Sun, Apr 25, 2004 page3

• Planning for the future

  Ross Terrill is an associate researcher at The Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, and a long-time China expert. He has spent more than 40 years studying communist Chinese society and was one of the very few Western journalists allowed to enter China before the Cultural Revolution. Author of the book ``The New Chinese Empire,'' Terrill spoke to `Taipei Times' staff reporter Chang Yun-ping in a recent interview, in which he said there was a new willingness in the US to accept the idea of an independent Taiwan and that US-Taiwan relations, which soured during the presidential election, would soon be repaired. He also suggested that Taiwan include a section in its planned constitution that would leave open the possibility for Taiwan to form a nation with another Chinese nation, such as China

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  Taipei Times: In your previous talks to the local media, you've mentioned that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) should slow down the schedule for formulating a new constitution. But Chen has stressed he will go ahead with his own schedule despite China's opposition. What do you think of this?

  Terrill: China's opposition is one thing, but carrying the people in Taiwan with him is a different thing. I was referring to the desirability that after a difficult election that the unity of Taiwan's people be maintained. What I meant is that President Chen should take the steps in a way that carries as much support as possible from as many Taiwan's people as possible. My idea that is that Chen should take into consideration the whole Taiwanese people to mend the fences of ethnic conflicts and let the society heal before he could go ahead with rewriting the constitution. He has shown he can increase his support. He went up from 39 percent in 2000 to more than 50 percent in 2004. If he can persuade even more people, then he is on the right track. It means the constitutional change is soundly based.

  

  Ross Terrill, associate researcher at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University, says that there is a new willingness in the US to accept the idea of an independent Taiwan.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  TT: Why would you suggest that Taiwan include a section in its new constitution that would allow Taiwan to form a nation with another Chinese nation in the future?

  Terrill: The idea behind my remark is for democracy, history is never closed. Only for a dictatorship can you say history is frozen. And the boundaries of the countries have changed and if they change [it is] by the agreement of the people. That's one thing. If they change by war, that causes a lot of suffering. In the 1990s, Czechoslovakia was divided into two, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, as the two sides came to an agreement. In the future, if the two decided to come back together, that's their business. One day, in the South Pacific, some of the small countries of the South Pacific may join a federation. They are very weak, the islands of the South Pacific. In 1900 and 1901, New Zealand and Australia almost joined a federation. At the last moment, New Zealand changed its mind. But if you read the Australian Constitution today, there is a section that says there is place for New Zealand if they want to come in. The important thing is this is done by the agreement of the people.

  TT: Is such a suggestion a way to defuse China's anger?

  Terrill: It depends on how you write the constitution. It can be very open to other countries. Who would have expected France and Germany to be entering into a union? Only 55 years ago, they fought each other. The European Union is a case before our eyes of many different countries starting to get quite close to uniting. My point is in the future there are all sorts of possibilities. We have the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Who knows, one day Taiwan may be part of that. Beijing would be angry. They may be angry this year, but 10 years from now, they may not be angry. Taiwan went into APEC, many people said Beijing would not permit that, but they did permit it. Therefore you may write a constitution that leads the doors open to associations of one kind or another with another country, including China.

  TT: What's the implication of an imperial China on the world and its relations with a democratic Taiwan?

  Terrill: Historically, China was used to expecting respect from the neighboring peoples, who had to bring gifts and pay tribute to China and behave themselves and say the right words. In some cases, the king of China's neighboring countries had to send a mission to Beijing to get the new king approved, like the king of the Ryukus. Beijing had to bless him. If they did it this way, Beijing was happy because it showed Beijing that the world is working the way the world should work.

  But there is hangover from this. It doesn't fit the modern world. The Chinese political system has lasted for a very long time so the legacy of the system is still there. Mao Zedong (毛澤東) used to call himself the emperor with his staff members sitting around him. Was he joking? Maybe he was partly joking, but he was partly serious. And the older he got, the more he read the ancient books. And he liked Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇) [the tyrannical first emperor of China] for his toughness. This tradition is not yet dead, that the same Chinese system wanted tribute paid and beautiful words said about the Chinese emperor. The "one China" idea in the 1970s was in its tradition.

  However, after that, what happened? Although the American side acknowledged this "one China," which made Beijing happy, the Americans then busily set up the Taiwan Relations Act. And they have a big office in Taipei. So the situation on the ground for Taiwan didn't change. This is also a long tradition in China -- that is to get the principle right. But then if the principle is right, you can do what you want. There is some value in this. That's why sometimes it's better to move slowly than to rush.

  TT: What's your understanding of US-Taiwan communication? Do you think there is any misunderstanding or mistrust on Washington's part toward President Chen and will communication improve in Chen's second term?

  Terrill: First of all, the war on Iraq is providing a distraction for the US and the White House doesn't want fires burning everywhere. But during the election, something very interesting happened. The opinion in the House of Representatives in Washington was very favorable to Chen and it wanted to pass a resolution supporting his right to call a referendum. But the White House persuaded it not to. The point of the story is that there is a great deal of support for Taiwan and there is quite a lot of support for Chen. And what is quite new to this support is that there are quite a few congressmen who, it turns out, are ready to say an independent Taiwan is fine. So the American government is not only the White House, but also the Congress. If you take the whole picture, especially now Chen has been re-elected and after the Iraq picture comes down a little bit, I think the relations between Taipei and Washington will be repaired.

  TT: How significant is this new support?

