Beijing/Taipei: Separate lives?

Chris Yeung (Editor-at-Large, South China Morning Post)

(Originally appeared in the March 24, 2004 issue of South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and is reproduced here with permission from the publisher)

It was not so long ago that leaders in Beijing were emphasising the fact that they had pinned their hopes on the Taiwanese people for eventual reunification. Speaking a week or so before the presidential election, Premier Wen Jiabao underlined the "blood relations" of people across the strait.

And last March, he cited a poem by Yu Youren, an elder Kuomintang statesman who died in Taiwan in 1964, to express his profound feelings of a split nation. Yu wrote:

"Bury me on the highest mountain top so that I can get a sight of my mainland.

Mainland I see none; tears of sorrow cascade.

Bury me on the highest mountain top so that I can get a glimpse of my home town.

Home town I see none, but lives forever in my mind.

The lofty sky is deeply blue, the vast wilderness not seen through.

Oh, boundless universe, would you hear me and this elegy of the nation?

If Yu were alive today, he would find the island where they took refuge no longer the same territory separated from the mainland by a strip of water.

How the election drama unfolds is anybody's guess. But it is clear that the two peoples are heading more towards separation than unification. Beijing officials may find small consolation in the referendum relating to mainland relations, which was declared invalid as fewer than 50 per cent of voters took part.

Despite a dismal performance in the past four years, the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party's success in boosting its vote share from about 40 per cent in the 2000 poll to 50.1 per cent has been largely seen as a manifestation of the growth of a Taiwanese national identity.

Given another four years - his second and last term, it looks almost certain that President Chen Shui-bian will accelerate the ongoing process of promoting the Taiwan identity in areas such as language, culture and education. There are also no indications that he will drop a plan to push for a referendum on a new constitution, scheduled for 2006.

With events in Taiwan unfolding on an hourly basis, a spokesman of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office was being truthful when he said late on Saturday night: "We are closely following the developments." Four years ago, after Mr Chen was elected, Beijing also said it would "listen to his words and watch his deeds". If anything, the bizarre circumstances under which Mr Chen was re-elected will deepen Beijing's doubts about his trustworthiness.

This is despite the conciliatory plea by Mr Chen on Saturday night for improved relations with the mainland and peace in the Taiwan Strait. His words will be dismissed as wishful thinking, if not disingenuous rhetoric, by Beijing, which is convinced that independence in 2008 tops Mr Chen's agenda.

Beijing will find it has increasingly limited room for political manoeuvring towards a peaceful reunification following the election. If the hard-ball tactics of then premier Zhu Rongji, who warned against voting for the DPP in 2000, proved counterproductive, the soft appeal by his successor also appears to have failed. Worse, the growing dependence of the Taiwan economy on the mainland has apparently not helped bridge the political divide.

For now, Beijing can only stick to its principled stance on "one China", while moderating its rhetoric somewhat, and at the same time seeking US support to put pressure on Mr Chen not to gamble on any form of independence.

In the medium and long term, Beijing will have to reckon with the changes in Taiwan and revise its overall policy blueprint for peaceful unification, formulated almost 10 years ago.