Taiwan’s political precipice: Foreign policy heavyweights weigh in, as island welcomes a new leader
Hong Kong Free Press
When Lai Ching-te addressed reporters in the evening of January 13, minutes after his victory in Taiwan’s presidential election was announced, he struck what some analysts and media outlets called a “conciliatory” tone. The next time he steps onto an official stage – one that has been erected in front of the imposing Japanese colonial-era Presidential Office Building – will be to deliver his inaugural address as the island’s leader. Lai will succeed his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) predecessor Tsai Ing-wen on Monday.
Listening carefully to his words will not only be officials in the audience – including an unofficial US delegation, given that Taipei does not enjoy diplomatic relations with Washington – but Beijing.
China considers Taiwan to be a renegade province – to be united with the mainland by force, if necessary – and Xi Jinping has made the issue of unification central to his leadership. But during Tsai’s two terms in office, there has been no dialogue across the Taiwan Strait. Instead, her administration sought to cement the island’s role on the international stage, bolstering its diplomatic partnerships and defences through trade deals and a pivotal position in the global supply chain of semiconductor chips.
Lai has said he will govern in much the same way, maintaining the status quo.
“I don’t expect too much from Mr Lai’s inauguration speech,” Chao Chun-shan told HKFP in his office at the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies in Taipei on Tuesday. A member of former Kuomintang (KMT) president Ma Ying-jeou’s brain trust on cross-strait relations, Chao helped arrange Ma’s two meetings with Xi – the first in Singapore in 2015 which he attended, and a second in Beijing last month, which he did not.
“I think [Lai’s address] will be no… surprises, no concessions, no progress,” Chao added.
For Chao, progress looks like communication across the strait. During his January victory speech, and in a recent video address to the Copenhagen Democracy Summit ahead of the inauguration, Lai said that he remains open to communication with Beijing, but some analysts believe it unlikely.
“Beijing does not trust Lai,” Sara A. Newland, a scholar of local politics in China and Taiwan and assistant professor at Smith College in the US, told HKFP by email on Thursday.
“This was true of Tsai as well, but their distrust for Lai is more extreme. So, I certainly don’t expect that Beijing will be any more willing to engage with Lai than they were with the outgoing administration.”
During a press conference on Wednesday, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), urged the new administration to “be clear of the path forward” and respect “the mainstream views of the people in Taiwan.”
“Are they taking the road to peaceful development, or are they going against public opinion and provoking confrontation? The separatist movement is incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Chen said in Mandarin.
Expanding international presence
Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, who is part of the outgoing administration, knows well what it is to be distrusted by Beijing. In 2021, China released a blacklist of “diehard” supporters of Taiwan independence, placing sanctions on them and banning them from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. Wu’s name was first on the list, although he has been joined by others since.
“There are also sanctions against the vice-president-elect and many other political leaders in Taiwan,” Wu, who has been foreign minister since 2018, told HKFP during an interview at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.
China imposed sanctions on Hsaio Bi-khim, who was Taiwan’s representative in the US before becoming Lai’s running mate, following a visit by former US house Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island in August 2022. Wellington Koo, who has been named defence minister under Lai and who Wu will replace as secretary-general of the National Security Council, was also added to the list at that time.
On Wednesday, the TAO announced sanctions on a further five Taiwanese politicians, pundits and public figures. Chen, the office’s spokesperson, said they were responsible for spreading disinformation about China that “deceived some Taiwanese, sowed division… and harmed brotherly goodwill across the strait,” according to the Taipei Times.
“But I have been known for working together with the president to make sure the status quo across the Taiwan Strait is maintained,” Wu said.
Pelosi’s two-day trip was a milestone for Taiwan’s international and cross-strait affairs. Described by the US politician as a sign of Washington’s “unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy,” it was condemned by Beijing, which conducted large-scale military exercises around the island after her departure.
In many ways, too, it was emblematic of Wu’s efforts as Taiwan’s top diplomat, and the obstacles he has faced in “doing things that are so normal for other countries.”
“Challenges always come from the PRC,” Wu said, referring to China by its official name, the People’s Republic of China. “China is trying to isolate Taiwan politically, diplomatically, and also economically, and they are threatening Taiwan militarily.”