  Terrill: Well, it's a bit unusual now because the Republicans control both [the White House and the Congress] and it's the Republican leader of the House who agreed to hold back on the resolutions because of his respect for President Bush. But maybe they did it because they thought Chen was going to lose. Maybe they miscalculated. But in the broad picture for three and a half years, President Bush has been more pro-Taiwan than Clinton. So you have to bear in mind that we have also had a situation in Washington where the Congress is in the hands of one party and the White House in the hands of another party and this causes conflicts in China policy and Taiwan policy. At the moment, it's in the hands of the same party and the situation before the election was a little bit special because of Iraq and because many people thought Lien Chan (連戰) and James Soong (宋楚瑜) would win the election. A lot of congressmen are now upset because they wished the resolution had been passed because it would make them look good. They miscalculated the situation.

  TT: How would Beijing react to the emergence of Taiwanese nationalism and adjust its policies towards Taiwan? Will it change?

  Terrill: In the long run, yes, they will change. You see, at first, they thought Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was a problem, that he was a crazy man, but then Chen was elected and then was elected again. They must realize the problem was not one crazy man or two crazy men. Moreover, if you look at the weeks before the election, the KMT was also influenced by the DPP position. So is everybody crazy? Beijing can't come to a conclusion that everybody is crazy. They have to come to another conclusion that this change in Taiwan politics is permanent.

  Something different is happening here. In the lead-up to the election, I didn't hear Lien Chan talking all the time about "one China." And he said that to have another look at the Constitution was reasonable. And he said yes, it's possible to hold a referendum. All these ideas came originally from Chen Shui-bian. If they were the ideas of one crazy man, Lien Chan would not have adjusted his positions. To be exact, the correct interpretation is that going back to Lee Teng-hui, Lee was an expression of some change of route. Within Taiwan and even within the KMT, Chen Shui-bian is another expression. If the KMT picks a new leader we may find this new leader is also an expression that is more and more of Taiwan identity. Elections create a sense of belonging to this place. And that you can not stop.

  There are three things that Beijing could do to Taiwan. They could attack you, wreck their whole foreign policies, wreck their whole foreign economic policies and lose their exports to the US. But there is always going to be a reason not to attack. It may be Hong Kong, it may be Xinjiang, and the 2008 Olympics Games. There will always be horrible results for China if they attack Taiwan in my opinion. China has missed their chance to attack Taiwan. The second thing they could do is to ignore the problem, as the current economic links with Taiwan are OK and they would wait for the dust to settle. The third thing is that they could start a policy of all smiles to have Taiwan join the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations. Later on, there will be unification. But for the time being, it's good for the people of Taiwan and it's good for world health to have them in the WHO. If they did something like this, it may confuse many people in Taiwan and it may improve Beijing's image and keep everybody guessing. It will be skillful diplomacy on their part. If you ask me do I expect them to do it tomorrow, no. But if you think about it, it would be a reasonable thing to do.

  TT: China is likely to block Taiwan's WHO entry this year, after the WHO secretary-general said that Taiwan is part of China following his meeting with Chinese health minister Gao Qiang. China seems to be ready to repeat its previous policy of blocking Taiwan from joining every international organization that requires statehood. What do you think of this?

  Terrill: Well, they will be criticized for this. Japan is now critical of Beijing on this spot. They didn't used to be, but now they are. It's just my suggestion that if Beijing truly wants to be a modern nation and if they wanted to join the international community, they keep saying that they want to join the international community, then they should have some truly international values and international goals. At the moment, everything is all about China. Let them talk about one world, not just one China. Let them teach young people about globalization and mutual respect, and then China can make an enormous contribution to the world.

  TT: James Lilley, the former US ambassador to Beijing and former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, has suggested the US play a more active role in helping the Taiwan Strait become a non-military zone. Do you think the US should play a more active role to bring the two sides closer?

  Terrill: For many years, Beijing said "it's nobody's business but ours." Now they are starting to ask other countries to help, including the US, Australia and Japan. What's the meaning of this? I think they are running out of solutions. But the real way to make this proposal, like what James Lilley said, is for Beijing to make proposals to Chen Shui-bian. But Beijing is not willing to do that. And I don't think the US is going to do the work of Beijing for it. On the other hand, there is a new feeling in the Bush administration that if that was something the US could do, they wouldn't rule it out. But their position is the US hasn't seen a proposal that it could come in and negotiate; but if there is one, the US wouldn't rule it out. I don't know why they are saying this, but they are saying it very recently.

  Meanwhile, the precondition for doing that is for Iraq to settle down. But frankly I can't see any American interest in getting into this. I believe the American interest is to continue to guarantee the defense of Taiwan against any attack and to keep the equilibrium of nations in East Asia. That makes the region stable. It's been stable ever since the end of the Vietnam War and the region is mainly bilateral security pacts between the US and various countries. These are the important things for global peace of the region. If something went wrong with that, we have big problems. But this US-laid security system, even though it's not multilateral, is quite successful. It stops Beijing grabbing Xisha and Nansha and stops Japan and China confronting each other. It does many useful things. And in this context it's not urgent, about Taiwan, for American interests. And President Chen has to take that into account. That's why there is some truth to the American ideal that they want the status quo to continue because it's peaceful. What is wrong with this statement is that you can't freeze the status quo in Taiwan's politics because in a democracy, nothing is frozen, which leads to me to say that the maximum support that Chen can get for his constitution will be reassuring to the US and make it more and more difficult for Beijing to play any tricks.
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