Professor

Graduate Institute of China Studies

Tamkang University, Taipei

Email: suchi@npf.org.tw

A paper presented at the Peace Across the Taiwan Strait Conference, May 23-25, 2002, sponsored by the Asian Studies Centre, Oxford University, UK

Domestic Determinants of Taiwan’s Mainland Policy

1. The Policy

-         pre-1991

-         1991 paradigm

-         post-1995

-         1999 paradigm

2. The Context

-         democratization and mainland policy

-         foreign policy and mainland policy

-         economic policy and mainland policy

3. The Ideas

-         Chinese/Taiwanese identity

-         unification/independence issue

4. The Institutions

-         NSC

-         NSB

-         MAC

-         ruling party

-         VP

-         Premier

-         LY

-         opposition parties

5. The Players

-         Lee Teng-hui

-         Chen Shui-bian

The relationship across the Taiwan Strait has long been one of the most important issues in the world.  However, the relationship has been so rigid and Taipei’s and Beijing’s policies toward each other have been so predictable that for decades they have attracted little attention.  It emerged as a contentious policy issue-area and a field of serious academic study only in the late l980s when the people (not yet governments) began to interchange in various ways.  Only then did the Chinese term for the relationship, liangan guanxi, come into use.  And its English translation, cross-Strait relations, came even later.  So did the term for Taipei’s Mainland policy, dalu zengce.  All “specialists” in this field are in this sense late-comers because they used to belong to other fields.  The new field has thus not accumulated sufficient research findings over the past dozen years.  The least satisfying is the question of the domestic linkage of Taiwan’s Mainland policy, for several reasons.

     First, information is scanty.  For a rapidly democratizing society, some old habits die hard.  The government continues to treat any information related to the Mainland with utmost caution and shares only a small proportion with the people. The government agencies also continues to guard jealously their “secrets” against one another.  Second, information explodes in the private sector.  But what is true may not be printed, and what is printed (including the quotes) may not be true. Third, owing to the highly volatile nature of Taiwan’s domestic politics in the last decade, any available information tends to have a relatively short lifespan.  These complications thus severely constrain researchers’ input and output.

     This paper represents an initial attempt to venture into this unknown field. I will begin with a brief sketch of Taiwan’s Mainland policy in its different stages, followed  by a discussion of the context in which the policy evolved.  The influence of the Ideas, Institutions, and Players moving the policy will then be explored. 

The Policy

     Taiwan’s Mainland policy went through several stages since November 2, 1987 when some Taiwan residents (mostly veterans of the civil war) were allowed to visit their relatives in the Mainland.  Confusion, experimentation, and improvisation characterized this initial stage of Taipei’s policy.  After nearly forty years of separation and confrontation, only a small number of people in Taiwan  then had any experience in dealing with the Mainland.  Fewer knew how to interact peacefully. The ministry in charge of coordinating and policy-making, the Mainland Affairs Council, was not to be established until January 1991.  And its precursor, the Working Group on Mainland Affairs, was only beginning to draft regulations with the hope of injecting some order into the chaos.  However, the direction of the policy was unmistakably toward more opening and more contact with the Mainland. Recent disclosures pointed to the onset of a direct, secret channel between then President Lee and the Beijing leadership in 1990 – a channel that preceded and later co-existed at least until 1995 with the “officially unofficial, and unofficially official” channel between the Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association of Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).[1]

     The pronouncement of the end of the martial law on April 30, 1991 by President Lee marked the beginning of the second stage.  As a declaration, it made two breakthroughs.  One, democratization was to begin in earnest as the martial law period was over.  Two, the Mainland would no longer be treated as a “rebel group,” but as a “political entity” more or less on an equal footing with the Republic of China on Taiwan.  In both senses, the declaration represented a change of paradigm.  Henceforth, the Taiwan people could openly visit, trade, marry and otherwise interact with the people on the Mainland without fear of being accused of “aiding the rebels.”  And the ROC government would no longer be bound by its past paradigm which prohibited any contact with their counterparts in the People’s Republic of China and could proceed to negotiate over issues of mutual concern.  In 1992, during the first encounters of both sides in decades, the SEF and the ARATS haggled over the most difficult issue of “one China,” culminating in a compromise whereby each side would state its own definition of “one China” and then leave the issue aside at that. This compromise, later dubbed “the l992 consensus” led to the meeting of the two venerable Chairmen, Koo Chen-fu and Wang Daohan in Singapore in April 1993, which paved the way for two full years of talks alternating between Taipei and Beijing.[2]  In retrospect, this stage is the only period of thaw in the five decades of tension in the cross-Strait relations.

