebao [Cross-Strait Economic Statistics Monthly] (Taipei), no. 118, June 2002, p. 29. However, some private sources claim that by the end of 2001 a staggering $140 billion might have been contracted, being either already there or prepared to enter the mainland market, and that over 62,000 firms have been set up by the Taiwanese in the mainland. See Touzi zhongguo [Fortune China Monthly], (Taipei), no. 100, June 2002, p. 44. 4.Mainland Affairs Council, Liangan jingji tongji yuebao , p. 35. 282 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003
T A B L E 1 Cross-Strait Exchanges in the Past Decade, 1990–2000
Taiwan Investment Trade on the Mainland Two-way Taiwanese Visits Year(US$ million)(US$ million)*Telephone Callsto the Mainland 1990 5,160 844 8,830,093 948,000 1993 15,097 3,139 47,958,683 1,526,969 1996 23,787 3,475 96,497,184 1,733,897 1999 25,835 2,599 178,328,419 2,584,648 2000 31,233 2,296 206,652,715 3,108,650
SOURCE:Mainland Affairs Council, Liangan jingji tongji yuebao (Cross-Strait Economic Sta- tistics Monthly) (Taipei), no. 108, August 2001. * Per statistics released by mainland China’s Customs Department. The amount here is capital in use as opposed to contract investment. tively, more than 26 million such trips have been made across the Strait since 1988 (See Table 1). Even more astonishing, it has been reported that more than 300,000 Taiwanese have settled in the Shanghai metropolitan area alone. As a result, the tranquil channel across the Taiwan Strait has become one of the busiest in the world, as trade, personnel, and venture capital flow from one side to the other. After seeing the island being pummeled by round after round of unprece- dented economic woes, President Chen Shui-bian convened a cabinet-level Economic Development Advisory Conference in August 2001. The month- long conference was concluded with a move to replace the old, restrictive “no haste, be patient” policy enacted by former President Lee Teng-hui in 1996 as a precaution to prevent Taiwan from becoming overly dependent on the mainland market, 5 with an “active opening and effective management” pol-
5.Chen’ s motive was basically economic. Eighteen months after his inauguration, Taiwan’s economy is still being pummeled by the worst recession since the KMT government resettled its capital here after World War II. Stock prices have dropped almost 50% since the DPP became the ruling party, the New Taiwan Dollar has depreciated to the lowest rate in 17 years, unem- ployment has surged to an all-time high of 5.3%, and the real estate market has plunged precip- itously. Domestic business tycoons such as Morris Chang, chairman of the world’ s largest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, announced that he now sees the mainland market as “irresistible.” Well-known multinational corporations with interests in Tai- wan such as Dell Computer have heightened the anxiety by purporting that unless the problem of direct shipping is resolved, they are going to relocate their Taiwan headquarters either to Hong Kong or the mainland. Under these circumstances and in preparation for the crucial election to renew parliament and local administrators (which was held at the end of 2001), the Chen admin- istration decided to hold the meeting. About Chen’s policy toward China, see Chien-min Chao, “One Step Forward, One Step Backward: Chen Shui-bian’s Mainland Policy,” Journal of Con- temporary China (USA), 11:34 (February 2003). CHIEN-MIN CHAO 283 icy. Overall, 332 proposals were made, including suggestions on taxation and finance reforms. Among them, 36 items were aimed at developing closer economic ties with the mainland, the most significant being the lifting of the $50 million cap on any single investment in mainland China, as well as the limit on total investments there by listed companies. The conference also urged the government to actively pursue direct trade and transportation and postal links (the so-called “three direct links”) with the mainland. 6 A few months later, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) de- cided to elevate the 1999 “Resolution on the Future of Taiwan” (in which the Republic of China [ROC, i.e., Taiwan] was affirmed officially for the first time by the party as a sovereign entity) to be on par with the “Taiwan inde- pendence clause” 7 (passed and incorporated in the party platform in 1991). While carefully calibrated to stress the status quo, the move nevertheless was considered a setback for the party’ s independence fundamentalists. These developments have been cited as evidence that obstacles are indeed being swept aside as commercial concerns make their way into the arena heretofore dominated by political and security considerations. It is also believed now that because the two entities have since joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), bilateral trade and commercial ties will be further strengthened. But while integrationists have been celebrating their cause, the gap be- tween the two sides has widened. Although Taiwan has been ditching its conservative economic policy and smoothing the way for two-way exchanges and communications, and the ruling DPP has softened its rigid position on Taiwan independence, Beijing showed its hard-line stance in blocking the participation of former ROC Vice President Lee Yuan-tsu in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting held in Shanghai in October 2001, proving that a simple meeting of leaders between these two archrivals is still difficult. 8 Indeed, nearly a decade has passed since representatives of the two semi-official organizations, Taiwan’ s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its counterpart, the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS)—created by the two governments in 1990 and 1991, respec- tively, to deal with problems that derived from the increased wave of interac- tion—last met in Singapore. 9
6. Zhongguo shibao [China Times] (Taipei), August 28, 2001, p. 1. 7.Ibid., October 22, 2001, p. 1. 8.Taiwan had hoped that President Chen Shui-bian would be allowed to participate in the meeting, but the plan was abandoned as Beijing rejected the idea. Lee Yuan-tsu was named on Chen’s behalf, and a new title as advisor of economic development was added to better suit the nature of the APEC meetings, but to no avail. See ibid. 9.Representatives from the two semiofficial organizations met, with the support of their re- spective governments, in Singapore in April 1993 for the first time since the Chinese Civil War. Among the agreements reached at the meeting was one to institutionalize the meetings between the two institutions. They followed through with that agreement the next year. However, after 284 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 One fact that has been rearing its head in the past few years is that an increasing number of Taiwanese have become disenchanted with the Beijing government and have shown their displeasure by rejecting unification as even a possible solution in the future. It seems that the two sides have differences not only in sovereignty and representation but also in defining the meanings of democracy, liberty, and human rights. After over a century of separation with a brief interval of unification, Taiwan and mainland China have grown accustomed to discordant political values, orientations, and thinking. Im- mersed in newly transplanted Western-style democratic values, Taiwan has seen the growth of its full-fledged civil society with individualism at its core. Mainland China, on the other hand, is laden with a history of contemporary imperialist abuses and remnants of a collective mind-set left by years of prac- ticing socialism. This article attempts to explain the seemingly paradoxical developments in the two sides’ association. It will first illustrate the discordant trends and then proceed to account for this unusual bilateral relationship. My research will argue that while non-political culture has helped facilitate intimate bilat- eral interactions in commercial and humanistic areas in the past dozen years, the two sides’ political cultures, on the other hand, have been growing in- creasingly discordant. Not only is a gap widening within the political cul- tures, following a regime transition for both societies that began in the 1980s and causing both sides to interpret differently issues or items with political implications, but a similar gap has also appeared within their respective soci- eties, one resulting from the same transition. This has made it very hard for one side to make concessions to the other. These political cultural gaps offset the positive effects generated by economic integration, and thus pull the bilat- eral relationship toward the other end of the spectrum.
