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One China? Taiwanese Independence Question
From: Columbia University
| By:
Andrew J. Nathan |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
 Over the past 50 years, China has watched Taiwan transform itself from a backwater to one of the world's most prosperous economies, and from authoritarian rule to democracy. While the mainland urgently seeks reunification with what it considers a province of China, Taiwan is increasingly asserting its independence. In this interview with Fathom, Andrew J. Nathan (above), a professor of political science at Columbia University and one of America's leading scholars of Chinese politics, explores the complex and potentially explosive idea of "one China." |
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| Andrew Nathan discusses the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. | |
Fathom: Can you give us the historical background of the problem that exists between Taiwan and mainland China?Andrew Nathan: In 1895, Taiwan was taken over by Japan as a colony, and from 1895 to 1945 it was ruled by Japan. When the Japanese were defeated at the end of World War II, Taiwan returned to Chinese control. The way that happened was that the then government of China--the Nationalist, or Kuomintang (KMT), government--sent a governor and some troops over to Taiwan to take it over, so Taiwan was controlled by the Nationalists. In China, the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists led to the Communists winning control over the whole mainland of China in 1949 and left the Nationalists in Taiwan. So you had a picture of two rival parties controlling two different pieces of Chinese territory. And the Americans recognized the government in Taiwan as the government of all of China. |
That situation continued for 30 years, until 1979. That year, the US switched its recognition to the Communist government of the People's Republic of China, in Beijing, and abandoned its diplomatic relationship with the Republic of China on Taiwan. But at the same time we maintained an informal people-to-people relationship with the Republic of China on Taiwan. And the US insisted that the future resolution of what was called the "Taiwan problem"--that is to say, how these two pieces of China would settle their relationship--had to be peaceful. That's the US view. In other words, you can't use force. Who can't use force? Well, the Taiwanese were not going to use force. Earlier they had thought about it, but by 1979 that was out. So it basically meant that mainland China could not take over Taiwan by force. That's the big picture we have since 1979 and up until today, 21 years. That's a picture where you have these two regimes, with the Americans saying you can settle your problem any way that you want to as long as it's peaceful. The US policy has an evenhanded form, which says that it is against military action, no matter who launches it. But since only the Chinese side could conceivably launch military action, our policy favors Taiwan. |
Underneath that umbrella, Taiwan started to change. Instead of saying, we're the Nationalist government claiming the mainland of China, Taiwan started to undergo a democratic process that eventually led to the victory of the opposition party. But as that democratic process unfolded, the voters of Taiwan got control over the political system. Even though they were electing candidates from the same Nationalist Party, these were not the same old candidates--now they were new candidates, local guys. |
In particular, the voters in Taiwan elected to the presidency this man named Lee Teng-hui, who was Taiwanese-born. And Lee Teng-hui was almost like a butterfly, a chrysalis. He came to power as an old member of this mainlander-dominated ruling party. And once he became president he started to change subtly and to carry out a variety of policies that had the effect of saying, we're in Taiwan and we no longer claim the mainland; and in fact, we're a separate political entity. He never declared independence, but very late in his government he said that mainland China is a state and we're a state, and there are two states here. That, to the ears of Beijing, was equivalent to declaring independence. I mean, if there are two states, two Chinese states, one Chinese and one Taiwanese, that's independence to them. So mainland China formed the view that Lee Teng-hui was a very subtle and clever Taiwan independence advocate who talked about "one China" 50, 100, 150 years down the road when, in the meantime, he wanted Taiwan to be its own political entity or its own state. There are many subtle legal arguments here, but that's the essence of it. |
So the mainland decided that what was happening was that, under the American umbrella, the Taiwanese were carrying out creeping independence, and the Americans were at fault for protecting the Taiwanese while they did that. And so the Chinese are dissatisfied both with the Americans for this policy and with both Taiwanese parties, the KMT and the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), which they see as not that different from one another. |