     The third stage began with President Lee’s visit to Cornell University in June 1995 and the PRC’s furious reactions to that visit. In rapid succession, the PRC discontinued the SEF/ARATS talks, threatened Taiwan with missile firings and military exercises and demonized Mr. Lee and his government in its domestic and international propaganda.  The three agreements (on illegal immigrants, hijackings, and fishing disputes) that were near completion at the time of the Cornell visit remained unsigned to this day.  Beijing’s saber-rattling brought in world sympathy for Taiwan and two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups to its vicinity.  More importantly, it gave Mr. Lee a clear majority in the four-way race for the presidency.  The taste of victory was rather short-lived, however.  The domestically invincible President soon found his hands bound from the outside.  Viewed as a “trouble-maker,” Mr. Lee and his government no longer enjoyed the goodwill of the world (and the US).  While continuing to cold-shoulder Taipei, to the point of partially denying the existence of the political compromise of 1992, the PRC quickly moved to improve its relations with the US.  President Bill Clinton’s remarks about the so-called “three nos” (i.e. the US does not support Taiwan independence; it does not support “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan”; it does not support Taiwan’s membership in any international organizations that require statehood) was especially alarming for those in favor of eventual Taiwan statehood, because it was thought to be foreclosing its preferred option.  The heightened tension during this stage even spilled over to the economic and cultural exchanges.  The mainland investment policy of “go slow and be patient”(September 1996) was declared partly with this trend in mind.  Under those circumstances, the visit of Mr. Koo to Shanghai and Beijing in October 1998 was more an exercise in damage control than anything else.  For President Lee was by then gearing up to break out of the bondage by changing the paradigm itself.

     The fourth stage spans from July 9, 1999, when Mr. Lee made his remark about the “special state-to-state relationship” to a German radio reporter, to this day. The “special state-to-state relationship” was nothing short of a “new paradigm.” But owing to enormous pressures from all sides he had to return to the ROC’s long-standing position about “one China, with respective interpretations,” without implementing any portion of its original design up to the end of his presidential term.  However, President Chen has been doing just the opposite since May 20, 2000.  He and his administration officials have made no mention of the “special state-to-state relationship” but have, slowly but surely, put into practice the suggestions contained in the yet undisclosed policy study commissioned by President Lee to Dr. Tsai Ing-wen in August 1998.[3]

     The continuity of the “new paradigm” from Lee to Chen was made possible by three factors. First, the core of the “special state-to-state relationship” study of July 9, 1999 was nearly identical to that of the “Resolution on Taiwan’s Future” of the Democratic Progressive Party passed by the DPP Party Congress on May 8, 1999.[4] For both, “Taiwan is a sovereign country whose name, according to the present Constitution, is the Republic of China.”  Hence, “Taiwan”, being a sovereign country, is not a part of China; and the “Republic of China” is being reduced from a sovereign country to merely a label for the sovereign Taiwan.  As such, the later President Lee changed, in 1999, the paradigm set by the early President Lee in 1991. And the self-identity of the “Republic of China” was transformed from a sovereign country representing the entire China (1949-1991), to a sovereign country within the historical, geographical and cultural China (1991-1999), to merely a label for the sovereign Taiwan (1999- ).  The identity of the “People’s Republic of China “was transformed from a rebel group (1949-1991) to a political entity, “another part of China” more or less equal with Taiwan (1991-1999), to another sovereign country with special relationship with the sovereign Taiwan (1999- ).  And the self-identity of “Taiwan” was transformed from the seat of the ROC Government and a model province (1949-1991) to the sovereign ROC, a political entity and also “a part of China (1991-1999), to a sovereign country who still bears the name of the Republic of China (1999-).[5] The fact that the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future was upgraded by the DPP in October 2001 to the level of the Party Charter indicates that, as far as the party members are concerned, this Resolution is equal in importance with the Party Charter which has openly advocated Taiwan Independence. There is no evidence to suggest that there was a secret channel between the framers of Lee and Tsai’s study group and the initiators of the DPP Resolution, even though the timing of their births, July and May of 1999, was curiously close.  What seems clear is that the DPP basically inherited the core thinking behind Lee’s “special state-to-state relationship” study.  Whether by design or by coincidence, President Chen picked up where President Lee left off.

