Taiwan Election and China

“Taiwan Election Provides Opportunity For China”
Arthur I. Cyr
Ma Ying-jeou, leader of the Kuomintang Party (KMT) in Taiwan and former Mayor of Taipei, has been elected president of Taiwan, providing an important fresh opportunity to reduce tensions and increase cooperation with Beijing. The KMT ticket secured 58.45% of the vote, a landslide.
In the same election this past weekend, voters rejected two referenda to seek readmission to the United Nations. The island government, formally known as the Republic of China, left the world body when the People’s Republic of China was admitted in 1971.
Ma has emphasized the importance of consensus and compromise. He would welcome an opportunity to visit politically hostile mainland China, without preconditions. Outgoing President Chen Shui-bian, leader of the rival Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), at times has been confrontational with Beijing, for example in abolishing a commission established to manage relations across the troubled Taiwan Strait. The DPP has also flirted with formal declaration of independence from the mainland, an act that Beijing consistently has declared would mean war.
In a 2006 visit to New York, Ma emphasized the 1992 formal agreement with Beijing to accept the concept of ‘one China’, but differ on features of that China. That accord was fundamental to the comparatively effective dialogue which followed.
This sort of pragmatism generally has characterized Taiwan’s approach to not only mainland China but the world at large. Following Washington’s formal diplomatic recognition of Beijing in 1978, a process begun by President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972, Taipei immediately launched a comprehensive essentially non-confrontational strategic response.
Consular offices in American cities were greatly expanded. Local and state government officials, along with members of the U.S. Congress, were assiduously courted. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was among those who visited Taiwan.
Congressional ties became an especially important priority. During the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration acceded to a demand by Beijing that Taiwan President Lee-teng Hui be prevented from visiting the United States. This decision was reversed through a forceful, very skillfully conducted direct appeal to the U.S. Congress.
Taiwan has become an essential banker to the enormous industrial revolution taking place on the mainland. Commercially successful, generally well-educated overseas Chinese in turn are a vital source of investment capital. Expatriate Chinese also vote in Taiwan elections. During Ma’s 2006 visit to the U.S., which included speeches at Harvard University in Cambridge Massachusetts as well as New York City, he was addressing a vast population well beyond his immediate audience.
Taiwan has emphasized the complex network of global intergovernmental organizations operating generally under the umbrella of the UN. A recent priority has been the World Health Organization, where Taiwan’s exceptional scientific and technological expertise was cited as powerful evidence for admission.
The same capacities argue for involvement in a wide range of intergovernmental as well as nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations around the globe. The decision of the Taiwan electorate to turn down a direct effort for formal UN membership, thus avoiding a highly charged confrontation with Beijing, was wise and should facilitate continuation of this more subtle approach.
An indirect approach, avoiding frontal assaults whenever possible, was the hallmark of Sun Tzu, philosopher of strategy and war in ancient China. Sun Tzu traditionally has been popular with a wide range of military professionals, including career officers of the U.S. Army. Taiwan’s leaders clearly emulate his work, with new President Ma the principal contemporary example.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of ‘After the Cold War’ (Macmillan/Palgrave and NYU Press). He can be reached at acyr@carthage.edu