The China factor
China’s policy towards Taiwan is focused on the eventual reunification of the island with the mainland. The nature of relations has tended to fluctuate depending on the administration in Taipei. Under the KMT government led by Ma Ying-jeou (2008–16), relations between Taipei and Beijing softened and were marked by increased levels of economic outreach on both sides; relations with the mainland have tended to be cooler under DPP administrations, including Tsai’s, reflecting the party’s pro-independence stance.
In January 2019 China’s President Xi Jinping reiterated that reunification with Taiwan remains a priority for Beijing, stating that China would not rule out the use of force if needed.20 His assertion was predictable in terms of its timing (marking 40 years since China’s ‘Message to Compatriots in Taiwan’),21 and given China’s current economic and political context.22 China’s growth continues to show a downward trend, partly because of the impact of the trade war with the US,23 and its efforts to develop its own ‘new model’ for a service-sector-oriented, innovative economy have hit strong headwinds since the middle of 2018. As a consequence, the world is starting to see what a slowdown for China might look like. The double-digit growth the country enjoyed in the recent past was inevitably unsustainable, a pattern characteristic of an economy evolving from one of developing to developed status. It is also true that the Xi administration is aiming for qualitative and not just quantitative growth. Consistently high GDP figures have been one of the great assets of the Chinese government, and while it is difficult to forecast with much certainty the true impact of lower headline growth, the search for new forms of authority is already evident in the more nationalistic tone of Chinese politics and foreign policy.
The fact that it is the DPP that is currently in power in Taiwan only accentuates the problem: ever since the party’s foundation in the 1980s, its association with pro-independence sentiment has meant that its relationship with Beijing has been fractious. This tension now manifests itself through Beijing’s use of ‘sharp power’. Although Taiwan has experienced this over many decades, one of the new features of this mode of behaviour is the so-called ‘weaponization’ of economic means – whereby Beijing’s dissatisfaction with another state’s stance on issues that matter to China brings responses in the economic, rather than political, realm. Norway experienced this in 2010 when the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo resulted in Beijing instituting a freeze in ministerial visits and a ban on Norwegian exports of salmon to China.24 Also in 2010, Japan suffered from an informal block by China of shipments of rare earth metals, important components in many Japanese-manufactured hi-tech goods, around the same time as tensions were rising in the East China Sea.25 The era of China’s primary focus on soft power seems to have given way to one of much more overt, muscular action.
Taiwan has seen this at close quarters. Xi, through his former tenure as a party official in Fujian province (situated directly opposite Taiwan across the Strait) from 1985 until 2000, is clearly familiar with the importance of Taiwanese trade for China’s economy. But since his appointment as the Communist Party’s chief leader in 2012, he has also stood at the forefront of a more assertive stance on what are termed China’s ‘core interests’ – of which the status of Taiwan, albeit primarily seen as a domestic issue by China, is one of the most important and sensitive. All of this is linked to the grand narratives of foreign policy under Xi’s leadership, in particular China’s renaissance and ambition to become a great power by the Communist Party’s centenary year in 2021. There is a sense in which, as the final outstanding issue preventing the reunification of what Beijing contentiously calls the ‘Greater Chinese’ nation, following the hand-back of Hong Kong and Macao in 1997 and 1999 respectively, Taiwan has been drawn into a story emanating from China which has a plotline and a denouement that has never been jointly discussed, and which does not make provision for active input from Taiwan’s 23 million inhabitants – just their passive participation.26
Despite its hefty symbolism, the historic meeting between Ma Ying-jeou and Xi Jinping in Singapore on 7 November 2015 – the first such meeting of leaders of the two rivals since 1949 – did not lead to any major changes in the relationship.27 More recently, since the DPP’s return to power in 2016, cross-Strait relations have turned increasingly chilly. Tourist numbers from the Chinese mainland have fallen, although overall tourism has been buoyed by visitors from other countries.28 There have been reported attempts to influence and co-opt the many young Taiwanese working in China,29 alongside efforts to constrain Taiwan’s international space. For example, that Taiwan was not invited to the World Health Assembly in either 2017 or 2018, having attended with observer status since 2009, was attributed by the authorities in Taipei to pressure brought to bear on the World Health Organization by Beijing.30 China has also secured diplomatic recognition from some of Taiwan’s hitherto formal allies, including Panama in 2017 and the Dominican Republic in 2018. This means that by 2019 Taiwan was formally recognized by only 17 countries.31 This is predominantly about Beijing now simply having the economic capacity – and the domestic impetus – to assert new forms of influence. But this has coincided with a period in which the US approach towards Taiwan is not as clearly drawn as it has been under previous administrations, and when economic and political issues in Taiwan have become more complex.
Xi’s statement in early 2019 that Taiwan ‘must and will be’ united with the People’s Republic32 drew much attention. However, the parameters of Beijing’s policy have in fact remained unchanged since the era of Deng Xiaoping. The ‘One Country, Two Systems’ rubric used for the handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 is still the proposed mechanism being offered for Taiwan. But Beijing must confront the reality that the vast majority of Taiwan’s citizens remain profoundly opposed to any notion that they might reunite with an entity that remains under a one-party, Marxist-Leninist system.33
President Tsai’s response to these developments has simply been to assert – as she did in January 2019 – that the so-called ‘1992 Consensus’34 is no longer valid. While this is essentially a reaffirmation of her position during her election campaign, Tsai’s reinforcement of this message as president, and her firm response to the language from Beijing,35 is important.