     Two other factors helped ensure the continuity of the paradigm.  Strong opposition at home and hostile PRC leadership across the Strait made the Chen-Lee alliance, however tacit, a political necessity. Time and again, President Chen has failed to split the Kuomintang-People First Party (PFP) alliance and/or the Kuomintang itself.  Time and again, he had to seek the support of Mr. Lee and his TSU (Taiwan Solidarity Union) followers.  Consequently, despite occasional invocation of the so-called “new middle road,” Chen had no choice but to follow Lee’s old road. 

.

     The third factor had to do with President Chen’s personnel choice.  As is now known, nearly all the members of Tsai’s study group, including Tsai herself, were non-KMT members, even though the study was commissioned by the KMT Chairman (Lee Teng-hui) and paid for by the KMT administration (as disclosed recently, a secret fund known to Lee and a few others).  After Chen replaced Lee as the President, he retained the services of nearly all the members of Tsai’s group in Mainland Affairs Council, the National Security Council, and other advisory roles where they would implement their own suggestions from first-hand knowledge. 

     As a result, whether by ideology, political necessity or personnel choice, President Chen’s Mainland policy is built on the “later Lee’s” unrealized legacy, which is not only different from the policy of the Chiang Ching-kuo years, but from that of the “early Lee’s” to which the KMT/PFP basically still hold up now. How did the transformations take place? Who and what have influenced the process? These are the questions to be answered below.          

The Context

     Taiwan’s policy toward the Mainland is, generally speaking, shaped by the Beijing factor, the international (especially the US) factor, and the domestic factor.  As Taiwan democratizes itself over the years, the domestic factor gains in weight and complexity.  Within the domestic context, the Mainland policy has never stood alone.  In fact, its evolution has been inextricably intertwined with three other parallel processes: the democratization process beginning in the late 1980s, the desire and pursuit of greater visibility and participation in the family of nations, and the effort to promote continuous economic growth. There are several special features about these four processes.  First, three out of the four processes were completely new to Taiwan, even the entire Chinese people. For instance, the entire Chinese people have not experienced anything like democratization during their thousands of years of history.  Hence, Taiwan had to experiment on its own, building on the basis of four decades of “guided democracy” in Taiwan, borrowing from the West and Japan, and improvising here and there. The same was true with the opening to the Mainland and the “pragmatic diplomacy.” The confrontation across the Strait and in the international arena has gone on for so long that no one remembered anything else.  Everything had to start anew.  And everyone had to learn to adjust – rapidly.  Secondly, Taiwan did not have the luxury of handling these new-born things one by one, but had to juggle them all at once.  What it entailed was that the issues were linked up; emotions flew high; and consensus was difficult to come by.  Last but not least, the relationship among the four processes became critical.  For example, greater or lesser emphasis on Mainland policy or foreign policy would have very different consequences for the domestic politics and economic growth.  The debate on economic issues would most likely have implications for mainland and foreign policies.  Hence, over the past dozen of years, the people in Taiwan were doing several things at the same time: adjusting their relations with the outside world, rearranging the domestic order, redistributing power among the elites, and fighting for different policy mix.

     Among the three other processes, democratization process appears to have exerted the greatest influence on the Mainland policy. As said earlier, the origin of Taiwan’s Mainland policy has often been dated to November 2, 1987 when Taiwan residents were allowed by the government to visit their relatives on the Mainland.  That was only two months away from the death of the late President Chiang Ching-kuo (January 13,1988) and the ascendance of Mr. Lee Teng-hui as the President.  So, from the very beginning, the Mainland policy has been framed and shaped by the democratization process and its built-in transfer of power – from generation to generation, from mainlanders to “native Taiwanese,” and from one political party to another.

     Normally, politics is about reallocation of values and power.  And democracy is a form of popular participation in this process of reallocation.  Yet, different countries tend to develop different types of democracy according to their history and culture.  Taiwan is no exception.  In Taiwan’s case, three unique features stand out. First, as Table 1 shows, between 1988 and 2002, there has been at least one election each year, except only 1988 and 1999. 

Table1: Taiwan’s Election（1988∼2002）[6]

*In 1990, the President was still elected by the National Assembly, not by the populace.

This is because, according to the Constitution, the ROC has four levels of government (central, provincial, county and township) until the end of 1998 and three (minus the provincial) since 1998.  Each level has executive and legislative branches.  And the central level had had, until 2000, two legislative bodies: the Legislative Yuan (LY) and National Assembly.  So, at its “highest” point, Taiwan’s democracy had ten elections.  Since each office has different lengths of term (three years for the LY Legislators, six years for the pre-1996 presidency and National Assembly, and four years for the rest), Taiwan’s voters have to go to the voting booth nearly every year to register their preferences.  And since Taiwan is relatively small in size, densely populated, and has a highly opinionated population, no election is considered too small and too local to be hotly contested.  The high frequency of elections thus tends to permeate the otherwise “rational” policy-making process with a high degree of political content.  The emotion-laden Mainland policy is particularly susceptible to this tendency.