The island has official ties with just 12 countries – the flags of which hang in the lobby of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – having lost Nauru as an ally in the wake of the January’s general elections, when the small Pacific nation re-established relations with Beijing. According to its “One China” policy, Beijing insists that nations cannot have diplomatic ties with both China and Taiwan.
In recent years, Beijing has also ramped up military pressure on Taiwan, maintaining a near-daily presence of warplanes, drones and naval vessels around the island. On Wednesday, Taipei’s defence ministry said it had detected 45 Chinese aircraft around Taiwan, the highest single-day number this year.
“People now understand that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to global security and prosperity… There’s only one world, one theatre, and democracies must unite.”
Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu
“Under these kind of circumstances, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been working very hard in order for us to expand our international presence,” Wu said. “We have been upgrading our relations with key democracies around the world, including the United States, the UK, Canada, and also the EU and some countries in Europe, as well – especially Central and Eastern Europe – and… Japan and Australia.”
These “upgrades” include activities seemingly as simple as Wu making public appearances overseas, which – in reality – may prove problematic for the countries hosting him, if they are China’s official diplomatic allies. Travel, Wu said, must be done “in a low-key manner.” However, “many countries in Central and Eastern Europe, now, are willing to open their doors for Taiwan’s foreign minister, to allow the foreign minister to make public appearances, to make public speeches, to have Taiwan’s voice heard.”
“These are very positive steps forward for Taiwan making its presence in international society,” Wu said. “And because of that, we know that there will be more countries willing to open their doors for Taiwan’s foreign minister.”
Trade, too, is important for Taiwan amid continuing economic coercion from China. “We used to depend on our economic relations with the PRC,” Wu said, pointing to the island’s outbound investment in China, which peaked at 84 per cent of total external investment in 2010, when Ma was in office.
“Last year, Taiwan’s outbound investment going to China was only about 11 per cent… a significant reduction. And trade with China is reducing gradually, as well, and therefore our dependence on China economically has been reducing and that also reduces Taiwan’s economic vulnerability,” Wu said.
“At the same time, we also understand that we need to fight very hard in order for Taiwan’s economy to link with other countries.”
Taipei is in the midst of a second round of negotiations with Washington for the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade, which Wu called “a very important milestone in Taiwan’s international trade relations.” After the first agreement was signed last June, trade partnerships with the UK and Canada quickly followed.
The ‘Hong Kong card’
Taiwan’s response to major international happenings had also helped improve its global standing, Wu said. “If you look at the main events in the last few years, including the situation in Hong Kong… and then Covid, and then the war in Ukraine… people around the world started to see that the PRC may not be helpful to the rules-based international order,” Wu said.
“And in a very clear contrast, Taiwan has been seen as a responsible player in the international community.”
Campaigning for Taiwan’s 2020 general elections played out against the backdrop of protests and unrest in Hong Kong sparked by a proposed amendment to the city’s extradition bill, which would have allowed for the transfer of criminal suspects to mainland China for trial. Demonstrations began in June 2019 and escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against alleged police brutality, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment.
Tsai positioned herself on the side of the city’s protesters and against the One Country, Two Systems model used to govern Hong Kong – which earlier that year Xi had put forward as “the best approach” to achieving “peaceful reunification” – as she sought a second presidential term that looked unlikely according to early polls.
After winning, however, the DPP was accused of playing “the Hong Kong card” without offering substantial measures to shield protesters or Hongkongers who wished to leave for Taiwan. In the run up to January’s vote, the KMT’s vice-presidential candidate Jaw Shau-kong said Tsai’s administration had “forgotten” about the people of Hong Kong.
Wu pushed back against such criticism, saying: “We tried to absolve those Hongkongers – especially the young people – who wanted to come to Taiwan to study or for work or for their residency in Taiwan. We tried to open our doors for them and we may not be vocal [about] every time when we accept them. In fact, we think that keeping it low-profile is probably the best for them.”
“But we also have to be aware that the Chinese authorities may have their own agents pretending [to be] Hong Kong residents wanting to infiltrate into Taiwan society, so we have to be careful,” he continued.
Events in Hong Kong also damaged the perception of Beijing in Taiwan. The island’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has for decades polled public sentiment towards unification, independence and whether residents would be willing to accept the One Country, Two Systems model.
