Posted on 03/20/2005 8:33:03 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Taiwan independence forces rejoice
By Laurence Eyton
TAIPEI - The passage by the National People's Congress of an Anti-Secession Law authorizing China to use "non-peaceful" means to prevent Taiwan from establishing de jure independence from the "motherland" has generated outrage in Taiwan itself and international concern. But one group has benefited immensely: the Taiwan independence movement.
That this is exactly the reverse of what China intended is a measure both of how badly thought out China's action has been and how little it understands Taiwan.
In Taiwan itself, while the general public reaction to the law is one of almost universal outrage, committed supporters of Taiwanese independence, while fulminating on cue for the TV cameras, are privately gleeful.
The story of the origin and development of the law has been frequently told in recent weeks but each telling seems to miss at least one of the essential details about Taiwan on which, like submerged rocks, Beijing has come to grief.
Initially the law was conceived as a response to Taiwan's Referendum Law, passed in December 2003. The Referendum Law in turn was the result of a campaign played with great deftness and skill by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, who drummed up public opinion in support of the law, and then used the overwhelming public support to force the opposition parties that controlled the legislature to pass the law, despite their decade-long aversion to do anything of the sort.
The opposition had always claimed, especially when it was in government, that a law laying down procedures for people to carry out their constitutional right of referendum might lead to a referendum on Taiwanese independence - with potentially disastrous consequences if China saw this as a casus belli.
If this argument ever had popular support, by early 2003 it was threadbare. Of far greater public concern was that the opposition parties had been seen to be enjoying unprecedented levels of dalliance with authorities in Beijing and, since they were widely expected to win the presidential election in March 2004, there was consternation that they might be engineering a deal with China involving the sacrifice of Taiwan's de facto independence in return for installation as the permanent government of a unified Taiwan province.
Such fears perhaps deliberately exaggerated what the opposition was capable of doing and willing to undertake. But they were deftly used by Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to pressure the opposition into passing the Referendum Law, if only to show in the run-up to the election that they were not in China's pocket.
The law as passed actually ruled out questions on independence or unification as being something on which a referendum might be called. The DPP slammed the opposition for passing what it called a "bird cage" Referendum Law but, nevertheless, nobody could be in any doubt that, once the law was passed, no unification/independence matter could be decided without a vote - even if the law had to be amended to do this.
China radically misinterpreted the law - though it was not the only one to do so. In Taiwan, the Referendum Law was plainly aimed at preventing any reunification deal that lacked a referendum's democratic imprimatur; the intention was specifically to prevent the opposition "selling out" Taiwan should it regain power. China - and others - mistakenly thought, however, that the Referendum Law was to be used to try to further Taiwan independence. Partly this was a result of misinformation that Beijing was getting from its friends in Taiwan's opposition parties, and partly it was the result of Chen and the DPP making promises - as part of their presidential-campaign rhetoric - that they in fact had no chance of keeping. Even if Chen won re-election (which he in fact did), there was no chance that the DPP and its allies would win enough seats in the legislature - a super-majority of 75% - to initiate the bold changes that Chen talked of and China feared. And these changes themselves stopped way short of independence, though they did chip away at those symbols that identified Taiwan with China - especially the constitution, implemented by Chiang Kai-shek in China in 1947 - much to Beijing's ire.
But the plain truth, obvious to anybody resident in Taiwan, and yet obscure and elusive to others, is that Chen would never call a referendum on independence, not because of China's threats or the United States' constraints, but simply because it would never pass. While fewer than one in 10 Taiwanese wants reunification in the foreseeable future, prudent thinking among the Taiwanese means hardline pro-independence support rarely reaches 20% in polls.
Against this background, Chinese fears of "secession" and US fears of a "declaration of independence" are tremendously unrealistic and show an alarming ignorance both of Taiwan's constitutional processes and public opinion. A declaration of independence would involve a constitutional amendment that would have to be passed by 75% of the legislature and then be ratified by a National Assembly convened for the purpose. Given the almost 50:50 split in voting preferences among Taiwanese, it is extremely unlikely that the DPP and its allies would be able to muster this kind of support in the near future. Perhaps the only thing that could seriously alter the issue would be the implosion of the pro-unification opposition parties as a result of Beijing's trying to force the unification issue - the strange Newtonian mechanics of cross-strait relations.
Anti-secession law benefits Taiwan independence In this light the whole idea of the Anti-Secession Law looks unnecessary and potentially counterproductive. After all, Taiwanese do want to decide for themselves and deeply resent Beijing's refusal to acknowledge that they even have a say, let alone a choice. What they need to be persuaded of is the benefits of having a seat at the top table of the world's economic powerhouse, rather than an economy tied to a juggernaut the direction of which is utterly beyond their control. Taiwanese might be susceptible to a charm offensive, but they will not be bullied.
The reason for and nature of the Anti-Secession Law was fundamentally misconceived from the start. Beijing was led into this mess by paying more attention to rhetoric, its self-serving friends among Taiwan's opposition parties and its own fears, rather than a shrewd practical assessment of the current situation and its possibilities. The law was based on a deeply inaccurate understanding of what the Chen government could do and what the public would let it do.
The law became all the more unnecessary when, after serious miscalculations by Chen in the run-up to legislative elections last December 11, the DPP and its allies failed to secure the majority of seats in the legislature that had been widely expected, leaving the ostensibly pro-unification Kuomintang (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) in control, and severely cramping Chen's ability to proceed with even relatively innocuous moves - such as changing the names of Taiwan's representative offices abroad, which go by a variety of odd names and pseudonyms, to include the word "Taiwan".