     Second, Taiwan is the only democracy in the world that still uses the single non-transferable vote under Multi-Member-District (SNTV-MMD).  This system is conducive to the survival of small parties and/or radical wings of the large parties.  It tends to radicalize the campaign debate because one needs perhaps only three percent of the total votes in a large district to win.  It also undermines party discipline, because candidates compete not only with members of other parties but with their own comrades.  As a result, negative campaigning seems to be a norm, rather than an exception.  Rational debate tends to be drowned out by simple sloganeering.  Again, the Mainland policy, being at once highly complex, emotional and consequential, has been a prime subject for campaign manipulation.

     Third and perhaps most important has to do with the nature of the public political debate in Taiwan’s democracy.  Theoretically in any democracy, debates could take place on three levels.  The highest level is that of boundary and identity of a state.  The perennial debate over “reunification” and “independence” in Taiwan is a case in point. The second level is over the political system, such as democracy versus dictatorship, the presidential system versus parliamentary government, etc.  During the 1990s, the ROC went through six rounds of constitutional revisions, each involving power redistribution among government organs. The third level concerns public policy, such as trade, environmental protection, war and peace, and mainland policy, etc. Most of the mature democracies have resolved the issues on the first and second levels and conduct political debates only on the third level.  For instance, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) had been a subject of heated debate for years before it finally won US congressional passage by a one-vote margin.  The debate was never raised to either of the first two levels, however.  Canada is a rare exception because of Quebec separatism, but there has been no debate on the systemic level.  Some other countries, in the process of democratization, would debate over constitutional arrangements on the systemic level, but there always exists consensus on their status as nation-states.

     In contrast, Taiwan is experiencing heated debate involving all three levels simultaneously.  This is a unique phenomenon.  Generally speaking, quasi-religious fervor marks the debate involving the first level. The second and third levels tend to highlight struggles for power and a conflict of interest respectively.  An open debate on one level alone is usually sufficient to fuel fierce partisanship among the general public.  One can imagine how divisive a debate can be while involving all three levels – state, system and public policy – simultaneously as is now on Taiwan. Here lies the knot of political – and for that matter, Mainland policy – predicament in Taiwan today.

     In many ways, the ROC’s foreign policy has been the Siamese twin of its Mainland policy.  Both are parts of the country’s external environment.  Both represent and express the deep frustration of Taiwan’s people over its status in the world.  Both help release Taiwan’s pent-up energies into the outside world. Both were born, nurtured, and honed by the democratization process.  As such, both are closely related in the minds of the decision-makers and many citizens.

     Yet there are key differences between the Siamese twins.  By definition, the Mainland policy has to do with the relations across the Taiwan Strait, whereas the foreign policy deals with all the countries other than the PRC.  The role of the PRC in Taiwan’s foreign relations is hence indirect and varies from country to country.  Again by definition, foreign policy inevitably involves “sovereignty.”  While it is already difficult to get around the “sovereignty” question in the bilateral context, it is even more of the zero-sum nature in the international arena.  Furthermore, foreign policy contains an element that is indispensable to Taiwan, i.e., arms acquisition.  It is therefore understandable that, according to the surveys commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council and conducted by five different polling units over the years, when asked to compare the importance of “developing cross-Strait relations” and “developing foreign relations,” the twins closely tail each other, with “foreign relations” leading during the KMT period and “Cross-Strait relations” leading during the DPP period.  (see Figure 1)  But when asked “if foreign relations would bring about cross-Strait tension, are you in favor of developing foreign relations?” the “yes” percentages consistently outnumber the “no” answer by 60 to 20. (see Figure 2)

Figure 1[7]

Figure 2[8]