Integration, Ramification, and Spillover Ever since Taiwan opened the door in 1987 to allow its citizens to visit their families on the mainland, the rate of cross-strait contacts has skyrocketed. Two-way annual trade (largely conducted illegally) amounted to a mere $460 million in 1981 but ballooned to $32 billion in 2001, an increase of seventy times. Taiwanese businesspeople knew nothing about investment on the mainland (indeed, anywhere outside of Taiwan) in the early 1980s, but by the end of the past century they had emerged as one of the largest contributors of former ROC President Lee Teng-hui made a trip to Cornell University in June 1995, all contacts have been cut off. Koo Chen-fu, head of Taiwan’s SEF, did travel to Shanghai in October 1998 to meet with Wang Daohan, head of ARATS, but did so under an unofficial capacity. Because the PRC’s policy at that time was still “to listen to Lee Teng-hui’s words and watch his deeds,” efforts were made by Beijing to prevent the visit from being perceived as a resumption of con- tacts. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 285 foreign direct investment in the mainland, next to Hong Kong, the United States, and Japan. The huge leap in trade can be seen in the 22 million excur- sions to the PRC taken by Taiwanese over the past decade, with the vast majority of these travelers conducting business there. Of course, there does seem to be a certain degree of reciprocity when Taipei and Beijing have interacted with each other in this new era. Beijing reversed its Cold War hostility and unveiled in 1979 for the first time a pol- icy—A Temporary Provision to Promote Trade with Taiwan—to engage Tai- wan with non-violent means. A while later, a similar regulation was issued, granting goods made in Taiwan the status of “domestic products,” and hence waiving duty on them. As a result, Taiwan waived its restrictions over goods manufactured in the PRC, and transported them via Hong Kong. In a move to court Taiwan investors, the PRC’s ruling State Council passed a Regula- tion Concerning Investment from Taiwan Compatriots in July 1988. Barely a month later, Taiwan started to ponder a policy to engage her heretofore ar- chrival, and granted residents of both places the right to travel to the other side of the Strait. The law, the Statute Governing the Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, was passed in November 1990. Just as the integration theory suggests, economic and trade exchanges be- tween the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have indeed ramified and spilled over into other areas. In order to properly repatriate immigrants crossing the Taiwan Strait and entering Taiwan illegally, representatives of the two Red Cross Associations, authorized by their respective governments, met in Sep- tember 1990 for the first time to find a solution. 10 A month later, President Lee Teng-hui invited representatives from all political parties in Taiwan to form the National Unification Council, and enacted the National Unification Guidelines. 11
10.In May 1986, a China Airlines cargo plane was hijacked to mainland China and represent- atives of the airline met with a delegation from mainland China’s Air China at Hong Kong to work out a solution. That meeting was indeed the first for the two sides since 1949. However, the September 1990 negotiation was the first to be initiated and monitored by the two govern- ments. See Wu Anjia, Taihai liangan guanxi de huigu yu qianzhan [Retrospection and future prospects of the cross-Strait relations] (Taipei: Yongye Publishing Co., 1996), pp. 81–93. 11.The Guidelines were passed by the National Unification Council on February 23, 1991, and approved by the Cabinet (the Executive Yuan), on March 14, 1991. In its foreword, the Guidelines state that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should foster a consensus of democracy, freedom, and equal prosperity, and together build anew a unified China. In order to reach that goal, the Guidelines call for a three-stage grand strategy: in the short term, the two sides should enhance understanding through exchanges and eliminate hostility; in the medium term, both sides should establish official communication channels and allow direct postal, transport, and commercial links; in the long term, a consultative organization should be created to jointly dis- cuss the task of unification and map out a constitutional system to establish a democratic, free, and equitably prosperous China. The document can be found in The Mainland Affairs Council, 286 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 In 1990 Taipei created the SEF as an intermediary and liaison in its new engagement policy with China. After a few months of hesitation, Beijing followed suit by forming it own organization, the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait. Thus, a new era was ushered in, and in the next few years the two former archenemies engaged in over two-dozen rounds of ne- gotiation,12 culminating in the historic April 1993 summit meeting in Singa- pore between Koo Chen-fu and Wang Daohan, heads of SEF and ARATS, respectively. Two accords were reached at the meeting, marking the first documents mutually conceded by the two governments since the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s. Working meetings at various levels between the two front organizations were also discussed and institutionalized. 13 What was more important was that SEF and ARATS agreed to “orally express the ‘one- China principle’ respectively” prior to the Singapore meeting. 14 Before the century ended, the two sides even tested the waters on the possibility of en- tering their first political negotiation since their split in 1949. 15 These facts attest to the following realities. First, ever since former Presi- dent Chiang Ching-kuo relaxed restrictions in 1987 and allowed ROC citi- zens to travel to the mainland on humanitarian grounds, bilateral relations between Taiwan and mainland China have been transformed in quantitative as well as qualitative terms. Economic and trade exchanges have ramified and spilled over into areas of culture, news media, tourism, and even politics. As contacts have increased, disputes and frictions began to mount, and offi- cials became closely involved in the so-called “private” meetings between the two semi-official organizations, SEF and ARATS. Had the trend continued, it is not unlikely that official channels of communication might have been activated. It has even been argued that if every Taiwanese visitor were to ed., Dalu gongzuo cankao ziliao (Reference materials on the work of mainland China), vol. 1, (Taipei: The Mainland Affairs Council, 1998). 12.Chien-min Chao, “ Liangan shiwuxing tanpan jingyan pingxi: Jianlun zhonggong duitai juece tixi,” [An analysis of cross-Strait negotiations and Beijing’s decision-making mechanism on Taiwan affairs], Wenti yu yanjiu [Issues & Studies] (Taipei), 34:11 (November 1995), pp. 11–23. 13.Strait Exchange Foundation, ed., Koo-Wang huitan jiyao [A documentary of the Koo- Wang meeting] (Taipei: 1993); Chao, “Liangan shiwuxing tanpan jingyan pingxi,” pp. 11–23. 