Then, in late February, Chen actually reached a consensus with PFP leader James Soong to try to cobble together enough momentum in the legislature to get important bills passed. The cost of this to Chen was the repudiation of almost his entire presidential-election platform - at least where it involved Taiwanese "nation-building" and Chen's name became anathema to the independence crowd - an "apostate", one pro-independence newspaper called him.
It is no exaggeration to say that the fortunes of the independence lobby were, in late February, at their lowest for more than four years. That there is a new buoyancy in the air is entirely due to China's insisting on pushing through the Anti-Secession Law.
The immediate benefit in domestic politics is that the opposition parties no longer have the strength to hold up a massive arms-procurement budget that has been the subject of bitter controversy. In 2001 the US agreed to sell Taiwan an arms package including anti-submarine aircraft, Patriot missile batteries and eight diesel submarines. The package is currently worth about US$15 billion.
The pro-unification PFP and KMT have opposed the weapons purchase, arguing variously that the weapons are unnecessary, don't work, are not what Taiwan really needs, or will fuel a cross-strait arms race, and that the money should be spent on social programs instead.
These arguments did not resonate with voters and there was a widespread feeling that the US was milking Taiwan for the benefit of the defense-contractor friends of US President George W Bush's administration.
When US officials said the weapons purchase was a sign that the Taiwanese were willing to take responsibility for their own defense and failure to buy the weapons would result in a lessening of US enthusiasm to help Taiwan in a crisis, even some in the pro-weapons, pro-independence lobby talked of "gangster-like tactics" and "extortion". Meanwhile Taiwan's dithering over the weapons purchase sent Taipei-Washington relations into a tailspin - somewhat unfairly, because the inability to get the budget for the purchase passed by the legislature was certainly not the fault of the Chen administration.
In the wake of the passage of the Anti-Secession Law and the tremendous public anger this has generated in Taiwan, it is hard to see how the opposition can stall the weapons-procurement budget any longer. It is not even clear, as massive street protests against the Anti-Secession Law are planned for the weekend of March 26, that it could stand in the way of the passage of some kind of riposte to China, such as an "anti-annexation law" proposed by the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) or an "anti-invasion" law proposed by the DPP.
The TSU and DPP motions are almost pastiches of China's law, even utilizing its odd vocabulary - including the memorable euphemism "non-peaceful means" - but substituting key terms such as "secession" and "independence" with words like "aggression" and "unification".
Other repercussions dear to the hearts of the independence lobby include the scuppering of talks about direct cross-strait air-cargo flights - building on the architecture for cross-strait links laid down for the ground-breaking Lunar New Year direct charter fights for businessmen to return to Taiwan. Independence supporters tend to dislike the idea of direct links because they dislike anything that is likely to tie Taiwan's economy more closely to China's.
Shunting Taiwan's special arms budget through the legislature and stalling direct links could hardly have been Beijing's intention. But there has also been, from Beijing's point of view, a far graver unintended consequence, namely the decision of the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee, a deputy-ministerial-level forum, on February 19, to list the Taiwan Strait as a "common strategic objective" for both the US and Japan.
While Taiwan's mention in the report was of "blink and you could miss it" briefness, it has nevertheless been labeled by some analysts in Taipei the most important diplomatic event for Taiwan since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act by the US in 1978.
Others have also pointed out that that the US appears to have abandoned its long-touted policy of "strategic ambiguity", while Japan's actually naming strategic interests that conflict with China's is seen as a remarkable departure from its long-established norm.
Nobody in Taiwan thinks the joint statement is a blank check for Taiwan to pursue independence. But it is a very pointed message to China about where the interests of the regions' two most powerful players lie.
Some commentators in Taiwan were shocked at the apparent betrayal of Taiwan's interests shown in former US secretary of state Colin Powell's televised remarks last November to the effect that Taiwan did not enjoy legitimate sovereignty. If the US wanted to remain a power in East Asia, they argued, it had a clear strategic interest in Taiwan's remaining out of the grasp of the People's Republic of China and it was high time that the US admitted this, instead of currying favor with Beijing at Taiwan's expense.
That on the heels of Powell's comments Beijing announced that it was pressing ahead with the Anti-Secession Law lent weight to claims that the US, in its efforts to deter Chen Shui-bian's perceived independence drive, had been too accommodating to China. As private contacts between Beijing and Washington through December and January failed to deter the Chinese side, the February 19 statement was the sharp corrective. But it involved a quietly stated commitment to the security of the Taiwan Strait that was beyond Taiwan's wildest dreams three months ago.
The Anti-Secession Law seems, therefore, to have been dogged by the law of unintended consequences. In Taiwan it has increased pro-independence sentiment - polls after the passage of the law this week showed a rise of 5 percentage points - and passage of the law gained more supporters for Taiwan's arms budget; internationally it has caused the US and Japan to clarify their intentions regarding the Taiwan Strait - which are not to China's advantage; while the law itself is curiously empty, making no more than the usual threats about what might provoke a "non-peaceful" response that China has been uttering for more than a decade. No wonder that, behind their angry rhetoric, Taiwan's independence supporters are smirking.
Laurence Eyton is deputy editor-in-chief of the Taipei Times. He has worked in Taiwan for 18 years.
Ping!
The PRC is also being careful to get as many countries as possible to line up with it on the Taiwan Question, and its most important success so far has been with Russia.
Yes, a good one.
Hmmm;
Are these really unintended consequences by Chen and the U.S.?
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