     Translating this popular sentiment into policy practice would necessarily entail greater confrontation with the PRC and more frictions with Taiwan’s friends abroad who may wish to maintain good relations with both and yet avoid being drawn into their bilateral conflict.  The Taipei government is thus caught between the rock and the hard place.  Pushing too hard on the foreign front may damage the cross-Strait relations and create tension.  Yet doing little, for whatever reason, runs the risk of being perceived by the voters as too soft.  In retrospect, the fact that Taiwan’s image plunged from “Taiwan miracle” in the early 1990s to  “trouble-maker” after 1995-96, in contrast to the then glittering self-image of “model democracy,” must have contributed to popular frustrations over Taiwan’s foreign relations.  As shown in Figure 1, after 1995, the premium was placed on “developing foreign relations.”  Hence the frustrations may have contributed to the downfall of the KMT in 2000 who was perceived to be softer on Beijing than the DPP.  Curiously, if the polls are still a reliable guide today, the Taiwan people are signaling their dissatisfaction with “developing cross-Strait relations “ for the first time in a long time.  According to the above-mentioned MAC polls, those in favor of “developing cross-Strait relations” outnumbered those in favor of “developing foreign relations” during three most recent polls (March 2001, July 2001 and February 2002).

     On the scale of the Mainland policy, the balance of politics and economics has always tipped in favor of the former, but the balance is clearly changing.  For most of the 1990s, most of the Taiwanese investments in the Mainland were small and medium-sized enterprises. Weak in organization and finance, they could hardly lobby the government, executive or legislative, for a preferred policy.  Besides, former President Lee Teng-hui exercised stringent control over the highly political Mainland policy.  While the “army of ants” could slip through his fingers, he went out of his way to half-cajole and half-coerce those few business tycoons, such as Y.C. Wang of the Formosa Plastics Group and Chang Jung-fa of the Evergreen Group, into staying home.  Toward the end of 1990s however, several factors converged to change the picture.  More than half of the companies listed in Taiwan’s stock exchange had by then invested in the Mainland.  Anticipation of the PRC’s entry into the WTO and Beijing’s expansive fiscal policy added more impetus to the westward drive.  Clearly these large enterprises needed longer-range planning for their investments, and they needed lobbying to ensure a more favorable, or at least more predictable, environment.  They were also better equipped for lobbying.  Meanwhile, the role of the government has changed.  For the 2000 presidential campaign, the DPP as a less financially endowed political party sought most eagerly the support of the businesses.   Not only could they help filling up the campaign cachet but painting a pro-business image as well.  So the influence of the businesses on the Mainland policy has increased, not decreased, during the period when the formerly pro-labor DPP is in power.  The recent tug-of-w ar over the exports of the 8 inch wafer fabs reflected the conflict between the old Lee thinking and new prowess of the business community, with Chen’s administration caught in the middle.  By all indications, the tenuous compromise reached in April 2002 was not the end, but only a prelude to more contests in the future.

     In short, the context of Taiwan’s Mainland policy framed by its democratization process, foreign and economic policies has changed over the years.  More forces have come into play as Taiwan’s democratization progresses.  The government increasingly had to share power with other actors.  Its political control gave way to more economic considerations, though the latter still remains largely in check.  The influence of foreign policy appears to have grown, particularly during the DPP period.  Most importantly, the weight of the domestic factor increases at the expense of the PRC factor.  As the internal power struggles intensified in the last few years, first inside the KMT and then between the DPP and the KMT, the debates on mainland policy appear to be conducted more for domestic consumption than for Beijing’s understanding.  Catchy slogans were pronounced without proper explanation. [9]   Empty gestures were made without consideration of the context in which these gestures might be seen by Beijing. [10]

     There are also important continuities over the years.  Throughout the past decade, the Mainland policy has not been just a policy, not just a politicized policy, not just a “high politics” policy, but a “high politics” policy about which nearly every citizen had an opinion.  As such, it is a perfect candidate for all three levels of debate, as mentioned earlier.  One has to go beyond Graham Allison’s decision-making models to explain policy output.  There are certain ideas that tend to frame the debate more than others, certain institutions that tend to shape the policy more than others, and certain players that tend to influence the policy outcome more than others.  These are the topics to which we now turn.

The Ideas

     Two ideas are essential to the understanding of Taiwan’s Mainland policy: the Chinese/Taiwanese identity and the unification/independence issue.  The former is more a “heart” issue, and the latter a “mind” issue.  In truth, both are highly political issues that belong more appropriately in the realm of beliefs and perceptions.  Yet to the extent that they are consequential, they remain real issues to be considered.

     The issue of Chinese/Taiwanese identity is particularly difficult to decipher. Many refer to this issue as an ethnic issue.  In fact, it does not even qualify as a sub-ethnic issue, because, with the exception of the 300,000 aborigines, nearly all Taiwan residents are Han Chinese.  Since the KMT administration stopped the practice of asking for the citizens’ provincial origin several years ago, there is no reliable statistics on the numbers of the Hakkas, the “mainlanders” or the so-called “native Taiwanese.”  Through decades of intermarriages, the social-psychological line blurs even further.  So the distinction itself is a political act.  And during election campaigns, it is nearly impossible for the candidates to resist the temptation of manipulating this “heart” issue to his or her advantage.