14.Chien-min Chao, Liangan hudong yu waijiao jingzhu [Cross-Strait interaction and diplo- matic competition] (Taipei: Yongye Publishing Co., 1992), p. 28. Beijing recanted by suggesting that no such agreement was reached, possibly after President Lee made a trip to Cornell Univer- sity in June 1995. However, after the DPP won the presidency in 2000, Beijing reinvigorated its call for reverting to the agreement. See Su Chi and Zheng Anguo, eds., “Yige zhongguo, gezhi biaoshu” gongshi de shishi [Historical facts on the consensus of “one China, respective interpre- tations”] (Taipei: National Policy Foundation, 2002). 15.Chien-min Chao, “Weilai liangan zhengzhi huitan: Beijing, xuqiu, wenti,” [Cross-Strait negotiations on political issues: Background, demands, and problems], Zhengzhi kexue luncong [Edited works on political science] (Taipei), December 1999, pp. 247–59. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 287 meet up with three mainlanders, and those people were to spread word of their experience to relatives and friends, it is not unimaginable that there could be 200 million mainlanders who might be exposed to the Taiwan expe- rience.16 If popular culture is included in the calculus, manifested in the forms of pop music, movies, and novels, then the impact generated by the opening of contacts is even more astounding. The second reality is that because the ideologies and strategies of develop- ment adopted by the respective governments have varied in the past, and the level of economic development diverges deeply, the two economies are in fact highly complementary to each other. The adoption of the Stalinist com- mand economy model, implemented in the first half of the 1950s, led the mainland in pursuit of heavy and defense industries at the expense of light industry. On the other hand, as a small island whose development has been highly dependent on international markets, Taiwan has made light industry its priority. After three decades of self-imposed isolation, mainland China des- perately needs managers and professionals now to accommodate its fledgling market economy. Bonded by a common history and culture, and equipped with the know-how of a modern market economy, Taiwan is poised to be the beachhead that many multinational corporations in the West desire when spearheading commercial connections with mainland China. The third point is that the end of the Cold War and the advent of democ- racy in Taiwan have greatly enhanced the prospect of a possible convergence of institutions and belief systems between Taiwan and the mainland in the future. The displacement of the Kuomintang’s (KMT, or Nationalist Party) authoritarian regime has brought Taiwan into line with the third wave of de- mocracy witnessed in the international community since the 1980s. Although Beijing remains hostile to the mechanism of Western-style checks and bal- ances, a more diversified civil society does seem to be in the making. 17 It is quite possible that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait may find them- selves in agreement one day on how their respective political institutions and basic value systems should be structured. The introduction of “village democ- racy” and reforms to revamp the legislature in China is part of a growing trend of institutional convergence at a very rudimentary stage. 18
16.Gary Klintworth, New Taiwan, New China: Taiwan’s Changing Role in the Asia-Pacific Region (N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), p. 179. 17.See, for example, Larry Diamond and Ramon H. Myers, “ Introduction: Elections and Democracy in Greater China,” China Quarterly , no. 150 (July 2000), pp. 365–86; Shu-Yun Ma, “The Chinese Discourse on Civil Society,” ibid., no. 137 (March 1994), pp. 180–93; Mary G. Mazur, “Public Space for Memory in Contemporary Civil Society: Freedom to Learn from the Mirror of the Past?” ibid., no. 160 (December 1999), pp. 1019–35. 18.China has been practicing “village democracy” for the past two decades. In a move simi- lar to that of Taiwan’ s path of political development, Beijing in the past few years has been experimenting with direct elections to choose heads of xiang (village) and township govern- 288 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 It is also no secret that helping mainland China become more accustomed and receptive to the values of an open society has been a vital consideration for Taiwan’s policy makers when deliberating policies concerning the main- land.19 This expectation no doubt has helped with the adoption of more open mainland policies on Taiwan’s part. Some even argue that rather than Tai- wan and Hong Kong being drawn into the new economic orbit navigated by the mainland, it is China’ s southern regions that are actually being assimi- lated by forces emanating from Hong Kong and Taiwan. 20 Increased economic integration and cooperation across the Taiwan Strait area have also been facilitated by the congeniality of a common non-political culture, including ancestry, language, and geographic proximity. Samuel P. Huntington argues that the new global politics is being reconfigured along cultural lines, where cultural identity is the central factor shaping a country’s associations and antagonisms. While peoples and countries with similar cul- tures are coming together, citizens and countries with different cultures are coming apart. Alignments defined by ideology and power politics are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization. Cultural commonality facilitates cooperation and cohesion among people, while cultural differences promote cleavages and conflicts. As a result, people rally to those with simi- lar ancestry, religion, language, values, and institutions, and distance them- selves from those with different ones. Consequently, the relation of culture to regionalism is apparent with respect to economic integration. In the end, Huntington contends that cultural identity is the driving force pushing the three lesser Chinese regions—Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore—and the overseas Chinese communities in Southeast Asia toward greater involvement with and dependence on mainland China. 21 Huntington’s theory is valid not simply because shared cultural identity is driving the two economies closer together, but also from the expediency of common language and customs, and huge commercial interests in the main- land. Taiwan businesspeople of all political stripes along the unification-in- dependence spectrum are rushing to the mainland market to seek new
ments, although in a limited scope. See Li Fan, ed., Zhongguo jiceng minzhu fazhan baogao, 2000–2001 [A report on the development of grass-level democracy in China, 2000–2001] (Bei- jing: Dongfang chubanshe, 2002). Chien-min Chao and Tsun-hsiung Chang, “ From Mobiliza- tional Regime to a Limited Participatory Regime: Legislative Hearings in the People’s Republic of China,” paper presented at the Association of Third World Studies 2002 Annual Meeting, December 2002, Taipei. 19.Klintworth, New Taiwan, New China , pp. 174–75. 20.Ibid., p. 187. 21.Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, pp. 125–35. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 289 opportunities. 22 The rise of the PRC’ s economy, along with the achieve- ments realized by Hong Kong and Taiwan (two of the four Asian dragons), prompted some to envision an enlarged Chinese economic community to ri- val the North American Free Trade Zone and the EU. The economic compat- ibility of the three Chinese communities has induced some to address this possible alliance as the “ golden economic triangle.” 23 Proposed names for this grouping include the following: the Chinese Economic Grouping, the Chinese Common Market, Asian Chinese Common Market, China Economic Circle, Southern China Economic Community, the Greater China Economic Circle, the Chinese Economic Circle, the Greater China Co-prosperity Sphere, Greater Cultural and Economic Community, the Chinese Economic Unity, Southern China Economic Region, and the Chinese Economic Coordi- nated System, etc. 24