Wu, who was MAC chair from 2004 to 2007, said that “when the Hong Kong system was evolving in 2019, 2020, the rejection rate [of One Country, Two Systems] turned up to around 90 per cent, and in a normal democracy, if you have 90 per cent of respondents saying that they don’t want something, that’s unanimous.”
He added: “I think what happened in Hong Kong intensified the Taiwanese people’s rejection of China’s claim over Taiwan, or China’s way of handling their relations with Hong Kong or Taiwan.”
Chao, likewise, called Hong Kong “a very bad example” of One Country, Two Systems. “China says the Hong Kong model is different to Taiwan,” he added. “But for Taiwan, that made no difference. They see what happened in Hong Kong, they think someday Taiwan will become the next Hong Kong.”
‘They think we belong to different countries’
Another frequently cited poll on Taiwan’s attitudes to China has been conducted by the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University (NCCU) since 1992. It asks respondents whether they identify as Taiwanese, Chinese or both. For the past 16 years, a majority have said Taiwanese. In 2023, 61.7 per cent of people said they saw themselves as Taiwanese, while just 2.4 per cent said Chinese.
“That’s a problem,” Chao said. “When you say China to the young generation, China is the PRC. [They think] we belong to different countries.”
Howard Shen, assistant director of international affairs for the KMT, however, said the poll presented an “unclear dichotomy” between Taiwanese and Chinese identities and did not leave space to consider the nuances to respective identities.
“I would challenge the notion that Taiwanese no longer see themselves within the cultural sinosphere,” Shen told HKFP on Friday. “Most Taiwanese consider their identity to be distinctively disassociated from the dominant narrative of the Chinese Communist Party; it does not in any way mean Taiwanese have abandoned their Chinese identity as a whole.”
The question of identity is something analysts believe Beijing is trying to address through softer means, such as exerting cultural influence on social media, with Chinese-owned apps particularly popular among Taiwanese youth. According to data platform Statista, TikTok advertising was estimated to reach some 5.65 million people aged 18 and over in Taiwan, or around 23.6 per cent of the island’s total population.
For Wu, this is a cause for concern.
“If you look at the algorithm of TikTok… the algorithm would allow TikTok to generate similar ideas, or ideas that are favourable to the PRC or to some certain political concept, and that seems to be brainwashing young people,” he said.
Shen did not agree, saying that younger Taiwanese were “destined – or cursed, if you may” to grow up in a world where China’s hard and soft power was stronger than previous generations.
“There is a chance where they might develop an amicable relationship with the attractive part of mainland China,” Shen said, adding it was important to continue to ensure that “values of freedom, democracy, and republicanism are an indispensable part of their imagination.”
“Describing this evolution simply as a top-down imposition on the part of Beijing is utterly unfair to the free minds of younger Taiwanese,” Shen said. “No one can, nor should, deprive their conscious agency. Taiwanese people, even the younger ones, are smart enough in differentiating authentic attraction and malign propaganda.”
Unlike the US, which recently signed a law to ban TikTok unless it is sold within a year, Wu said Taiwan had no intention of blocking access to the app.
“Taiwan is a young democracy. We fought very hard, especially the DPP, we fought very hard for Taiwan’s freedom of speech… We don’t want to give our youngsters the wrong perception that we are trying to interfere in their freedom of speech.”
Social media was not the only way Beijing tried to “impose their views on Taiwan, or create an image that is favourable to the PRC,” Wu added, saying that traditional media platforms were employed, too.
“Let me give you an example,” he said. “When the war in Ukraine started, these traditional media – not only the newspapers but also one particular television station – they continued to bombard the Taiwanese people with the concept that the war was started by the United States… that the United States didn’t care about Ukraine, and the United States was also using Ukraine to weaken Russia, and in the end it was the Ukrainian people who suffered.”
That narrative, Wu said, was used “to tell the Taiwanese people not to trust the United States, to say the United States is only interested in using Taiwan to weaken the PRC… that Taiwan should stay away from the United States.”
He pointed to a survey of public trust in the US by academic organisation Academia Sinica, which is backed by the presidential office. “Before the war, those who trusted the United States was somewhere around 44 per cent,” Wu said. “But half a year after the war started, after heavy bombardment from these traditional media, we only had about 33 per cent of people who still trusted the United States.”
