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Taiwan better off not attending Straits Forum | Chang Chun-Hao

蘋果日報 2020/09/18 09:50


One “sue for peace” comment suddenly re-fueled the already strained cross-strait relations. The Kuomintang (KMT) swayed between go and stay and eventually decided to maintain “reciprocal respect” and no one was allowed to participate. As usual in dealing with the “1992 consensus,” the KMT always has to undergo a series of frustrations in the face of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which never reciprocates respect. It can be imagined if it were not for the three strikeouts in the election this year, the KMT would have never brought the 1992 consensus up for discussion. Similarly, if it were not for the “sue for peace” comment, members of the KMT and CCP are probably already enjoying each other’s company over a nice glass of wine.
Therefore, not attending the Straits Forum will not bring bonus points for the KMT. In addition to an unwillingness to face its increasingly unimportant role in cross-strait relations, the KMT has long deviated from Taiwan’s mainstream public opinion’s rejection of the CCP.
In fact, since Tsai Ing-wen came to power, the CCP has already prepared a script for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) during its reign in Taiwan. Judging from the “segregation of officials and the people” exchanges, connecting cities together, and other measures to benefit Taiwan, cross-strait relations have gradually developed by bypassing political interaction. However, the sudden Korean Wave gave both the KMT and CCP a glimmer of hope. The DPP’s defeat in the 2018 elections allowed the KMT to embrace the 1992 consensus on the one hand, and Xi Jinping’s proposal of “one country, two systems” on Taiwan, bringing the cross-strait relations back to political entanglements.
The reason why the KMT cannot remove itself from the quicksand is because it was the KMT, jointly with the CCP, that redirected the cross-relations, which not only brought the two parties together again but also made the 1992 consensus essentially the same as “one country, two systems.” However, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the KMT chose not to squarely face that the CCP is no longer the same as before. In the face of the DPP in full power, the Sino-U.S. confrontation and the spread of the pandemic, the priority of the current CCP under the leadership of Xi Jinping is to consolidate his legitimacy. Therefore, when dealing with problems, we often see the CCP will recklessly take a heavy hand on many issues or irrationally carry out foreign propaganda and domestic disinformation.
Applying the governance logic of “Xi Jinping is above everything else” on cross-strait relations, then the CCP’s past “exchange concession” with Taiwan or “benefit Taiwan policies,” that is, the “reciprocal respect” recognized by the KMT, must be tied to Xi Jinping’s leadership. For this reason, when Xi Jinping faces the international situation and the pandemic internally and diplomatically, with Taiwan as an important bargaining chip, Xi Jinping will naturally increase the pressure and force on reunification to consolidate his position. The CCP’s combined harsh and mild measures towards Taiwan in the past have become simply harsher measures. Accordingly, as Xi Jinping’s challenge to governance becomes greater and the struggle within the CCP becomes more intense, resolving the Taiwan issue will become an increasingly important option.
Also for this reason, in China, the voices to reunite by force not only have the upper hand, but those who advocated “knowing Taiwan” and “peaceful reunification” in the past have also become less and less popular. When the exchange of opinions on Taiwan becomes narrow, information transmission and cognition between the two sides of the strait will narrow as well. The more likely it is to misjudge Taiwan when true voices cannot enter Beijing. The “sue for peace” this time is an excellent example that illustrates not only the future dilemma of cross-strait relations, but also reflects the difficulty for the KMT to develop a market on the other side and even cross-strait relations.
As pointed out by many commentators, CCTV cannot be a media with autonomy in speech. Therefore, even if “sue for peace” was not a script provided to CCTV directly by Zhongnanhai, Li Hong’s remark has been “justified” by the CCP’s many cognitions of Taiwan. Hence, it can be reasonably inferred that under the narrowing and even misjudgment of the situation in Taiwan, the CCP may really regard Wang Jin-Pyng as a peace messenger who is vital to both blue and green coalitions, and believe that Taiwan’s internal forces are becoming more anxious about “reunification by force.” These no doubt show that the CCP is farther and farther away from Taiwan.
For the KMT, although it rejected the “sue for peace” remark this time, the problem of being used by Xi Jinping as bargaining chips as a result of the KMT’s choice of being close to the CCP has not been alleviated. What’s more, the KMT that advocates “peaceful reunification” cannot be seen by the “reunification by force faction” on the other side, and it is difficult to get the approval of the majority of Taiwan’s public opinion. Therefore, adopting exchanges will speed up the marginalization of the KMT in cross-strait relations. In the end, the KMT, which can only emphasize “reciprocal respect,” naturally became even less convincing.
(Chang Chun-Hao is a professor in the Department of Political Science of Tunghai University)
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