Limitations of the Integration Theory It is evident that the integrationists have been quite successful in accounting for the recent expansion of exchanges in the Taiwan Strait area. Neverthe- less, there are practical constraints. Figures 1, 2, and 3 vividly illustrate the centrifugal forces that have been working against the trend of integration. While integration has increased steadily, alienation has been growing corre- spondingly, too. It would not be surprising to see that a similar trend is shap- ing perceptions among the people on the other side of the Strait. The gradual integration of the two economies, and the shared cultural lineage, both failed to bring closer the minds of the people separated by the narrow channel of water. Nor have these commonalities generated enough ramification and spill-over effects to elevate contacts beyond the economic and humanistic spheres. As commercial ties continue to ascend, political ties are stagnant and in some cases, even retrenching. Bucking economic and commercial trends, the mood for unification on Taiwan’s side of the Strait has dropped a gigantic 50% in the past decade (Figure 1). The number of Taiwanese with a negative perception toward bi- lateral relations has tripled (Figure 2), and the percentage of those who would identify themselves as “ Taiwanese” has ballooned from less than 20% to close to 50%, while those acknowledging themselves as “ Chinese” have dwindled to a single digit, from a maximum of nearly 30% (Figure 3). The
22.Those Taiwanese businesspeople who have shown keen interest in mainland ventures in- clude some of the strongest advocates of local identity such as Chang Yung-Fa, chairman of the Evergreen group. Chang is believed to be sympathetic to the independence cause. 23.Jian Zeyuan, Jueqizhong de jingji jinsanjiao [A rising golden economic triangle: Main- land China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan] (Taipei: Yongye Publishing Co., 1994). 24. Wu, Taihai liangan guanxi de huigu yu qianzhan , pp. 166–67. 290 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003
F IG U R E 1 Taiwan Residents’ Attitude toward the Future
unification independence status quo
70 65 64 63 60 57 50 50 46 48 44 45 43 42 40 40 40 30 24 25 24 25 21 23 21 21 19 19 20 20 1617 17 16 16 15 15 13 10 10 10 7 4 4 4 0 90.390.1 91.5 92.1 94.4 95.6 95.8 96.3 97.7 98.2 98.7 99.1 0.12
SOURCE:Survey Center, United Daily News , Taipei. NOTE:Respondents questioned in surveys conducted before October 1992 were asked to ex- press their opinions on the issue of Taiwan independence or unification. After that date, how- ever, a third option “status quo” was added to the questionnaire.
F IG U R E 2 Taiwan Residents’ Perception of Cross-Strait Relations
hostility 70 friendliness 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 88.189.6 90.1 93.4 94.4 94.6 95.7 97.7 98.7 99.4 99.11
SOURCE:Ibid. integration theory faces quite a challenge when applied to Taiwan/mainland China relations. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 291
F IG U R E 3 Changes in Taiwanese Identity
Taiwanese Chinese
60 40 20 0 1991.121994.07 1995.11 1997.05 1999.07 2001.01 2001.09
SOURCE:Ibid.
From the results above, it is clear that the shared common identity of both sides is crumbling. The democratization of Taiwan and the reform of the Stalinist socialist economic system in the PRC have not only transformed the two formerly despotic political structures but also forged new identities and consciousness ( zizhu yishi ) amid destruction of the old belief systems on which some consensus was based. 25 From Taipei’s perspective, the contrast is culturally reinforced by the more participant political culture emerging in Taiwan, as opposed to the subject political culture 26 that is still dominant in the PRC. This newly surfacing divergence is exacerbated by the confronta- tion over sovereignty that the two have been unable to shake off over the past decades. The concepts of China ( Zhongguo) and Chinese ( Zhongguo ren ) are being increasingly regarded as irrelevant or even “alien” by the people of Taiwan. 27 People on either side are in fact more and more detached from each other. For example, when parts of the PRC were devastated in 1991 by the waters of the Yangtze River in one of the country’s worst floods, the people of Taiwan
25.Chien-min Chao, “ Taiwan zhuti yishi he zhongguo dalu minzu zhuyi de duikang” [A confrontation between Taiwan’s sense of selfness vs. mainland China’s nationalism] Zhongguo dalu yanjiu (Mainland China Studies) (Taipei), 41:1 (January 1998), pp. 54–71. 26.By subject political culture, Almond and Verba meant to suggest that there is a high frequency of orientation toward a differentiated political system and toward the output aspects of the systems, while orientations toward specifically input objects, and toward the self as an active participant, approach zero. See Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 19. 27.In campaigning for Taiwan Solidarity Union candidates running for the Legislative Yuan and local administrators at the end of 2001, former President Lee Teng-hui constantly used the term “alien regime” in referring to his old party, the KMT, because of the party’ s conformity with the “one China” policy. 292 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 enthusiastically helped those ravaged by the floods. 28 However, when Tai- wan suffered one of its worst natural disasters in history after a 7.3 earth- quake struck on September 21, 1999 (whereby more than 2,000 people perished), Beijing responded by embroiling itself in a war of words with Taipei, warning international humanitarian agencies that all relief efforts for the island must pass through mainland China. 29 Complaints that Beijing showed no compassion were also voiced in the summer of 2001, when Tai- wan was hit by a typhoon that crawled over the island for more than three days, causing the worst floods of the past century. Similarly, but in a different vein, the people of Taiwan showed very little enthusiasm when Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic games, an event that brought hundreds of thou- sands of mainlanders to the streets to celebrate. It was quite evident that the relative good relations at the turn of the 1990s were headed for a tailspin by the mid-1990s. Tips of the iceberg could be seen in the PRC’s firing of missiles over the waters near Taiwan on the eve of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in March 1996, and also in the sub- sequent wengong wuhe (literally, attacking by pen and intimidating by force) by Beijing, aimed at suppressing what PRC leaders saw as an inclination for Taiwan independence, promoted first by former President Lee Teng-hui and then by his successor, President Chen Shui-bian. A lack of concern and af- fection may also account for the lack of progress in cross-Strait negotiations. After two accords, one to authenticate official documents and the other to verify registered mail, were signed at the 1993 Koo-Wang meeting between SEF and ARATS, follow-up negotiations failed to produce any tangible re- sults. Not even talks over fishing disputes and the expatriation of criminals, deemed by both sides as crucial, yielded any results. 30 It has been increas- ingly apparent to the mainland side that an increase in exchanges may not necessarily lead to an ultimate political union. The second point of note is that principles and code of conduct developed under the framework of integration theory are based primarily on experience extracted from observing interactions among sovereign states, which are not necessarily suitable for resolving problems that derive from the division of sovereignty. Taipei and Beijing have been engaged in a diplomatic tussle