Fathom: Was there ever a common agreement between mainland China and Taiwan on the political status of Taiwan?Nathan: There was the outward appearance but perhaps not the reality of a common agreement. The outward form of the common agreement is that there's one China, or that China should eventually be reunified. So, under Lee Teng-hui's presidency, there was a National Unification Council, the National Unification Guideline, and all this talk of national unification. But when you peeled the onion, what national unification really meant was that if, someday, mainland China became as democratic and as prosperous as Taiwan is, then that generation of leaders would talk about some kind of an arrangement. But who knows what it would be. |
That was the way that Lee Teng-hui shaped it. Other Taiwanese have other views. There's a lot of confusion around this subject, and I think a lot of the confusion is created on purpose, in order to keep things vague. In 1992, the two sides sent unofficial delegates to talk in Singapore. The delegates didn't sign anything about "one China," but they issued a verbal statement in which the term "one China" was referred to, and later on each side interpreted that in its own way. The point was that they both used the term "one China" then and it enabled them to get down to some other business that they had to conduct, such as repatriation of fishermen and registered letters--very, very tiny issues. But they set aside this big issue. As it turned out, they didn't share the same view as to what this "one China" idea really meant. |
 Fathom: How does each side interpret the term "one China"?Nathan: For the mainland, the idea of "one China" means that the territory of China includes Taiwan--always has and always will. For the mainland Chinese leaders, the authorities located in Taiwan do not have the attributes of a state in the international system. There's one China, the capital of it is in Beijing and it has one government. In Taiwan there is something else, a ruling party, some temporary authorities, local authorities or whatnot. |
The Taiwanese interpretation is not the same. Their interpretation is that "one China" is an idea, a thing that should be realized in the future. It's a thing that we don't choose to challenge at the moment, but in the meantime we're here, we have our own government and a president who is elected democratically. We have a constitution, which is the descendant of the constitution that was first established as far back as 1912, before the Communist Party even existed. So the Taiwanese have this idea that they have some sort of a state here, a government and a statelike entity. And then Lee Teng-hui said that our state here in Taiwan actually doesn't exercise sovereignty over the mainland of China, and that has the flavor of a truism. Obviously, Taiwan doesn't exercise sovereignty over mainland China. But that statement has some disturbing implications. If you have a state and it doesn't exercise sovereignty over the mainland of China, is there another state there in the mainland of China exercising sovereignty? Lee Teng-hui's answer was yes, there is. There are two states: one over there, one here. |
Fathom: Does Chen Shui-bian share that concept?Nathan: Chen Shui-bian has kept his cards rather close to his chest. He has the so-called "Five No's"--what they won't do and won't say. But it doesn't tell us what concept he really shares. He says, we won't declare independence. That sounds very conciliatory. But then if you ask the people around him what that means, it actually means we don't need to declare independence, because we're already independent. He also says, we won't repeat the "two-state" concept. Does that mean that they don't believe in the "two-state" concept? When his chief mainland-affairs commissioner was asked that question, she said no, it doesn't mean we don't accept the concept of two states; we've just decided not to be provocative and not to repeat that concept. When asked whether they shared the two-state concept, she said, this is the blatant reality, but we don't have to talk about it. |
The confusion is created on purpose. It's not that the Taiwanese are too dumb to understand the concept. And of course Beijing understands that it's a kind of a game. The Taiwanese game is not to provoke Beijing into military action, but not to give up anything, either. To do that you lie low, you don't say a lot of things, you act like a lawyer. But this game of not provoking Beijing creates a rather difficult situation for Beijing, because Beijing doesn't know whether to be provoked by the nonprovocative policy of Chen Shui-bian. So far they haven't in fact taken any military action, but they might do so. |
Fathom: Does Chen Shui-bian's call for a dialogue with the mainland surprise you?Nathan: On my reading, it doesn't tell us all that much, because I think we have to interpret these things in terms of their tactical significance. The question is, who benefits from a dialogue, which depends in turn on the ground rules of that dialogue? And a lot of the issue right now has to do with ground rules. |
