University of Pretoria etd – Chi, C-L (2004) INTRODUCTION 1. Study Objectives In the history of human civilization, since the emergence of dynasties and nations, secession and separation have existed. At the end of the twentieth century, secessionist groups existed in many places, for example the Basque secessionist movement in Spain, the Northern Irish secessionist movement in Britain, the Quebec separatist movement in Canada, the Kashmir separatist movement in Pakistan and the Taiwanese political Cross-Straits policy which was really a secessionist concept. However, the Taiwanese secessionism has been the most significant. It triggered the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, which caused a military confrontation between Mainland China and the United States (US). During this crisis, Mainland China mobilised its nuclear submarines and the US mobilised two aircraft carrier battle groups. However, the reason that Taiwan is one of the most significant secessionist examples, is based on current international relations and the geopolitical importance of Taiwan. In the early twenty-first century, Mainland China is an emerging power in Asia. However, the US is the global super power and international relations have entered into the unipolar era of the American century. In order to maintain its hegemony, the US deterred the emergence of Mainland China. According to the Defence Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999, the first priority of the US’ defence strategy objectives was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.” This document further indicated that “there are other political nations or coalitions that could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defence posture of region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor” (USA 1992:1-2). However, its previous Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union, had disintegrated in 1991. Germany, France, Britain and Japan were not big countries territorially and could not dominate globally. Obviously, in the eyes of the US in the 1990s, the objective of US prevention and deterrence was Mainland China. Taiwan lies to the south of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands and north of the Philippine Islands, to the centre of the first island chain. In the US view, Taiwan was a strategically important island over which it was prepared to threaten the security of southeastern China in order to block the Mainland’s access to the Pacific Ocean. 1 University of Pretoria etd – Chi, C-L (2004) For Mainland China, the unification or separation of Taiwan and Mainland China involved national security considerations, integration or disintegration and nationalism. Taiwan is so close to the southeastern coast of Mainland China that if it seceded from Mainland China successfully and was controlled or partially controlled by other countries, it would mean that Mainland China’s national security would be compromised in part of its southeastern territory. On the other hand, the Taiwanese are of the same race, culture, religion and share the use of Chinese characters with the Han people, who are the absolute majority in Mainland China. If Taiwan seceded from Mainland China successfully, minorities such as the Kazakhs, the Uighur in Xinjiang province and the Tibetans in the Tibeten Autonomous Region (TAR) might also seek secession from Mainland China (Lin, Y. K. 1991:2). That is to say, if Taiwan successfully gains its independence from Mainland China, it would trigger a domino effect amongst the minority people and cause Mainland China to disintegrate like the former Soviet Union. Therefore, the secessionist Cross-Strait movement is a life-and-death issue for Mainland China. From a nationalist perspective, Hong Kong and Macao were returned to Mainland China in the 1990s. Taiwan is the last piece of territory of Mainland China that it was forced to cede when invaded and which has not yet been recovered. Therefore, if Taiwan secedes from Mainland China, the only option for Mainland China would be to launch a unification war. Because the national strategic interests of Mainland China and the US overlap in Taiwan, the impact of the Taiwanese secessionist Cross-Strait movement on global strategic interaction is far more significant than other secessionist movements in the world. From 1950 to 1988, relations between Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC) and Mainland China (the People’s Republic of China, PRC) were severed, hostile and antagonistic, however, except for the 1958 Quemoy (Kinmen) artillery battle, the Cross-Strait relationship was peaceful for nearly thirty years (1958-1988). Despite the increasing people-to-people interaction between Taiwan and Mainland China since 1987, the Cross-Strait relationship was poised for a showdown during the 1990s, and almost triggered a military clash between Mainland China and the US in 1996. The main reason for the change between 1988 and 2000 from peaceful, although antagonistic, conditions toward being on the brink of war was Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy. The influence of Lee Teng-hui’s political 2 University of Pretoria etd – Chi, C-L (2004) Cross-Straits policy was so profound that it provoked the strongest reaction from Mainland China, and will continue to dominate present and future relations in Asia. Looking forward, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, one of the international issues that has the potential to cause a major clash is the Cross-Strait relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China, and this clash might be further ignited into a military confrontation, even a nuclear war, between Mainland China and the US. The objectives of this study are therefore to: (1) explore the background and life experience of Lee Teng-hui and his real political ideology and intentions; (2) study the evolution of Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy from the original one-China policy, toward a policy of secession; (3) analyse the reaction of Mainland China towards Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy and; (4) examine Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy in the cultural, economical and military fields. 2. Research Problem In January 1988, Lee Teng-hui became President. Subsequently, in September 1990, the Presidential Office set up the National Unification Council, and in February 1991, Lee’s administration passed the Guidelines for National Unification. In so doing, Lee Teng-hui supported the unification policy superficially. However, the political Cross-Straits policies he adopted favoured secessionism substantively. Therefore, this gap between the nominal support for unification and the actual operation of secessionism made it difficult for many residents to believe that Lee Teng-hui was not a secessionist. On 30 September 1995, Lee Teng-hui publicly stated that he was absolutely not a secessionist, and he repeated that he was not a secessionist over 130 times (Yuan 1995:2). However, from 2001 to 2003, when Lee Teng-hui was a civilian, he publicly and frankly admitted that he was a secessionist (Su 2001:4), and stated that the ROC should change its name to Taiwan (Lin 2003a:1), and further indicated that the ROC had not existed (Lin 2003b:A4). Lee Teng-hui had only been paying lip-service to supporting Cross-Strait unification and really implemented a secessionist political Cross-Straits policy. Therefore, the main research issue is that Lee Teng-hui in reality implemented a secessionist Cross-Strait policy which was completely opposite to Chiang Ching-kuo’s Cross-Strait unification policy. However, Lee Teng-hui was handpicked 3 University of Pretoria etd – Chi, C-L (2004) by Chiang Ching-kuo. What caused Lee to betray Chiang Ching-kuo’s unification route? Furthermore, why did he have to support unification while adopting a substantive secessionist policy? How was he able to instigate Taiwanese hostility toward Mainlanders, and to transform this hostility into a sense of Taiwanese identity and upgrade it to Taiwanese secessionist ideology? This study is not only based on the hypothesis that China will go to war if Taiwan secedes, but also based on the following propositions: (1) the main cause of Taiwanese secessionism was ethnic conflict; (2) Lee Teng-hui’s secessionist ideology reflected a hatred of Mainlanders and; (3) Lee Teng-hui disguised his secessionist aims as unification. 3. Research Methodology The main research methods used in this study are both description and analysis, and focuses on the period between 1988 and 2000. President Chiang Ching-kuo passed away on 13 January 1988, and Lee Teng-hui succeeded to the presidency. After 12 years, the tenth presidential election was held on 18 March 2000. Because of restrictions on presidential terms, Lee Teng-hui retired from politics and his term as president ended. However, from 1988 to 2000, as a result of Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy, great changes occurred in Cross-Strait relations. A historical approach was employed to explore the origins of secessionism, and descriptive and analytical methods to review the political development of the ROC and its civil war, to study Lee Teng-hui’s life, to study the national identity of Taiwan and Mainland China in-depth, and to study the implementation of Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy and the reactions of Mainland China systematically and comprehensively. Although Lee always officially supported unification with Mainland China, for example, in documents and speeches, he mentioned unification superficially and placed many technical barriers in the way of unification. Lee Teng-hui and many senior officials had received advanced education in the US, therefore, to some extent they understood the operation of the US democratic system, and utilised this. In order to influence US leaders, including think tanks and academics, Lee’s administration spent huge amounts of money on them in various ways, such as paying counsel fees, providing sponsorships and donations, or by inviting them to Taiwan as guests (Lampton 2002:103-104).