28.Taiwan donated $30 million in cash and relief goods for the flood victims. See Zhongguo shibao, October 30, 1991, p. 2. 29.Beijing donated, through the Red Cross, $500,000 in cash and prepared to send a team of experts for assistance. However, Taipei took the money and refused entry of the rescue team. Moreover, Taipei accused Beijing of rejecting the Russians’ use of its airspace for the rescue effort and forcing a Jordanian rescue plane to delay for a day. At the same time, the action of mainland China’s foreign minister thanking the world for providing help on Taiwan’s behalf also angered Taipei. See Zhongyang ribao [Central Daily News] (Taipei), October 22, 1999, p. 14; Ziyou shibao [Freedom Times] (Taipei), October 16, 1999, p. 4. 30.Chao, “Taiwan zhuti yishi he zhongguo dalu minzu zhuyi de duikang,” pp. 54–71. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 293 over the issue of “one China” for the past half-century. As Taipei is drawing less and less international sympathy for its cause, 31 it becomes less willing to play along in a losing battle because its diplomatic maneuverability is being strangled day by day. Fewer and fewer people on the Taiwan side of the Strait see the utility in fighting to keep alive the futile idea of “one China.” A third observation is that although the integration theory (derived from the cooperative experiences of the Common Market in Western Europe) does not preclude an ultimate political amalgamation, this is not an aim in itself. For Taiwan, this is utterly different from the kind of interaction conducted between two parts of a divided state in which the principle of indivisibility of sovereignty is often proclaimed as the most sacrosanct credo in a non-zero sum game. The difference in the nature of the conflict has led to different solutions. While the resolution of conflicts under the integration theory relies on compromises and reconciliation, the resolution of the same conflicts for a divided state is often composed of boycotts, intimidation, and even the use of brute force. The reason for the two sides’ divergence is due in large part to the emer- gence of a new genre of political culture after a long period of separation. People living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait tend to interpret political phenomena differently. One can take negotiation as a prime example. As a highly commercialized society accustomed to a Western style of bargaining philosophy, Taiwan has had difficulties with the kind of bargaining style honed by a culture of neo-collectivist nationalism (to be discussed in the lat- ter section) as practiced by the communists. In mediation, the two sides differ in almost every aspect, including the nature, process, and agenda. Taipei wants to begin with more-negotiable is- sues and leave the tough political disagreements to a later date, when solu- tions may be easier to come by. Therefore, issues like fishing disputes, expatriation of criminals and illegal immigrants, and investment agreements have received priority. However, for Beijing, agreeing to enter into these types of negotiations with Taipei must be premised on the condition that they will lead to political negotiations over the issue of unification.
31.The ROC is recognized by only 29 countries now (mostly poor and small), as opposed to over 70 countries that supported the island regime before the ROC was forced out of the United Nations in 1972. See Chien-min Chao, “Balance Sheet: Lee Teng-hui’s Performance in Diplo- macy,” in Chien-min Chao and Bruce Dickson, eds., Assessing the Lee Teng-hui Legacy in Tai- wan’s Politics: Democratic Consolidation and External Relations (NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2002). At the same time, in a move further restraining Taipei’s foreign space, former U.S. President Bill Clinton declared a new “three no’s policy” while making a trip to China in 1998: his country would not support Taiwan independence; one China, one Taiwan; and the U.S. would not lend support to Taiwan’ s quest for membership in international organizations with statehood as a requirement. 294 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 When Koo Chen-fu went to Shanghai in October 1998 to “visit” with his old friend Wang Daohan in a private capacity (as opposed to his pro forma capacity as head of SEF) in an effort to revive suspended negotiations, the move was seen by Beijing as a turnaround in Taipei’s attitude and was billed as “ the first time that the two sides had sat down to discuss political is- sues.”32 In order to carry on the spirit of negotiation, the two top negotiators agreed that Wang would reciprocate with a visit to Taipei in due time. The agenda for a possible future visit by Wang included political and economic dialogue, ways to facilitate contacts between the two semi-official cross- Strait institutions, and assisting in the protection and safety of Taiwanese businesspersons on the mainland, and details of a Wang visit. According to Taipei’s understanding, there was no ranking among the four subjects, but Beijing insisted that the political and economic dialogues were to precede Wang’s visit and “in due time” meant only after the dialogues produced tan- gible results. 33 For Taipei, all discussions were predicated on Wang’s visit. In order to show its sincerity about the visit, Taipei briefly flirted with the idea of a “peace accord” as a response to Beijing’s call for “an end to hostil- ity in the Taiwan Strait” area. Under this superficial resemblance, there lay a sea of differences between the two political agendas. In Taipei’ s view, a peace accord was called for so that Beijing would renounce the use of force in resolving differences with Taiwan, while for Beijing, “an end to hostility” meant for Taiwan to end its independence drive and accept the “one China” principle. It is apparent that although the common non-political culture of language, customs, and guanxi (networks of interpersonal relationships) be- tween the two Chinese communities has worked rather well to facilitate ex- changes and integration, the political culture itself— exhibited by national identity and attitudes on reunification, as well as affection for and perceptions of the counterpart regime, is increasingly heterogeneous.
