“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” This is the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, describing the turmoil of the French Revolution. The same words could describe the views of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on the state and direction of relations across the Taiwan Strait.
“A tale of two cities” is an apt description of the gulf between Taiwan’s two ideological camps. The debate over national security has entered a state of upheaval and disintegration.
Is China an enemy or a friend — or a combination of the two?
In the past, the government promoted anti-communism, but no longer. The government used to provoke China’s leaders, but now it does all it can to comply with Beijing’s wishes. In the past, Taiwan maintained contact with figures from China’s democracy movement and people like the Dalai Lama and exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, but now we avoid them like the plague.
Now that Taiwan and China are relaxing cross-strait regulations on diplomacy and overseas compatriot affairs, should there be a relaxation in defense matters as well, or should Taiwan maintain sufficient military strength to mount a hedgehog defense?
China has not reduced the number of missiles it has deployed against Taiwan, and it has not renounced the option of using military force against Taiwan.
But 21 retired senior army officers did not let that stop them from visiting China’s Xiamen to chat over a game of golf with 16 retired commanders of the People’s Liberation Army in May.
Another issue the military faces is how to deal with Taiwan-born World Bank senior vice president Justin Lin (林毅夫) should he follow through on his hope to visit Taiwan.
Control Yuan officials have overruled the Ministry of Defense on the affair, but that does not change the fact that Lin defected to China when he was an as army captain on the front line at Kinmen in 1979.
Cross-strait relations are moving ahead quickly, with nine agreements signed between the two sides in just 10 months.
The proud officials responsible for these developments say cross-strait relations are the best they have been since the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan in 1949.
Although opinion polls show that 90 percent of Taiwanese favor maintaining the “status quo” in cross-strait affairs, relations between Taiwan and China have already changed substantially since the KMT took office in May last year.
The sovereignty aspect of cross-strait relations is not sufficiently transparent.
While government bureaucrats fail to thoroughly assess the implications of these policy changes, the KMT-dominated legislature does not provide effective oversight, and the opposition DPP is busy coping with its own problems.
Ordinary people are bewildered by the changes, and even those who claim to be experts find it hard to keep up.
The short-term improvements in cross-strait relations are not so much because of efforts on the Taiwan side as to shifts in its policies and standpoints.
In the process, Taiwan has lost many of its key bargaining chips, with little in the way of open and objective discussion.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is growing fonder of the KMT and is taking the opportunity to push cross-strait relations ahead to the extent that any future government will not be able to reverse the process.
While offering the KMT favors in limited and individual cases, Beijing is setting traps for the DPP and taking preventive measures to prepare for its possible return to power. Examples are China’s acceptance of Taiwan’s appointment of a former vice president, Lien Chan (連戰), as its emissary to the APEC forum, allowing Taiwan to attend the World Health Assembly as an observer and its apparent compliance with Taiwan’s diplomatic truce initiative.
If Taiwan does not end the situation where one party — the KMT — has a monopoly on cross-strait relations, the nation will find itself completely adrift when the KMT is no longer in power.
From party-to-party talks between the KMT and the CCP to cross-strait economic and cultural forums and visits by mayors and county commissioners that have been going on for years, the mechanism for dialog in each case is directed by the KMT and the CCP.
Rather than sticking to this formula and just inviting a handful of DPP figures to attend talks with China for the sake of appearance, it would be better to open up lines of communication and debate about China policy within Taiwan, so that the two main parties can figure out how to march separately but strike together.
Although the DPP may decline to participate in KMT-CCP forums, it must improve its research on Chinese affairs to offer an informed analysis of the situation.
Clinging to hard-line standpoints that lack substance is not a persuasive strategy.
While cross-strait relations are improving, the gulf between the two camps in Taiwan is wider than ever.
Politicians can try to rationalize their policies by taking US policy as proof that there is no need to worry that cross-strait relations are developing too quickly, or by using opinion polls to show that most Taiwanese are in favor of maintaining the “status quo,” but none of this can bridge the confidence gap that exists in Taiwan today.
Compared with KMT-CCP detente, a rapprochement between the KMT and the DPP is not only easier, it is far more urgent. Without it, peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait will be as fragile as a house built on sand.
Lin Cheng-yi is director of the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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