If, for example, Beijing were to send somebody to talk with a Taiwanese official and to do so under ground rules by which that Taiwanese official was recognized as an official of a government on an equal standing--and the Taiwanese always say it has to be equal to equal--that would be to recognize at least to some degree the separate statehood of this dialogue partner. That would be great for Chen Shui-bian. He would gain a lot of territory in the negotiations just by having the dialogue. He also would gain politically. |
One of Chen Shui-bian's political weaknesses in Taiwan is that 66 percent of the voters seem to fear that he will not be able to manage relations with the mainland and that his presidency may become the occasion for a war with the mainland. So if Chen could say, "Oh, no, no problem. I've got a dialogue with these people; everything is great. We have trade, and we're toasting one another with cups of tea," his support in Taiwan would presumably increase and he could break this 34 percent ceiling, which has always constrained the political base of the DPP. In both of these ways, if the mainland accepted an invitation for dialogue on the terms that have been offered, that would be a win situation for Chen Shui-bian and it would be a loss for the mainland. So I don't see that offer from Chen Shui-bian as a really conciliatory offer, though some people disagree with me and they feel that Chen is preparing to make, or has really made or hinted at, concessions to the mainland's demands, and that he's willing to have real dialogue in a sense and this is not just a ploy. But I'm cynical about it. |
Fathom: Will the Chinese make concessions in order to begin dialogue? Nathan: I don't see Beijing softening its position. And this is prognostication, because one can always be surprised by either Beijing or Taipei. But people in China have presented it to me in a way that makes sense. That is to say, they claim, we've already made tremendous concessions; we're willing to have "one country, two systems," or even go beyond "one country, two systems," because that slogan was developed for Hong Kong. And the Chinese say, we realize that Taiwan is different from Hong Kong--it has its own military and security needs, it's a much bigger political entity with a longer history, and it's farther away and so forth. |
As the Chinese see it, they're willing to concede every substantive thing: you can have your elections, have your president, have your army, have your own economic policies, and we won't send any military troops there and so forth. All we ask is that you recognize the territorial integrity of China, that you acknowledge that this territory is part of one China, and that the central government of that China is in Beijing. It seems to be little enough. And if the Chinese were to give up any of that now, then what's left? What's the point of having any negotiations at all? I think that's the way Beijing views it. |
Now, supposing you say, couldn't Beijing accept a solution in which the Taiwanese state were still a state, in some kind of confederation, some kind of commonwealth? People in China and especially in Taiwan have talked about every possible solution many times. So why couldn't Beijing meet with Taiwan on an equal basis, acknowledge that they're a state, and still move in the direction of "one China"? I think the problem is trust. Because Beijing is afraid that if they enter into talks with the Taiwanese, without getting this "one China" concept nailed down first, then they're going to be taken to the cleaners. They're going to be taken advantage of. And they have some reasons for that, because the history of negotiations between Taiwan and mainland China, as I read it, is a history in which the Taiwanese have been more clever than the mainlanders and have actually gotten away with quite a few things. |
Now, if somebody like James Soong had been elected president, the Chinese might have trusted him and said, OK, we'll go to talks, we'll work things out, we know this guy is not trying to trick us. But with Chen Shui-bian, the history of his background suggests to the mainland that everything he does is a trick. So it's very difficult to find a way to begin to understand one another. The mainland for a long time has refused to meet with dignitaries from the opposition party, so there's no contact to begin with. So they don't know what's on each other's mind and what might be possible. |
Fathom: But in a recent interview with a Chinese-language newspaper, former Chinese foreign minister Qian Qichen said that the mainland never said that "one China" meant the People's Republic of China. Nathan: It's all a word game. What the Chinese have said is that there is one China, its capital is in Beijing and Taiwan is part of it. That's all they said. Is it the People's Republic of China? OK, the name of this thing is negotiable. But it's still got its capital in Beijing and the Communist Party is firmly in control of Beijing. So it doesn't matter what you call that state. |