Split Identity and the Emergence of an Engagement Policy in Taiwan The different ideologies and strategies for economic development that the two sides have adopted since separation in 1949 have helped create two devi- ating political cultural identities across the Taiwan Strait. The capitalist de- velopment strategy that Taiwan undertook has laid the foundation for a belief system embedded in liberalism and individualism, while the socialist devel- opment strategy on the mainland has churned out a mentality with collectiv- ism and nationalism at its core. However, the regime transitions that started
32.The statement cited above was made by Tang Shubei, then vice chairman of ARATS, in an interview. See Zhongguo shibao, December 26, 1998, p. 14. 33. Ibid. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 295 in both places at the turn of the 1980s have not only fundamentally altered the natures of the previous regimes but also resulted in the creation of two dual societies afflicted by a torn cultural identity. On Taiwan’ s part, the problem with the split identity is an ethnically driven one in which the three largest ethnic groups—the Fukienese and Hakka (the two are jointly labeled Taiwanese) and the mainlanders (those who immigrated to Taiwan in 1949 and their progeny)— have shown significant variances over major political issues. For the PRC, the bifurcation is basically a continuation of the cen- tury-old debate over where China is heading and the role traditional Chinese culture should play. While in Taiwan the issue of direction requires contin- ued efforts to build consensus among its own major ethnic sub-groups, in China the ruling elites must effectively search through the deep well of Chi- nese history and recent socialist tradition in search of a new cultural identity. As a former colony (1895–1945) of imperialist Japan later ruled for a long time by a group of KMT elite who emigrated from the mainland, Taiwan has had problems harmonizing its own cultural multiplicity. The discordance was heightened by the February 28 (1947) Incident in which thousands of Taiwanese were slaughtered by the first government installed by the KMT after the Japanese withdrew in 1945. The incident was primarily rooted in a conflict of cultures: an elite culture fomented by the mainlanders who fled to Taiwan after the Civil War and who took control of all major political re- sources versus a mass culture that had been molded by many immigrants who had come to Taiwan much earlier. Most of the one million mainlanders who followed Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan were teachers, factory owners, engineers, technicians, merchants, bankers, scholars, or professionals. They filled a gap in managerial skills required for industrialization, because Japan had purposely left the island under an “agricultural Taiwan” policy. The wave of immigration from main- land China also provided the “seed money” as well as entrepreneurs for Tai- wan’s initial import-substitution manufacturing industry. For the ordinary Taiwanese, having suffered many years of Japanese colonialism during which they were treated as second-class citizens and enduring the February 28 Incident, politics by that time had become prohibitively distant. Memories of the Japanese colonial past such as the infamous Japanese military police still loomed large. The land reform proposed by the KMT government and the island’s subsequent industrialization kept people encapsulated in the com- mercial arena for decades to come. The end of KMT authoritarian rule and the advent of democracy by the end of the twentieth century were more than just a simple transition of power from old-guard mainlander politicians to a new breed of Taiwanese elites who had lived on the island longer than their predecessors. With the change- over in power, a new cultural identity was forged. Gradually, what had been 296 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003
T A B L E 2 Redistribution of Political Resources
Vice ViceCabinet Year PresidentPresident Premier Premier Members Total (%) 1993 Taiwanese 1 0 0.5* 0 1718.5 (54.5) Mainlander 0 1 0.5 1 1315.5 (45.5) 2001 Taiwanese 1 1 1 1 35 39 (95) Mainlander 0 0 0 0 2 2 (5)
SOURCES:The Executive Yuan website,
34.Xiao Quanzheng, Taiwan xinsiwei: guomin zhuyi [Taiwan’s new thinking: Civic doc- trine] (Taipei: Shiying Publishing Co, 1995), pp. xv–xvii. 35.President Lee coined the term in 1998 during the Taipei mayoral election. It was believed that the invention helped KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou, a second generation mainlander, in winning the election over DPP opponent Chen Shui-bian, a native Taiwanese. 36.This is evidenced by a recent episode in which a tabloid, Scoop Weekly , distributed a VCD disk, showing an illegal sexually explicit film of a popular young female politician having an affair with a married man. The owner of the tabloid defended his move by citing press freedom. See all Taiwan major newspapers on September 18, 2001. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 297 lander ethnic division. The admission of wrongdoing by the KMT government over the February 28 Incident and the subsequent recantation of the tragic event is a telling example. However, the reconfiguration of the political map has also opened new fissures unwittingly, with one such by- product being the alienation of the previous ruling class, the mainlanders. The estrangement has been exacerbated as major political parties, particularly the DPP, have tried to take advantage of newly installed democratic proce- dures in order to reap political benefits by widening ethnic splits. Conse- quently, major ethnic groups have manifested grave differences over political issues, particularly those concerning cross-Strait relations. While a proportionally significant percentage of mainlanders living in Tai- wan is concerned about a possible attack from mainland China, and hence more inclined to opt for conciliation when contemplating policies toward Beijing, the island’s population of Fukienese, and to some extent the Hakka minority, has been less sensitive to that threat and thus less intimidated by the PRC menace. In a recent survey conducted by the National Chengchi Uni- versity Election Studies Center, while 37.5% of those with a mainland back- ground expressed support for eventual unification with the mainland, only 16.5% of those with Fukienese blood felt the same; by the same token, 17.5% of Taiwanese opted for independence, while a mere 4.1% of mainlanders had the same demand. In the same survey, nearly 47% of Fukienese Taiwanese said they considered themselves “Taiwanese, not Chinese,” while only 15.6% of mainlanders concurred. Furthermore, 26.6% of mainlanders identified themselves as “Chinese,” with the number for Fukienese Taiwanese feeling the same way dwindling to 6.5%. 37 The third major ethnic group, the Hakka, has found itself located somewhere between the two other groups on issues of ethnic and national identity. Ethnic tensions do seem to be fluctuating in a reverse V-shaped curve. Spurred by the first transition of power from mainlanders to Taiwanese, the confrontation began to emerge when President Lee was sworn into office in 1988 and culminated at the first elections for mayor of the two major cities, Taipei and Kaohsiung, and for governor of Taiwan, in 1994. Rhetoric tuned to appeal to ethnic sub-groupings was a common campaign strategy, with candidates identified under different ideological stripes risking their political careers when entering into an “enemy camp.” An infamous case in point was the violence that erupted when candidates of the New Party, with its power base in the northern half of the island, went to Kaohsiung, a southern port and stronghold of the DPP, to campaign for votes. Politicians belonging to differ-
