Taiwan polls: Whither independence?
By Sheng Lijun, For The Straits Times
TOUCHY TOPIC: A protester demonstrating against a referendum on the DPP's proposal to join the UN under the name 'Taiwan'. The referendum will be held together with the presidential poll.
TAIWAN'S election has once again gained worldwide attention. But does it matter?
If Kuomintang (KMT) candidate Ma Ying-jeou wins, Taiwan will not get too close to China, otherwise the pan-blue alliance would likely lose the next election.
If the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Frank Hsieh wins, Taiwan's independence will also wane.
Taiwan's independence depends less on how well it does or who wins the presidential election, but more on how badly China does. Should China eventually develop into a strong continental civilisation, Taiwan's independence will be only a daydream, whatever it does.
Taiwan could have followed Hong Kong in going along with China's rise. Should China continue to rise, Taiwan would continue to benefit massively. But if China should fail badly, Taiwan would have its independence, hands down, without so much turmoil as it is experiencing now.
Because of either pride or misjudgment - or both - Taiwan has chosen a difficult path. It has proven to be a bumpy road, resulting in broken dreams, missed opportunities, a limping economy and a battered bureaucracy. Taiwanese society is becoming ever more ideologically fragmented, emotionally torn and politically intolerant - a miniature 'Cultural Revolution' in the making.
Taiwan's independence depends less on how well it does or who wins the presidential election, but more on how badly China does. Should China eventually develop into a strong continental civilisation, Taiwan's independence will be only a daydream, whatever it does. Yet, Taiwan matters. It matters less in itself than how it can trigger an unforeseen chain reaction involving China and the United States. It can drag them, together with many other countries, down the road towards violent confrontation.
We remember that Taiwan once came out with a highly provocative 'two-state theory' precisely at a time when relations between China and the US were deteriorating following the US bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade and the consequent emotional Chinese demonstrations against the US.
The timing made people suspect that Taiwan might be intent on inciting a China-US military confrontation, since without such a confrontation the prospect of its independence is built on shifting sand.
To put it bluntly, while many countries would worry about a US-China military showdown, Taiwanese independence advocates may not share this worry.
This makes most countries stay away from supporting full-fledged independence for Taiwan. The only chance of Taiwanese independence coming to pass lies in not merely a weakened but a broken China. (We still remember Mr Lee Teng-hui's once expressed the desire to see China divided into seven pieces.)
Many in the Asia-Pacific hope to benefit from China's rise. Even those who hope to see a weak China do not necessarily want to see China collapse so violently as to break into several pieces.
This is why Taiwan independence advocates find it so hard to get support from many countries. It is not so much because China is too strong but rather because these countries have a vision of what a future China might look like. This is partly why Taipei's relations with Washington have been strained in recent years and why it has been left out of the fast-developing regional integration of East Asia.
Whatever changes Taiwan might make following this Saturday's election would not matter too much to the region. The only thing that would matter is if Taiwan challenges the current regional power structure. The region would ask a simple question: Would such a challenge benefit the region or be at its expense?
China does care about who wins the election. But it cares more about the unforeseen 'chain reaction' that Taipei's actions might instigate. Just as the Belgrade bombing gave Taiwan the opportunity to spring its 'two-state' theory, the Beijing Olympic Games provides it with another such opportunity. President Chen Shui-bian still keeps Beijing guessing as to what 'surprise gift' he has in store for the Games.
Since early this year, Beijing has been adopting a 'soft approach' towards Taipei. This should not be cause for relief in Taiwan. Instead, it should be cause for worry.
There are two major reasons for Beijing's soft approach: to avoid playing into the hands of the DPP during the election and disadvantaging the pan-blue alliance; and to place the ball squarely in Taipei's court.
If China were to take strong action against Taiwan later on - should it give Beijing a provocative surprise during the Olympics, say - China would have more international understanding and sympathy.
Together with the soft approach, Beijing has also shown its 'hard approach'. It has brought unprecedented diplomatic pressure on the US, Japan and other countries on the issue of Taiwan's UN referendum.
Beijing is clearly preparing the ground against the unpredictable Mr Chen. So long as it can ensure that there will be no unfavourable international chain reaction, whatever surprise Mr Chen has in store for the Olympics would be of little concern to Beijing.
A careful reading of the trajectory of China's Taiwan policy tells us that this policy does not consist solely of damage-control. It also aims to benefit from Taiwan, to turn it from a strategic liability into a strategic asset.
Taiwanese businessmen bring to China not only funds but also the latest Western technology. This is of immense help as China upgrades its industry and moves up the value-add chain. This approach carries profound strategic implications for China, for Taiwan eventually, Japan and even the US.
China also skilfully uses the Taiwan issue to boost the modernisation of its armed forces, the People's Liberation Army. This, if well managed, will not exhaust China. On the contrary, it can bring about faster economic modernisation, for breakthroughs in military technologies can be converted quickly for civilian use.
Throughout history, important technological breakthroughs have often been generated for security purposes before being converted for civilian use to generate economic benefits. Examples of this conversion include the radar, computers and the Internet.
This is another example of how Taiwan matters to China - but in an unexpected, even funny, way.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS.
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