Reunification: Sense of urgency for China

By Koh Chern Phing

SINGAPORE: The reunification issue seems to have taken on a renewed sense of urgency for China, especially after the pro- independence Chen Shui-bian was elected Taiwan's president in March.

Beijing has been urging Taipei to return to the negotiating table and to discuss matters relating to the one-China principle.

The conventional view, according to many analysts, is that time is not on China's side. With each passing day, the pro- independence movement gathers steam as native-born Taiwanese see their future in an independent Taiwan.

But there are also those who believe that China is biding its time. One of them is Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who said at a forum in Beijing last week that the mainland had time on its side when he urged for patience in resolving the Taiwan issue.

Each year, China will grow many times bigger than Taiwan, he said. "In 20 to 30 years, there will be a different balance in Sino-American relations," he told the 21st Century Forum organized by the national committee of China's top advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Sharing his views was Prof. Wang Gungwu, the director of the East Asian Institute (EAI). "Beijing is acting as if time is not on its side, even though the reality is quite the contrary," he told The Straits Times. "China is doing this just to push Taiwan towards a speedy reunification."

In fact, he said, former Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, too, felt that the mainland could afford not to rush into reunification.

Beijing was putting pressure on Taiwan's new president only because it was annoyed with his predecessor, Lee Teng-hui, who infuriated China with his two-states theory last year, he added.

A research fellow at the EAI, Dr Zou Keyuan, agreed. He is optimistic about the future of Taiwan, which he feels is better off under Chen's presidency. He said Beijing could sweeten the reunification issue by offering the Taiwanese government more autonomy, such as military power, under the "one country, two systems" model.

Then, it would be a matter of time before China can get Taiwan back, he said.

To Prof. John Wong, the research director of EAI, China can afford to wait, because in the long term, an economically-strong China will force Taiwan to make the conciliatory move towards reunification.

In the 1980s, he said, Taiwan had a trade surplus with the United States. After the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping launched his open-door policy in 1992, Taiwan's trade shifted to China. It moved its labour-intensive and manufacturing industries to the mainland. This cut China's trade deficit with Taiwan.

Today, said Prof. Wong, Taiwan exports more to China than the other way round.

"As China's economy grows stronger, Taiwan will have to make the conciliatory gesture in order to move on," he said.

Another scholar, Dr Liu Hong, said that with the huge market China has to offer, the mainland has no reason to feel that it is being rushed into anything.

"Aside from its sizable domestic market, its external markets include the United States, Europe and Japan. Taiwan is not a crucial market to China. It is chiefly a source of capital and investment," he said.

"And, as Taiwan's market is quite small compared to China's in terms of high-technology industries, Taiwan will have to look to the mainland for growth opportunities," he said.

"As a result, China can be said to have time on its side as its neighbor would not want to take any economic risks."

This is especially so, said Dr Liu, since China will become a regional economic power in East Asia in the long run. Chinese leaders, knowing this, can afford to be patient.

Prof. Wong said that Taiwan should "be practical, assess its relations with Beijing and consider the one-China policy seriously to ensure peace in the Southeast Asian region".

From the social perspective, however, some academics felt that Beijing could be running out of time.

Said Dr Luo Qi, an EAI research scholar: "The people of Taiwan are growing increasingly distant from mainstream Chinese culture. For example, they no longer identify themselves as Chinese, but as Taiwanese."

This is a worrying trend for Beijing.

Dr Luo said that President Chen fanned this fervor when he described the Taiwanese as being "sons of Formosa" at his inaugural speech on May 20. Formosa is the name which separatists use to refer to Taiwan.

Dr Luo said that the Taiwanese nowadays recognize only their historical and ancestral links with China. However, cultural links are more important, he noted. Without this, the people of Taiwan would lose their Chinese identity completely, he said.

"This has set off alarms on the mainland because even if China succeeds in reunifying with Taiwan, it will not be able to govern the island if the people there do not regard themselves as Chinese," he said.

EAI researcher Zheng Yongnian, in his recent article in the Hongkong Economic Journal, wrote about the time issue in the cross-strait impasse.

He said that in the early days under President Jiang Zemin, China had hoped to settle the Taiwan issue with time. Jiang, in an eight-point proposal, had emphasized the use of peaceful measures, such as cultural and trade exchanges, to achieve reunification.

This, Dr Zheng wrote, was because Chinese leaders were under the impression that the Taiwanese believed they were Chinese, and that they would not declare independence.

However, this changed after the emergence of the two-states theory. This, he said, gave China reason to worry. As the Taiwan people's patriotic fervor grew stronger, Beijing feared they would really carry out the threat of declaring independence.

-- The Straits Times / Asia News Network