37.The survey, entitled “The Public’s Opinions on ‘One Country, Two Systems’,” was com- missioned by the Mainland Affairs Council and conducted in October 2001 with 1,658 samples collected. Results of the survey can be found on its website. 298 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 ent ideological belief systems had difficulties even sitting down for a cup of coffee. However, after the initial surge, emotions seemed to have tapered off. A new political identity actually seems to be shaping up, featuring a rising consensus on subjects concerning mainland China—traditionally the most di- visive issue in Taiwan’ s ethnic confrontation. 38 A new sense of a political community seems to be in the making. A more secular culture with less ideological emphasis is, in fact, discernible. The first wave of consensus-building began when the Democratic Progres- sive Party decided to tone down its rhetoric on Taiwan independence— the most controversial issue affecting ethnic harmony. 39 Sensing the reality that the party would not be able to pull off a good outcome in the first direct presidential election, set for March 1996, without recasting its independence stance first, the DPP started to transform itself in the mid-1990s. In the ensu- ing years, the party underwent an amazing metamorphosis, resulting in what has been called a new type of Taiwan independence movement. The old independence movement based on Taiwanese nationalism was displaced as the ROC transformed itself into a new democratic polity that many within the DPP have had no problem embracing. This in turn foreordained the passage in 1999 of the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future in which the principle that the Republic of China was a sovereign entity was affirmed officially for the first time in the party’s short history. During the second major convergence of a value system, consensus was reshaped across the party divide. At the Conference on National Develop- ment convened at the end of 1996, all major political parties agreed for the first time to a number of issues concerning the basic fabric of political con- struction. The parties agreed to the principle of ROC sovereignty and that Taiwan’s security should be the first priority when contemplating the future of this country. Also agreed was the primacy of the “Taiwan first” principle in setting policy agendas. 40 The third and last wave of consensus-building came to fruition when Presi- dent Chen Shui-bian called the previously mentioned Advisory Meeting on Economic Development in August 2001. At the conference, the core of Lee Teng-hui’s mainland decree—the “no haste, be patient” policy— was unani-
38.Chao, “Taiwan zhuti yishi he zhongguo dalu minzu zhuyi de duikang,” pp. 54–71. 39.Concerning the DPP’ s transition, see Chao, “ One Step Forward, One Step Backward: Chen Shui-bian’s Mainland Policy.” 40.The democratization process that started in Taiwan in the late 1980s has been one of indigenization featuring a replacement of mainlander power-holders (who came to Taiwan in 1949 when the Nationalist government was defeated by the CCP) with those who had immi- grated to Taiwan prior to 1949. For the nativists, the old mainlander power-holders did not give Taiwan any priority in designing and implementing their policies. The old policies, they argue, more or less reflect the interests of a “Great China.” CHIEN-MIN CHAO 299 mously cast aside, which was a major turnabout for the DPP. It took a major economic setback on the island to bring forth a more constructive and for- ward-looking policy toward mainland China. With the termination of the old policy, the greatest debate in ROC history with regard to constructing a new policy toward the mainland was finally put to an end. For now, it seems that a more constructive engagement policy will dominate the island’ s strategic thinking in relations with the PRC. Security has ceased to be the sole con- cern as was the case in the past. Furthering Taiwan’s economic development through business expansion to the mainland market has arisen as another pil- lar in the now two-pronged policy toward the mainland. Consequently, oppo- sition to the three direct links and high-tech investment in China has eased. Despite these efforts, internal ethnic rivalry still lingers, on and off. At the year-end parliamentary election in 2001, instead of campaigning solely on their own causes, the three major political parties—the KMT, the DPP, and the People First Party (PFP)— were divided into two forces, the Pan-Green and the Pan-Blue camps, 41 with “indigenization” as the dividing wedge. The burgeoning success of a new party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), with Lee Teng-hui as its “spiritual leader” and “indigenization” as the core stump- ing issue, was evident after the TSU won 13 seats in the 225-seat Legislative Yuan (parliament). The founding of the TSU in August 2001 seems to have rekindled tensions. The rise of ethnic confrontation and the threat of bifurcation have reduced the likelihood that the Chen Shui-bian administration will be able to make break- throughs in the near future in its relations with Beijing. In a move that partly reflects this division, the Government Information Office, the official propa- ganda agency, introduced on December 31, 2001, a new logo for itself with the conspicuous absence of a map of mainland China, instead showing the national flag of the ROC. In another move, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in mid-January 2002 began issuing new ROC passports with the English phrase “Issued in Taiwan” at the bottom of the front cover. 42 Logically speaking, “Issued in Taiwan” means that Taiwan is just a place in one country (poten- tially the PRC or ROC) from which the passport can be issued, and does not mean that Taiwan is in fact its own country. However, this no doubt rein-
41.The Pan-Green camp refers to those sympathetic to the cause of the ruling DPP since the party has associated itself with the color green. Pan-Blue represents those close to the cause of the KMT as the party’ s emblem is blue. The former accused the latter of being deficient of “indigenization.” 42.“ Pursuit of a Separate Identity May Raise Political Tensions,” China Post (Taipei, in English), January 2, 2002, p. 4. 300 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 forced Beijing’s conviction that Taiwan under the stewardship of Chen Shui- bian is pursuing a policy to “culturally split China.”43
Neo-collectivist Nationalism and Identity- searching on the Mainland After 20 years of economic reforms, the PRC has shown great progress, as evidenced by the quadrupling of its gross domestic product (GDP). Before this decade ends, it is highly likely that the mainland economy will double again in output. The rapid rise of its economic power has made Beijing more assertive in the international arena. At the same time, as more reforms are enacted and the market economy takes hold, elements of orthodox socialism are shrinking accordingly. In the wake of Jiang Zemin’s dramatic proposal to grant capitalists CCP party membership, made in a speech to commemorate the party’s 80th birthday on July 1, 2001, China’s Maoist development strat- egy has formally become history. As the old socialist value system disinte- grates, and a new one based on the capitalist rule of law continues to be wholly transplanted, it is evident that an ideological, and indeed, cultural void has opened up. Mainland China is once again searching for an identity— a task unfulfilled since the late Qing dynasty. As a revolutionary force that has based its legitimacy on the opposition to traditional Chinese culture, it is unlikely that the Chinese Communist Party will rehabilitate and install the “feudalistic Four Olds” as the core of the new moral code anytime soon. 44 Although the utility of traditional Chinese cul- ture was widely debated in the 1980s, and relevant publication and discus- sions have also been on the rise, the focus in the PRC seems to be on critiquing and reevaluating some core elements, as shown by a recent propo- sal for creating a sanctuary for Confucianism being widely spurned. 45 This also explains why Lu Xun, a writer who was highly critical of traditional
43.Tang Subei, former vice chairman of ARATS, lashed out at President Chen Shui-bian’s mainland policy as seeking “cultural independence.” See Xinhua News Agency, June 26, 2001. 44.The term was widely used during the Cultural Revolution period to condemn traditional Chinese culture. The Four Olds are old thinking, culture, habits, and customs. 45.The idea was brought up by Zhang Xianglong, a philosophy professor at Peking Univer- sity. Realizing the importance of Confucianism in the history of China and the danger of West- ern penetration, Zhang suggests that China should look to the Amish experience in the United States and create a sanctuary say in the vicinity of Quhu (the birthplace of Confucius), where authentic Confucianism can be practiced. See Zhang Xianglong, “ Gei zhongguo gudai binwei wenhua yige binansuo—chengli rujia wenhua baohuqu de jianyi” [Give a sanctuary to the en- dangered culture of the ancient China—a proposal for the creation of a sanctuary for the Con- fucian culture],