20 BBC News (2019), ‘Xi Jinping says Taiwan ‘must and will be’ reunited with China’, 2 January 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-46733174 (accessed 25 Jan. 2019); Bloomberg News, 2019, ‘China’s Xi Talks to Unify Taiwan with Mainland’, 2 January 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-02/china-s-xi-says-taiwan-must-be-unified-with-mainland (accessed 21 Jan. 2019).
21 The ‘Message to Compatriots in Taiwan’ outlined for the first time China’s aim of peaceful reunification with Taiwan, and called for an end to cross-Strait military confrontation. See China.org.cn (undated), ‘Message to Compatriots in Taiwan’, http://www.china.org.cn/english/7943.htm (accessed 15 Mar. 2019).
22 A weaker Chinese domestic economy, together with with nationalist leadership from Xi, has led to a more assertive stance over issues of national interest, including the reunification of a ‘Greater China’.
23 Lockett, H. et al (2019), ‘China Exports Fall Most in 2 Years as Slowdown and Trade War Bite’, Financial Times, 14 January 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/713ee398-179a-11e9-9e64-d150b3105d21 (accessed 30 Jan. 2019).
24 Milne, R. (2013), ‘Norway sees Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Prize hurt salmon exports to China’, Financial Times, 15 August 2013, https://www.ft.com/content/ab456776-05b0-11e3-8ed5-00144feab7de (accessed 21 Jan. 2019).
25 Bradsher, K. (2010), ‘Amid Tension, China Blocks Vital Exports to Japan’, New York Times, 22 September 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/business/global/23rare.html (accessed 21 Jan. 2019).
26 This is evident in the preamble to Xi’s speech to the 19th Party Congress in October 2017, in which he refers repeatedly to the ‘historic mission’ of the PRC, and the need to reunite the country. See Xinhua, ‘Full Text of Xi Jinping’s Report at 19th Party Congress’, 3 November 2017, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/special/2017-11/03/c_136725942.htm (accessed 30 Jan. 2019). For a detailed discussion of the grand narratives that shape the Xi era, see Brown, K., China’s Dream: The Culture of the Communist Party and the Secret Source of its Power, Polity, Cambridge, 2018.
27 Philips, T. (2015), ‘Historic meeting of Chinese and Taiwanese presidents prompts hope and suspicion’, The Guardian, 4 November 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/historic-meeting-chinese-taiwanese-presidents-hope-suspicion (accessed 25 Jan. 2019).
28 In total, Taiwan saw a record 11 million visitors to the island in 2018. See Chung, L. (2018), ‘Tourists flock to Taiwan in record numbers despite drop from mainland China’, South China Morning Post, 31 December 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2180192/tourists-flock-taiwan-record-numbers-despite-drop-mainland-china (accessed 25 Jan. 2019).
29 There has, for example, been much debate regarding the motives behind the introduction of residency permits to Taiwanese living in China. See Chung, L. (2018), ‘Is Beijing’s offer of residence permits to Taiwanese nationals a trick or treat?’, South China Morning Post, 17 September 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2164430/beijings-offer-residence-permits-taiwanese-trick-or-treat (accessed 13 Mar. 2019).
30 Agence France-Presse (2018), ‘Taiwan accuses World Health Organisation of bowing to Beijing over invitation to top health meeting’, South China Morning Post, 8 May 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2145129/taiwan-accuses-world-health-organisation-bowing-beijing (accessed 13 Mar. 2019).
31 At the time of publication of this briefing, the diplomatic allies of the Republic of China on Taiwan were Belize, Eswatini, Guatemala, Haiti, the Holy See, Honduras, Kiribati, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, Solomon Islands, Saint Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tuvalu.
32 BBC News (2019), ‘Xi Jinping says Taiwan ‘must and will be’ reunited with China’.
33 A poll undertaken in Taiwan in 2016, for instance, showed that 66 per cent of respondents were opposed to reunification in the current circumstances, and 18 per cent in favour. See Chiu, Y. and Chin, J., ‘Majority Reject Unification: Poll’, Taipei Times, 31 May 2016, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/05/31/2003647521 (accessed 30 Jan. 2019).
34 The ‘1992 Consensus’ states that both Taiwan and the PRC recognize that there is ‘One China’ but differ on their interpretation of what ‘One China’ means. The intricacies of this debate on the Taiwanese side are set out in ‘1992 Consensus: The Key to Cross Strait Peace and Prosperity’, Mainland Affairs Council, http://www.mac.gov.tw/public/MMO/MAC/摺頁-英(定稿版).pdf (accessed 30 Jan. 2019).
35 Chung, L. (2019), ‘Poll boost for Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen after tough stand against Beijing’, South China Morning Post, 21 January 2019, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2183001/poll-boost-taiwans-president-tsai-ing-wen-after-tough-stance (accessed 13 Mar. 2019).