     This is understandable if one takes into consideration Taiwan’s unique political culture.  In the US, for instance, the voters go for the “winners.” And the candidates strive to appear to be strongpersons who can lead.  Yet in Taiwan, tears are more powerful than smiles.  And one needs to appeal to the sympathy of the voters by saying, “I may lose,” not “I shall win.”  This is because in Taiwan there is the deep-rooted “victimization syndrome” (beiqin yishi).  It grows out of the belief that the people of Taiwan have never been the master of its own land, as the island has been alternately occupied by Portugal, Spain, Holland, Japan and the Chinese.  Some extremists even claim that Taiwanese are a separate ethnic group because they are descendants of the hybrid between the aborigines and the Han Chinese.  Since the “native Taiwanese” constitute the majority of Taiwan’s population and the “victimization syndrome” is still strongly held by many of them, the Taiwanese identity is an extremely powerful instrument for candidates to mobilize support.  It helps conjure up an image of a victim suffering at the hands of the outsiders – in this case, the candidates with Chinese identity.  With the exception of the city of Taipei where intermarriages abound, the strategy often worked quite well.

     The competing self-image goes as follows.  Taiwan is an immigrant society, constituted by Chinese immigrants from the Mainland at different points of time. Whether they originate from Fukien Province or other provinces or the Hakka group is irrelevant, because they are all Chinese ethnically.  Those who were not born on the island but have lived there long enough should be considered as “native” as any other whose forefathers arrived generations earlier.  The assertiveness of the Taiwanese identity in recent years tends to breed among this group a contrasting “victimizaton syndrome.”  If one adds to the picture the “victimization syndrome” held by the Hakkas who felt deprived by both the “native Taiwanese” and the “mainlanders” and that held by the aborigines who felt being mistreated by all three Han groups, it would be no exaggeration to say that democratization of the last decade unleashed, among other things, a proliferation of “victimization syndrome.” Politicians compete to represent and project these syndromes into the policy-making process.  Again, the Mainland policy is a prime victim of this exercise.

     Since the identity issue is mostly subjective, a person’s self-identity does not necessarily match with his or her ascribed identity.  Most pollsters chose to ask the respondents to pick one among three categories: “Chinese,” “Taiwanese,” and “both.”[11]  Though they differed in poll result, a general pattern seems clear.  That is, if the Taiwan people can be so categoriezed, those with Taiwanese identity began to outnumber those with Chinese identity by mid-1990s and the gap continued to grow in the late 1990s, even though “both” remained high throughout.  Figure 3, 4 and 5 show the series of surveys done by the National Chengchi University’s Election Research Center, the MAC and the United Daily News respectively.

Figure 3[12]

Figure 4[13]

Figure 5[14]

     In retrospect, it appears probable that the perceived trend of growing Taiwanese identity may have encouraged the launching of the new paradigm by Lee and Chen at the turn of the century.  According to Mr. Lin Cho-shui, a well-known DPP strategist, “all the polls (MAC, the United Daily News, the DPP) point to the year of 1999 as the height of the new public opinion (of Taiwanese Identity)…By 1998 the mainstream public opinion was already Taiwan Independence (or at least special state-to-state relationship), and yet the mainstream discourse was still about unification.”[15]

     Mr. Lin may be correct about the trend of Chinese/Taiwanese identity.  But to slide from there into the unification/independence issue requires more than a quantum leap.  The two issues are related for some but not for others.  That is to say, those supporting Taiwanese identity may not support Taiwan Independence. At least that is what the MAC survey series have indicated.  Figure 6 shows clearly that, despite the rising Taiwanese identity, the “status-quo supporters” (including those in favor of “status-quo forever” and “status-quo now and the future depends”) constitute around half of the total population.  The Independence supporters (including “Independence now” and “status-quo now and Independence later”) garner no more than 20 percent, though most the time slightly ahead of the Unification supporters (including “Unification now” and “status-quo now and Unification later”).