Now, we can turn it the other way around--how the Taiwanese mistrust Beijing when they hear that type of statement. They say, that's a trick, the Chinese are trying to sucker us into making it look as if there's plenty of room for us, but really what they want is to get control over our territory. And from the Taiwanese point of view, the dilemma is that if Beijing has legal control, which is to say the legal claim to the territory of Taiwan, then it doesn't matter what promises they make; they can do to us whatever they wish once that happens. Because once Taiwan says, that's OK, we join China, the Americans will cease to protect Taiwan. And the Americans will say, fine, we're glad that's been solved, and they'll go home. And then supposing that five years after that, seven, 10 years after that, mainland China rings up and says, we're coming, we want this, we want that--Taiwan will be defenseless. So the Taiwanese can't enter into a situation where they're defenseless until they trust the mainlanders, but they don't trust them. And I wouldn't urge either side to trust the other, really. I think that their mistrust is pretty well founded on both sides. |
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Fathom: Why does China want Taiwan so badly? Nathan: There are a lot of reasons, but the most important is the principle of territorial integrity. China's a big country, which has often been picked apart one way or another. Parts of the territory were lost to Russia in the seventeenth century and afterward; the Western imperialists in the nineteenth century took parts of it off as spheres of influence; and Hong Kong itself was taken as a colony. China is not a country like the US, with fairly fixed territory bordered by two oceans and only two other countries. In the case of China, the nature of that territory in history has come and gone. So, once the territory got fixed in a legal form in the nineteenth century--and all the subsequent Chinese governments have been very anxious that it stays exactly that way--they don't want to be giving off pieces of it. Because if you give off one piece, there'll be another piece. In particular, nowadays, if the Chinese were to say, OK, you Taiwanese people don't love us, so you be independent, then other populations are going to pop up and say, if Taiwan can do it, why can't Tibet do it? Why can't Mongolia do it? Why can't the northwest province of Xinjiang do it? These areas, particularly Tibet and Xinjiang, although not very densely populated, are huge areas. If you start to kiss these areas good-bye, China would become a much smaller piece of territory, which is not a good thing from a variety of points of view, especially from a security point of view, because then you get into the military reality. Let's say that you're a military commander sitting in Beijing or in Sichuan or part of the heartland of China, in Jiangsu or Hunan, and you don't want the Russians, the Indians, the Americans or anybody to invade. It is not that crazy an idea, because all of those countries have invaded at different times. In the twentieth century you had the Japanese invasion, and you had the border wars with India, Vietnam and Russia. So security issues for the Chinese are not Dr. Strangelove--these are real issues. |
My second point is, more concretely, that Taiwan also has tremendous security significance. This is a large island with harbors and airports, 100 miles away from one of the fairly wealthy coastal provinces of China, Fujian, and quite close as well to some of the other important provinces, like Guangdong. In the past, the Japanese have taken it as a colony, and the Americans have had a military alliance with Taiwan. It's clearly a strategic bailiwick for whoever controls it, vis-à-vis the mainland and vis-à-vis the South China Sea, because the sea-lanes of communication--running from Japan and Korea through the South China Sea, through the Strait of Malacca, to the Middle East--run nearby to Taiwan. So, facing the mainland or facing the sea, Taiwan's an important place. And maybe Chinese security interests could be served by neutralizing Taiwan militarily. But when the Chinese leaders think about the fact that, in the future, say, 20 or 50 years from now, the Americans, or especially the Japanese, might become enemies, they'd rather have direct control over Taiwan. That's one way to be sure that nobody else gets control of it the way that other people did have control of it in the past. So I think those people who say China wants Taiwan because of emotional nationalism or something like that are not paying attention to realities on the ground, to why it's really important, for concrete reasons, to have control. |
There is also the economic factor. Taiwan is a place with a lot of capital, a lot of technology, management skill and all that. But those are things that could be achieved without political integration. The economic cooperation between the two sides is already well advanced. So I think, on the need for political unification, what makes the most sense is this security perspective. |
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