CIAO DATE: 10/2010
Volume: 39, Issue: 1
January 2010
Gordon C. K. Cheung
Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan and Presidential elections in January and March 2008 respectively re-orientated cross-Strait relations from hostility to co-operation. On 4 November 2008, Chen Yunlin, head of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), and Chiang Pin-kun (Jiang Bingkun), chairman of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), meeting in the Second Chiang-Chen Talks in Taiwan, took a historical step in the further development of cross-Strait relations. Agreements were signed on direct air and sea transport, postal services and food-safety security. On 22 December 2009, the Fourth Chiang- Chen Talks took place in Taizhong and more substantial and technical agreements were signed on agriculture, inspection/ accreditation and fisheries. It seems that continuous integration between China and Taiwan is inevitable. To address the implications of this process for Taiwan’s domestic economy, four dimensions of the current cross-Strait relationship are scrutinized: guanxi, plutocracy, legalism and the idea of a Chinese Common Market. It is argued that in order to intensify economic co-operation across the Taiwan Strait, more institutionalization of the cross-Strait relationship must be brought about.
Between Dependency and Autonomy – Taiwanese Entrepreneurs and Local Chinese Governments (PDF)
Chun-yi Lee
This paper focuses on the changing interaction between Taiwanese entrepreneurs and local Chinese governments. Through the analysis of this changing process, it can be seen that Taiwanese businesses are a special “asset” of Chinese governments. The main argument of this paper is that both central and local governments in China have strategic considerations in respect of Taiwanese businesses. The Chinese central government values Taiwanese businesses because more Taiwanese investment in China strengthens the Beijing government in negotiations with the Taibei government. Nevertheless, since the Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang) regained power in 2008, the strategic value of Taiwanese businesses in the cross-Strait relationship seems to have decreased. The central government has created a profitable macro-environment enabling local officials to give a warm welcome to Taiwanese businesses. Chinese local governments value Taiwanese businessmen not only because of the central government’s deliberate policy but also because they are pursuing their own self-interest. This paper firstly focuses on the changing interaction between Taiwanese businesses and Chinese local governments. It then further analyses the different but complementary interests of both central and local governments in China in relation to Taiwanese investors.
The Political Thinking of the Mainland Taishang: Some Preliminary Observations from the Field (PDF)
Gunter Schubert
This article explores the political thinking of Taiwanese business people (taishang) and factory managers (taigan) on the Chinese mainland by drawing on qualitative data gathered between 2006 and 2008 in the Pearl River Delta and the Shanghai/ Kunshan metropolitan area. An ideal type of taishang is constructed to explain the major features of their identification with Taiwan, their perspectives on cross-Strait relations, their integration in Chinese society and their self-assessment as political actors in the shaping of cross-Strait relations. An important finding of this study is that the taishang is a rather apolitical figure who does not see much leeway to develop autonomous political leverage. However, this may change gradually as cross-Strait relations have eased significantly since the Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang) came to power in mid-2008 and the governments in Beijing and Taibei have experienced a rapprochement.
Da-chi Liao, Hui-chih Chang
This paper attempts to determine the kind of constitutional rule preferred in a young democracy when an institutional opportunity for constitutional change occurs. It adopts the standpoint of collective decision-making. This approach involves two crucial theoretical elements: the calculation of the interests of the political elite and the masses’ comprehension of what democracy is. The case studied here is Taiwan’s constitutional choice between the direct and indirect election of the president during the period from 1990 to 1994. The paper first examines how the political leaders might have used both the logic of power maximization and of power-loss minimization to choose their position on the issue. It then demonstrates that survey results indeed showed that respondents better understood the direct form of electing the president and therefore supported it over the indirect one. This support helped the direct form to eventually win out.
Cross-Strait Integration – A New Research Focus in the Taiwan Studies Field (PDF)
Gunter Schubert
Introduction to Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 1/2010
A Modest Proposal for a Basic Agreement on Peaceful Cross-Strait Development (PDF)
Ya-chung Chang
In order to promote peaceful development in cross-Strait relations, this article proposes that both sides of the Taiwan Strait sign a “Basic Agreement on Peaceful Cross-Strait Development” – a temporary agreement (modus vivendi) to determine political relations and future development across the Strait. Three major points should be included in this agreement: first, both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one “Whole China” and both sides have no intention to separate from this “Whole China”; furthermore, both sides pledge not to split the “Whole China”, but to work in unison to maintain the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the “Whole China”; second, both sides of the Taiwan Strait share constitutionally guaranteed equal relations, and normal relations across the Strait will develop on the basis of this constitutional equality; and third, both sides decide to establish communities in areas of common agreement in order to promote mutually cooperative relations.
Christopher R. Hughes
This critique assesses Prof. Chang Ya-chung’s draft basic agreement for cross-Strait relations by arguing that it overstates changes in Beijing’s Taiwan policy, which is based on a strategy that has not seen substantial change since it was devised in the early 1990s to prevent the island’s democratization leading to the exercise of self-determination. By over-estimating Taiwan’s political, diplomatic, military, and economic vulnerability the proposal unnecessarily narrows down Taibei’s options to the point where it has to accept Beijing’s one-China principle. This merely closes off other options that Taiwan can just as readily pursue, such as continuing to develop cross-Strait relations through ad hoc solutions to practical problems or seeking more imaginative ways to create a durable modus vivendi with international support. Even more problematic is that a political framework for stability based on the principles of Chinese nationalism is unlikely to be acceptable for Taiwan’s liberaldemocratic politics and could thus amount to an unnecessary risk that would lead to a less durable cross-Strait status quo than that which has been maintained over the last two decades.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan
The main question that Chang Ya-chung’s Modest Proposal triggers is whether a political and security agreement can realistically be reached today. The twelve agreements signed by Beijing and Taibei since 2008 should be saluted as conducive to constructing détente, nonmilitary confidence-building measures and de facto government-togovernment relations across the Strait. However, in the foreseeable future, is it realistic to ask for more? Actually, a temporary or long-term political agreement between Taibei and Beijing will not be reached if the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) refuse to formally recognize each other’s separate existence and sovereignty in one way or another, at least tacitly, and if they do not agree to address security issues squarely with the assistance of the USA. Finally, no meaningful agreement can be reached either if the PRC Chinese and certain segments of the Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang) fail to recognize Taiwan’s specific history or realize that the Taiwanese have been developing a distinct identity since 1949 and even more so since the island’s democratization took place in the late 1980s.
Signs of Change? An Analysis of Taiwan's December 2009 Local Elections (PDF)
Stefan Braig
Under special circumstances created by a government decision to partly merge and upgrade six counties and county-level cities to special municipality status, local elections took place on December 5, 2009 in areas covering less than half of Taiwan’s population. The results are generally seen as an important, though small, victory for the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) (Guomindang), however, has remained in a stable position, while the DPP still has a long way to go towards a comeback.