Figure 6[16]

     The divergence between the identity issue and other more “concrete” policy issues is even more apparent.[17] Throughout the 1990s most of the “Taiwanese,” “Chinese,” and “both” respondents were pleased with the pace of the people-to-people exchanges.  They all deemed appropriate the regulations and norms governing these exchanges.  Around 70 percent were in favor of conditional direct transport link.”  Also, 69 % of the “Taiwanese”, 64 % of the “Chinese” and 78 % of “both” felt that Beijing government was hostile to the Taipei government and slightly less hostile toward the Taiwan people.   The differences among the three identity groups narrowed further when it came to the even “smaller” issues such as cultural exchanges, tourism, “mainland brides,” etc.  In general, most were in favor of people-to-people exchanges.

     What these data mean is that the Chinese/Taiwanese identity does matter, and the Taiwanese identity has grown more salient, and even outnumbered the Chinese identity during the second half of the 1990s.  But the identity has remained nothing more than that – an identity. It did not translate automatically into support for Independence.  For most, “status-quo” still dominated.  The “heart” yielded to the “mind.”  So, ironically, the PRC’s heavy-handed approach toward Taiwan may have contributed to more changed hearts in Taiwan, it also kept the minds cool.  The “heart” mattered less regarding the even smaller issues.  On that level, the checkbooks and normal politics probably played a more important role.  If this interpretation was true, one might wonder if the initiators and followers of the “new paradigm” have over-read the will of the Taiwan people. Apparently, the influence of determinants other than the Ideas must have been at play.

The Institutions

     As with other countries, the Institutions have an important place in the process of Mainland policy making in Taiwan.  Certain institutions are consistently more influential than others.  And the importance of each institution varies over time. Generally speaking, other than the Presidency itself (to be discussed below), the National Security Council, the National Security Bureau, the Mainland Affairs Council, and the ruling party are the more important actors.  Others, such as the Vice President, the Premier, the Legislative Yuan, and the opposition parties play only a secondary role.

     It is a well-known fact that the National Security Council played little or no policy-making role during the Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo years.  After assuming the Presidency, Mr. Lee Teng-hui began to expand its role at the expense of others.  During the last few years of his presidency, he relied on the NSC to such a high degree that the advice and dissent of other institutions were neglected.  The recent disclosure of the existence of an unlawful secret fund (since 1994) apparently enabled the President to conduct his own preferred foreign and Mainland policies.[18] As is now known, the Lee-Tsai study that suggested the “special state-to-state relationship” in July 1999 was one of many projects run by the fund.[19]  Since May 2000, President Chen had apparently found the secret fund extremely useful that he not only continued to use it but even sent a NSC “adviser” to work in Taipei’s representative office in Washington D.C. – the first time the NSC has stationed an official abroad. [20]  The fund and the unprecedented practice were, needless to say, discontinued after the disclosure. 

     It is now apparent as to why the NSC has been so powerful among all the institutions.  First, as with the NSCs of other countries, it enjoys easiest access to the President.  Second, the size of the secret fund, if the disclosed amount is correct, equals the total annual budget of at least three ministries (such as the MAC). Third, the NSC as a staff institution of the President’s Office rarely has to face the press or the LY oversight.  It does not even have a spokesman.  So its officials conduct operations only under the instructions of the President or the NSC Secretary General.  As such, absolute secrecy and total top-down control can be maintained. In the infantile and often chaotic democracy such as Taiwan, the rationale for the existence of such a powerful institution is understandable.  It can do much good for the country under the disadvantageous circumstances.  But as with any unchecked institutions, use of power often slides into abuse about which the public may know nothing.  Here may lie an undemocratic spot at the apex of Taiwan’s national power.

     The National Security Bureau is important for the information it provides. As all the participants in the national security area are keenly aware, information is everything.  Yet, as said earlier, in Taiwan democracy, information is not disseminated fairly.  As far as the Mainland policy-related information is concerned, the government knows a great deal more than the private sector in terms of quantity, quality, speed, accuracy and reliability.  The scholars oftentimes have to gather fragmented and incomplete information from various sources to make some sense of the total picture.  The public, left to its own devices, have to probe in the dark and make judgments from some mixture of the “heart” and “mind.”  Even among the government agencies, the distribution is quite uneven. The NSB as the largest source of information serves first and foremost the President. The NSC comes as close second, whereas the rest, including the MAC, lag far, far behind.  This practice, rooted in long-standing Chinese tradition, reinforces the Presidential power vis-à-vis any other institutions and players beyond the constitutional mandate. [21]

    The Mainland Affairs Council derives its power from its central location in the bureaucracy.  Vertically, it participates in some NSC deliberations and carries out the directions from above.  Down the chain, it supervises the works of the Strait Exchange Foundation, particularly its negotiations with the ARATS of Beijing.  Horizontally, the MAC is in charge of coordinating with all the other ministries and agencies.  Equally important, the MAC serves as the government’s main window to the outside world, domestic and international.  It has to face the media, the LY, the academic community, the opposition, etc.  In time of crisis, it becomes the lightning rod of the government and the country.  As such, the MAC is an indispensable institution although its actual weight varies over time.