Wu conceded that this suggested China’s “cognitive warfare” was working. To counter it, he said the US must “continue to come up with concrete gestures of support for Taiwan.”
“The United States says that our relationship is rock solid… And that is good but, if China is bombarding Taiwan with their messages or narratives, the words might not stand for too long,” Wu said. The recent trade initiative was, according to Wu, a “positive gesture,” as was the aid package for Ukraine approved by President Joe Biden last month.
“These real actions speak louder than China’s narrative, and I think the United States understands that,” Wu said.
Open for dialogue?
According to Chao, there may have been a subtle change to China’s approach recently. He said he believed that Xi used the April meeting with Ma as an “opportunity to release a message, not only to the KMT but also to the world, to the US, and especially to the new administration of Lai Ching-te.”
That message was “another chance for dialogue,” Chao said, and went beyond acceptance of the “1992 Consensus,” which he acknowledged was not popular. “The people, they don’t like this term,” he said.
It refers to a tacit understanding that was said to have been reached by the then-governing KMT party and Beijing, whereby both sides acknowledged there was “one China,” but that each side was entitled to its own interpretation of what “China” meant. “What the 1992 Consensus means is, very simply, let’s agree to disagree,” Chao said.
The DPP does not accept the 1992 Consensus, and without its acknowledgement, Beijing says there can be no cross-strait communication.
“We should always uphold the One China principle and the 1992 Consensus, and resolutely oppose so-called Taiwan independence and external intervention. We should promote communication and firmly promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and reunification,” said TAO spokesperson Chen on Wednesday.
The TAO has not responded to repeated requests for comment by HKFP.
Shen of the KMT described dialogue with Beijing as “essential for peace insofar as both sides are willing to engage with each other with goodwill and rebuild the long-lost mutual trust.”
He said that “acceptance of the 1992 Consensus is a necessary element of the goodwill,” adding that “the DPP’s stubborn refusal to accept the 1992 Consensus – One China, Respective Interpretation – and ground its rhetoric in the Constitution of the Republic of China risks accelerating the vicious cycle of hostility and enmity to the point of no return.”
For Wu, Xi’s 2019 speech on Taiwan “clarified the situation, and that allows no more room for any different interpretation.” He added: “rejecting the One Country, Two Systems model and accepting the 1992 Consensus is theoretically self-contradictory… even some mainstream KMT people understand that is the problem and therefore they don’t advocate for the 1992 Consensus anymore.”
And while Xi made reference to the 1992 Consensus during his recent meeting with Ma, the Chinese leader also made several mentions of “zhonghua,” which Chao translated as “the Chinese people” or “the Chinese nation,” and is often used to describe a shared Chinese cultural heritage. For Beijing, it runs counter to efforts to strengthen a purely Taiwanese identity.
Senior China analyst for non-profit organisation Crisis Group Amanda Hsiao told HKFP by email that Beijing would be watching Monday’s inaugural address closely for signs that Lai was willing to engage in this rhetoric.
“How Lai talks about the dynamic between China and Taiwan, whether it is how he politically defines the cross-strait relationship or how he describes the cultural and historical linkages, will all contribute to Beijing’s understanding of the Lai administration’s intentions,” she said.
Chao did not think there was much likelihood of Lai giving way to Beijing.
“For Lai Ching-te, it’s very difficult to accept,” he said. “[The DPP] don’t think they are Chinese, they think they are Taiwanese… it will be very, very difficult for China to deal with the DPP, because they think that they are not part of the Chinese family.”
“I talk with many think-tankers in China. They told me that unless you accept that, there is no chance for dialogue,” Chao said.
However, he added that he was under the impression that China was increasingly interested in exploring ways to communicate across the strait. “That’s different from before,” he said. “I don’t know why, because I would have said that they were very rigid guys… but it seems to me they have changed their minds a little bit, they said it’s very necessary to open the channels of communication after May 20.”
Wu, like Lai, said “either the current Tsai administration or the future Lai administration, we are open for dialogue, we think peace is more important than conflict.” However, he added that “in order for a peaceful dialogue to take place, I think they should give up, or should stop demanding, a political precondition.”
Amanda Hsiao said that Beijing had already begun to calibrate its approach to Taiwan, “showing both a hard and soft side.”