46.For example, Lin Xianzhi, “ Luxun de zuihou shinian” [The last ten years of Lu Xun], Huanghe (Yellow River), no. 1, 2002. 47.Xu Jilin, “Erzhong weiji yu sanzhong sichao” [Two crises and three thoughts: History of thought in the 20th century China] Zhanlue¨ yu guanli (Strategy and Management) (Beijing), no. 38 (January 2000), pp. 66–71. 48.About Chinese nationalism, see Yu Yingshi, “Dakai bainian lishi jiuge” [Untie the histori- cal entanglement in the past hundred years]; Zheng Yongnian, “Zhongguo de jueqi ji minzuzhuyi de xiandu” [The rise of China and the limits of nationalism]; Ge Hongbing, “ Minzuzhuyi: Dangjin qingnian de sixiang wuqu” [Nationalism: A wrong place for today’s youth], all in Sixi- ang pinglun (Intellectual Review),
49.Hu Angang, Wang Shaoguang, and Cui Zhiyuan are leading scholars in this school. 50.For those who want to reform China on the basis of past socialist traditions, the problem facing China today is blindly duplicating the experiences of advanced countries in the West in what is termed as “institutional fetishism.” They argue that China, given its unique tradition, is favorably positioned to come up with a new set of institutions, different from that of the ortho- dox divide of capitalism and socialism. The close cooperation between the state and the private sector, a practice hailed by many as key to the success of the East Asian “Tigers,” can be found in no other place than the Chinese socialist tradition. See Robert Mangabeira Unger and Cui Zhiyuan, “ Yi er weijian kan zhongguo” [Viewing China through Russian experience) Ershiyi shiji [Twenty-first Century], no. 24 (August 1994), pp. 17–25. 51.Cui Zhiyuan, Erci sixiang jiefang yu zhidu chuangxin (Second Thought Liberation and Institutional Innovation) (Hong Kong: Oxford Press, 1997). 52.Wang Ying, “ Xinjitizhuyi yu zhongguotese de shichang jingji” [Neo-collectivism and market economy with Chinese characteristics), Ershiyi shiji [Twenty-first Century], no. 25 (Oc- tober 1994), pp. 11–14. CHIEN-MIN CHAO 303 tainment of China. 53 An inner thinking based, to a large extent, on neo- collectivism and nationalism not only contrasts with the exuberant pluralistic culture of the civil society that has emerged in Taiwan but also makes Beijing less likely to establish policies deemed conciliatory to Taiwan. The new United States strategy under the younger Bush administration had assigned the PRC a status of “competitor,” at least before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 54 Subsequent friendly overtures to Taiwan culminated in the sale of the biggest arms pack- age by the United States to the island country since 1992, including eight diesel-powered submarines and four Kidd-class destroyers. Such actions have reinforced the misgivings that Beijing has held for a long time that Tai- wan is not only politically, but also culturally, a part of the U.S. sphere of influence.
Conclusion After more than a century of separation, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have taken on very divergent identities. These two political entities have managed to move forward from the Chinese Civil War and intense hostility toward a state of economic interdependence. Although still highly antagonis- tic in the political arena, exchanges in the fields of economy, commerce, cul- ture, and tourism have remained unhindered in recent years. It is generally expected that with the simultaneous accession of both the PRC and Taiwan into the WTO on December 11, 2001, the pace of exchanges should only quicken. Contacts have already been made through the global trade mecha- nism for the resolution of trade-related differences. 55 The different political ideologies and strategies for economic development chosen by the separate regimes have given rise to two very different sub- political cultures. For Taiwan, this new cultural identity, resulting from inter- plays of multiethnicity and a mixture of Chinese, Japanese, traditional Tai- wanese, and Western influences, features an emphasis on individualism, an embrace of local values, as opposed to those imported from mainland China,
53.Wu Guoguang, “Yi lixing minzuzhuyi kangheng weidu zhongguo” [Fight against contain- ment of China with rational nationalism], ibid. (April 1996), pp. 25– 33; “ Zailun lixing minzuzhuyi” [On rational nationalism again—an answer to Chen Yan], ibid. (February 1997), pp. 125–31. 54.Washington-Beijing relations were further damaged when a PRC jet struck an American surveillance airplane in mid-air over the skies of the South China Sea on April 1, 2001. How- ever, after the September 11 terrorist attack, Bush announced while attending an APEC summit meeting in Shanghai in October that the PRC is not an enemy and the two should strive to develop a “constructive cooperation.” 55.Taipei and Beijing met for the first time through the WTO channel to try to resolve the dispute over Taiwan’ s steel products being exported to the mainland market. See Jingji ribao (Economic Daily News) (Taipei), December 14, 2002. 304 ASIAN SURVEY, VOL. XLIII, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2003 and a growing identification of Taiwan as a political community. This mind- set differs tremendously with the collective-minded Chinese way of thinking prevalent on the mainland in which neo-collectivism and nationalism, includ- ing reclaiming Taiwan, have taken the center seat. The chronic political dis- putes that have hamstrung the two sides in the past half-century, and China’s heavy-handedness toward the island, have contributed to a growing sense of alienation and detestation that the people of Taiwan feel toward the Beijing regime. For many in Taiwan, such feelings justify the wish for more auton- omy vis-a-vis` Beijing, and expressions of these feelings have angered the latter even more. The identity crises that the two have suffered, caused by their respective transformations of ruling regimes in the 1980s, have made their policies less amenable toward each other. While “indigenization,” a source of contention within Taiwan, continues to be an element in the Taiwanese people’s aliena- tion, the identity crisis on the mainland has also reduced the probability of formulating a more conciliatory policy toward its compatriots across the Strait. For now, cross-Strait relations are in a state of stalemate. The two entities cannot come to any agreement, neither on issues with political implications such as the “one China” policy nor on non-political issues. There is no rea- son why the two cannot work together to promote direct transportation and allow tourist and journalistic exchanges. The two sides have expressed will- ingness lately to start talking so as to facilitate the “three direct links,” cir- cumventing political obstacles such as the “ one China” principle. Qian Qichen, the PRC’s former vice premier, proposed talks through civil groups such as transportation industries and companies. Taiwan has responded by pondering “ dual authorization,” allowing the SEF to talk to the mainland through other civil organizations Taipei authorizes, overcoming a restriction imposed by Beijing not to talk with the SEF before the “one China” issue is resolved.56 Nevertheless, these so far remain rhetoric overtures. Negotiations between SEF and ARATS have been shut down since 1995, and there is no sign of resumption. Moreover, Taipei and Beijing have even succeeded in backpedaling from the rare consensus that was reached in 1992. It is increas- ingly clear that the two sides need to tackle obstacles from a cultural perspec- tive and overcome the split in their respective cultural identities from within, and then work to form a more congruous shared belief system. Maybe by doing so, a more stable bilateral relationship will show up on the horizon.
56.On Qian Qichen’s proposal, see Lianho bao [United Daily News] (Taipei), September 30, 2001, p. 13. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council suggested amending the Statute Governing Re- lations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, enacted in 1992, in 2002 to include a section of the “dual authorization,” see Minsheng bao (Taipei), September 24, 2002, p. A2.