After crafting the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement’s (ECFA) strategic framework around “one China on both sides [of the Taiwan Strait]” and economic cooperation, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has followed a path for unification with Taiwan stated by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in his six-point statement.
The CCP has also attempted to use the ECFA model to expand its political and economic approach to its cultural approach.
It is clear the CCP is now taking this approach with Taiwan.
There is not much difference between the CCP’s “peaceful unification” policy as stated in Hu’s six-point statement in 2008 and in former Chinese president Jiang Zemin’s (江澤民) eight-point statement from 1995. However, Hu has accomplished what Jiang failed to do, and the key lies in the rare window of opportunity that occurred during Hu’s presidency.
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) return to power in 2008 has allowed Beijing to cooperate actively with its “good friends” in the KMT. Through several cross-strait agreements, it has managed to lock in the direction of Taiwan’s development.
The ECFA model is a typical example. It has not only restricted Taiwan, it also effectively excluded all democratic monitoring mechanisms and has become the model for China’s future Taiwan strategy.
The best example is Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu’s (蔡武) suggestion during his trip to Taiwan this month that the two sides should take a cue from the ECFA and sign a cultural cooperation agreement.
This suggestion gave an indication that the focus of the next stage of KMT-CCP cooperation will be to connect cross-strait culture and promote Chinese culture as a foundation for building a wider Chinese society.
As this trend continues to develop, more issues between Taiwan and China will be brought to the negotiation table. If such talks do take place, Taiwanese must be alert and have a basic understanding of China’s negotiation trickery in order to monitor such talks appropriately.
Most importantly, we need to keep a close eye on China’s “good friends” in Taiwan to ensure that Taiwan’s national interests are not sacrificed to meet their vested interests.
The Chinese are obsessed with personal connections. They are adept at cultivating, utilizing and pressuring people in the rival camp, who are friendly to China, to reach its goals in a negotiation. The most famous example are talks in the 1970s on normalizing Sino-US relations.
Through China’s friends, including Henry Kissinger, the US secretary of state under former US presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US president Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, Beijing reached its goals as the US cut ties and abolished agreements with Taiwan, withdrew its troops stationed in Taiwan and established diplomatic ties with China.
Another key issue is the question of how to break through the government’s exclusion of Taiwan’s democratic monitoring mechanisms.
Margot Chen is a research fellow at Taiwan Advocates.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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