“On the one hand it has continued to challenge Taiwan’s sovereignty in a variety of ways, including by changing the situation around Kinmen. On the other, it has also signalled an interest in increasing exchanges with Taiwan, she said. While part of the goal was to sow divisions in the island’s political landscape, “Beijing may also see interest at this juncture in improving the cross-strait atmosphere even as it continues to pursue its goal of unification,” she added.
Is peaceful unification possible?
In his 2019 address to “Taiwanese compatriots,” as the island’s residents are known in China, Xi laid out his vision for the island to be integrated into the mainland. Unification is “the goal for Xi Jinping,” Chao said. For Xi, “unification is a necessary step to achieve national rejuvenation.”
However, “most Taiwanese people, they don’t accept any form of unification,” Chao added.
The latest poll from NCCU’s Election Study Center found that only 1.2 per cent of respondents wanted reunification. Independence for the island was marginally more popular, at 3.8 per cent. A majority – 82.6 per cent – said they wanted to maintain the status quo, although they were split on whether to “decide at a later date” which direction the island should take, “move towards independence slowly,” or continue as they were “indefinitely.”
“[Beijing] wants Taiwan to accept the 1992 Consensus that realised the One China principle, and they want us to accept the One Country, Two Systems model for unification. And look at the public opinion survey, it’s unanimous in rejecting that concept,” Wu said.
He added: “Any democratically elected government here in Taiwan, it’s not likely to accept those conditions.”
Chao predicted that after Lai’s inauguration, “cross-strait relations will become a struggle between pro-unification and anti-unification,” rather than about independence.
“China understands that nobody, I mean the DPP, can proceed with de jure independence, because the Americans are also against it. But on unification, so far, the Americans didn’t say anything.”
And there is every possibility that the US position may change if Donald Trump wins the White House in the upcoming US election, as polls suggest he might six months ahead of the November 5 vote.
“The results of the US election will be a key factor for whether tensions rise over Taiwan once more,” Amanda Hsiao said, adding that the current “lowering of the temperature around Taiwan” was a result of Xi and Biden’s November summit. “If US-China relations significantly deteriorate again – which is well within the realm of possibilities – we could see Taiwan entangled once more,” she said.
“We have been watching the US elections very carefully,” Wu said. “But something we have confidence with, is that we have very good relations with both sides of the aisle… we have a lot of confidence that we will maintain a very close relationship with the United States,” he added, describing the US as “a most important partner for Taiwan on security, and economic matters, and also other matters, Taiwan’s international presence, things like that.”
Any erosion of that partnership could prove “bad news” for the island, Chao said, adding that he thought Beijing might bide its time on cross-strait issues until the outcome of the ballot was known. “Both China and the US, they don’t want to see any surprise take place in the Taiwan Strait, especially [ahead of] the forthcoming presidential election in the US,” he said.
“The Taiwan issue is not only an issue between the two sides of the strait – the Philippines, Japan… of course the United States, AUKUS – the Taiwan issue has become international, it’s a global issue. I think China, they should understand it well,” Chao added.
Wu, unsurprisingly, shared this opinion.
He drew parallels between Taiwan’s position and Russia’s war in Ukraine. “If you look at the war in Ukraine, the impact of the war in Ukraine, it’s global, it’s not just regional, or just for Ukraine,” Wu said, later adding, “and I’m sure the Ukrainian people know that the international community is behind their back, and that would allow them to fight on bravely.”
“If you look at the situation involving Taiwan, I think the impact can be more serious. Fifty per cent of the global goods flow through the Taiwan Strait and we produce about 90 per cent of the most advanced semiconductor chips and therefore if the supply chain is disrupted, the impact is going to be very serious for the international community,” he continued.
Because of this, and because of the de-facto alliance between China and Russia, Wu said “we have no option but for democracies to unite with each other, to fight against the expansion of authoritarianism.”
“We don’t want to provoke the PRC into conflict, but at the same time we are also very firm on our position: Taiwan’s freedom and democracy and human rights cannot suffer because of the PRC or any negotiations or dealings with the PRC. These will continue to be the traits of the new administration,” he continued.
“People now understand that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to global security and prosperity… There’s only one world, one theatre, and democracies must unite.”
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