With the nation in the midst of an economic downturn, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview with a foreign media outlet that although the relationship between Taiwan and China is special, it is not state-to-state in nature. The Presidential Office added that the cross-strait relationship involves two “areas.” It appears that Taiwan’s sovereignty can now be downplayed.
In 1991, president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) ended emergency measures for the “communist rebellion” and said there was “one China, two areas and two political entities.” He did so to counteract China’s “one country, two systems” and not as a plan for long-term peace and stability. Whereas Lee’s “one country, two areas” referred to one “free area” and one “fallen area,” today we have returned to the original meaning — the “Taiwan area” and the “Mainland area.”
At the time, Mainland Affairs Council chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) attempted to apply for UN membership for Taiwan using a “one country, two seats” model, while then minister of economic affairs Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) at an APEC meeting in Seattle tested the notion of two Chinas for a transitional period.
However, with China’s refusal to recognize Taiwan as an equal political entity and procrastination by conservatives led by then premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), these efforts proved futile.
Before stepping down, Lee drew a red line with his statement about a “special state-to-state relationship” between Taiwan and China: the so-called “state-to-state” discourse. Although this did not explicitly claim there was one Taiwan and one China, it clearly said that there were two Chinas. This is also why Beijing hates Lee.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) dared not cross the line and could only ambiguously say that there were “two Chinese countries.” The Democratic Progressive Party was in power and Taiwan was independent; the only mission left was to correct the national title.
Chen’s foreign policies were aimed at mobilizing party supporters at elections and did not serve the interests of the public. Wavering between abolishing the Guidelines for National Unification and the National Unification Council and promoting cross-strait integration, Chen’s use of the slogan “one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait” was only a metaphor for the “two China” discourse.
The thrust of Ma’s policy toward China has always been “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” based on the so-called “1992 consensus” created by Su Chi (蘇起), now secretary-general of the National Security Council.
Ma wants to shelve the sovereignty dispute and avoid confrontation with China in exchange for gestures of Chinese goodwill, including allowing Taiwanese participation in international organizations. This subordinates Taiwan’s diplomacy to China’s and is the reason why Ma has proposed “flexible diplomacy” and a “diplomatic truce.”
If the biggest sovereignty issue were the status of Kinmen and Matsu, then shelving the dispute would be acceptable.
But Beijing still maintains that Taiwan is a breakaway province, and Taipei is reacting meekly and subserviently, as if it were abandoning sovereignty.
When a weaker state makes unilateral concessions, it only harms itself. This is the reality of international politics. Taiwan can hold talks with China on not undermining one another, but it must not depend on China.
If Ma does this out of rigid adherence to the constitutional “one China” formula, then he is naive; if he does so because of international realities, then he is beyond help; but if he does so to revive the economy without concern for sovereignty, then he is doomed.
Shih Cheng-feng is dean of the College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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