TAIWAN STRAIT I: WHAT’S LEFT OF ‘ONE CHINA’? 6 June 2003 ICG Asia Report N° 53 Beijing/Taipei/Washington/Brussels TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...........................................................................................................i I. INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 II. TAIWAN IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM: FROM WAR TO DETENTE ...4 A. FROM JAPANESE WAR PRIZE TO CHINESE CIVIL WAR BASTION: 1895-1949 ...................... 4 B. TAIWAN, CHINA AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY 1949-79 .................................. 5 C. TAIWAN STRAIT DÉTENTE 1979-1995 .............................................................................. 6 III. DÉTENTE BREACHED: TAIWAN’S GRADUAL MOVE AWAY FROM ‘ONE CHINA’...........................................................................................................................................9 A. ‘REVISED ONE CHINA’ POLICY: KMT 1991-1994 ............................................................10 B. ‘HISTORICAL ONE CHINA’ POLICY: KMT 1994-1999 .......................................................12 C. ‘FUTURE ONE CHINA’ POLICY? DPP 2000-2003..............................................................13 IV. CHINA’S RESPONSE: ‘ONE CHINA’ BY CONSENT OR COERCION.............17 A. COERCION: 1995 ............................................................................................................18 B. FURTHER COERCION: 1999..............................................................................................19 C. NEW DEMANDS: THE 2000 WHITE PAPER........................................................................20 1. What Constitutes Visible Progress? ......................................................................20 2. Is There a Deadline for Reunification?..................................................................20 D. CARROTS WITH THE STICK: 2000-2003...........................................................................21 V. U.S. POSITION: MAINTAIN ‘ONE CHINA’ BUT SUPPORT TAIWAN.............23 A. ACKNOWLEDGING CHINA’S POSITION: 1979-1995 ...........................................................23 B. NO TAIWAN INDEPENDENCE, BUT MORE SUPPORT : 1995-2000 ........................................25 C. ENDING STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY? 2001-2003...................................................................26 VI. OTHER INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS: ‘ONE CHINA’ YES, BUT… ........29 A. BILATERAL ADHERENCE TO ‘ONE CHINA’: FORMALISTIC, BUT EVOLVING......................30 B. MULTILATERAL RESPONSES: BEYOND ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL...................................33 VII. ‘ONE CHINA’ IN TAIWAN’S DOMESTIC POLITICS: WHAT ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE? ..........................................................................................................................35 A. NATIONAL IDENTITY.......................................................................................................36 B. PARTY POLITICS.............................................................................................................41 1. DPP Factionalism.................................................................................................42 2. Chen’s Leadership: Personal and Institutional Aspects ......................................44 3. Taiwan Solidarity Union ......................................................................................47 4. Shrinking, ‘Re-Mainlandised’ KMT .....................................................................48 5. People First Party .................................................................................................52 6. New Party ............................................................................................................53 C. NATIONALIST POLITICS AND THE ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE..............................................54 VIII. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................55 APPENDICES A. MAP OF TAIWAN AND ADJACENT AREAS ......................................................................................56 B. LIST OF ACRONYMS.....................................................................................................................57 C. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP..................................................................................59 D. ICG REPORTS AND BRIEFING PAPERS...........................................................................................60 E. ICG BOARD MEMBERS ................................................................................................................66 ICG Asia Report N° 53 6 June 2003 TAIWAN STRAIT I: WHAT’S LEFT OF ‘ONE CHINA’? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the last decade, Taiwan has moved slowly but 1995, also strengthened the new Taiwan identity and surely away from its commitment to the idea of ‘one weakened support for the ‘one China’ idea. China’, the proposition, long agreed on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, that Taiwan and the mainland are Now, in 2003, the position that Taiwan is already an parts of one country. This has led to steadily independent sovereign country is not one of a radical mounting tension between Taiwan and China, for political fringe, but a mainstream view. It was first both of whom the issue goes to the heart of their clearly asserted under a Kuomintang (KMT) sense of identity. While the prospect of an outbreak President, Lee Teng-hui, in 1994, following hints of a of war across the Strait remains distant, action is change of direction as early as 1991. The other main needed by all relevant parties to contain and reverse political party, the Democratic Progressive Party the situation. (DPP), whose leader, Chen Shui-bian, was elected President in 2000, is even more vigorous in its This report is a background study, describing how advocacy of Taiwan’s status as an independent the ‘one China’ formula has eroded and why this sovereign state. The only mainstream debate now in matters: it makes no specific recommendations Taiwan is about how to deal with the evident about the way ahead. But two companion reports contradiction between the old idea of ‘one China’, released simultaneously with it address in detail the still formally supported by the KMT, with the idea of risk of military confrontation and how this might be Taiwan as an independent sovereign state, now in contained, and the political and economic strategies fact supported by both the KMT and the DPP. by which a peaceful relationship might best be maintained in the short to medium term. What an As a result of this domestic evolution in Taiwan, the ultimate, next generation, political settlement might old ‘one China’ principle, though still the reference look like if peace can be sustained will be the subject point for international thinking about the China- of a later ICG report. Taiwan relationship, is no longer by itself an adequate device for containing the emerging new The changes that have occurred since the early 1990s tensions in cross-Strait relations. The Administration had their primary roots in Taiwan domestic of President Chen Shui-bian and his DPP are politics.With democratisation came the emergence of committed to the view that China needs to a ‘new Taiwanese’ identity – no longer mainlander acknowledge Taiwan’s status as an independent but not original Taiwanese either. Taiwan’s sovereign country. But because Chen and his impressive economic performance and integration ministers, like most voters in Taiwan, also know that with the international trading system became a they are walking a tightrope. he has committed his special source of pride to its people and began to government to the need to prevent a final show- have an impact on attitudes about its place in the down with China by avoiding highly provocative world. The sense was that these achievements had political acts such as conducting an independence- come in spite of the constraints imposed by China related referendum or changing the Constitution to and the international community in respect to the create a ‘Republic of Taiwan’. ‘one China’ principle. As a result, many Taiwanese resented China for imposing this international China has been very concerned about Taiwan’s straitjacket. China’s military threats, resuming in gradual move away from support for ‘one China’. In 1995 and 1996 Beijing used highly visible military Taiwan Strait I: What’s Left of ‘One China’? ICG Asia Report N°53, 6 June 2003 Page ii exercises to put pressure on Taiwan to return much promise for China. It had only been prepared unambiguously to its observance. Though there to live with the situation of Taiwan’s de facto seemed to be some relaxation of tension after that, independence on the basis that the de jure situation the problem never went away and in fact became – international recognition that Taiwan cannot be worse. When in 1999, Taiwan’s President Lee called independent – did not come under serious threat. the cross-Strait relationship a ‘special state to state After a decade of gradual change, the longstanding relationship’, China’s leaders felt that the country position that both sides supported ‘one China’ but may have come closer to war over Taiwan than at had differing interpretations of what it meant is any time for decades, and they let this be known. now on the point of final fragmentation. Domestic Recognising the gravity of the situation, they also political imperatives suggest Taiwan’s