     The last among the major league players is the ruling party.  It is basically the conduit through which the politician/comrades of the President seek to influence the topmost decision-maker.  It tends to exert most influence when election time comes near. In the early years of Mr. Lee’s presidency, the KMT set up a Steering Committee of the Mainland Works which heard the voices of other concerned KMT heavyweights.  As President Lee gained more power in the mid-1990s, the Steering Committee fell nearly defunct.  But as the KMT Chairman, Mr. Lee could still absorb the opinions of his comrades through other party channels. President Chen’s relations with his party has always been less than comfortable. The personal feud between him and Mr. Frank Hsieh, the DPP Chairman of 2000-2002, and some other politicians are well known.  In his book, The Century’s First Voyage: Reflections on the 500 Days Since Power Transfer, published in November 2001, he even criticized the party as “not well transformed into a ruling party, despite my repeated appeals.” [22] So until August 2002 when President Chen assumes the DPP Chairmanship, one can safely assume, the DPP’s input in Mainland policy-making has been few and far between.  After August 2002, much will depend on how the new Chairman would interact with his “revolutionary comrades” who are not at all accustomed to a hierarchical and disciplined party life.

     In the minor league, the Vice Presidency is normally definitely a secondary player.  Ms. Annette Lu is a glaring exception.  But by all indications, she affects the Mainland policy at the end of the output, not the input.  And even at output end, she compounds the perception of the policy, not altering the policy itself.  As for the premier, he has only nominal control over the Mainland policy.  The President takes care of the “fundamentals” of the policy, whereas the Premier disposes of the administrative matters already coordinated by the MAC.  In all likelihood, though, the importance of the Premier is further reduced after May 2000, because Premiers Tang Fei, Chang Chun-hsiung and Yu Shyi-kun had much less knowledge and experiences than their KMT predecessors: Lien Chan, formerly a Foreign Minister, and Vincent Siew, formerly a MAC Chairman. 

     The role of the Legislative Yuan is also minor.  Individual Legislators may carry some weight owing to his expertise and experience.  But the LY as a whole does not command the services of a large professional staff or a well-stocked library.  As the Legislators move from one committee to another each session (six months), it becomes extremely difficult to accumulate institutional, or even individual, memories on this policy.  Furthermore, as vital a policy area as the Mainland policy is, the LY thus far has no corresponding committee that solely interacts with the executive branch. Since the Mainland policy is being dealt with mainly but not exclusively in the LY’s Interior Committee, most of the Committee members may take some interest in the Mainland affairs, while their expertise most likely lie elsewhere – land, water, policework and immigration, etc.  Hence, collectively, the LY is no match to the power of the executive branch.  It has to satisfy itself with newsmaking, often with the gracious presence of the administration officials.

     The opposition parties fare even worse.  With no power and no information, they are reduced to educated guesses and, for some, simply opposition.  The KMT probably stands slightly better now than the DPP of the 1990s, because the KMT has at least a hard core of expertise, while the DPP knew so little that many did not know how little they knew.  In this sense, the transfer of power in 2000 is good for the country in the long run because either side gets a taste of power and ignorance.  Maybe as Taiwan’s democracy matures, both will learn to share power and information, hence reducing ignorance and irresponsibility.

The Players

     Clearly by far the most important player in Mainland policy making in Taiwan is the Presidency.  There is no doubt that the power of Messrs. Lee and Chen far surpassed any of their contemporaries.  The path of Lee’s growing power coincides with Taiwan’s democratization and stands in sharp contrast to the power path of Jiang Zeming.  Two men were about the same age (Lee was born in 1923, Jiang in 1926), came to power at about the same time (Lee in 1988, Jiang in 1989) and under similarly uncertain circumstances.  Yet by mobilizing the liberal wing of the KMT and the popular aspiration for democratization, Mr. Lee managed to, first, sweep away all senior mainlander/politicians by 1992 (when he appointed Lien Chan, a native Taiwanese, the Premier), and then defeat his native Taiwanese peers (Lin Yang-kang and Peng Ming-ming) through direct presidential election in 1996.  So between 1996 and 2000, Mr. Lee could govern with perfectly legitimate mandate and make policies from position, power as well as authority.  No peer or challenger was anywhere in sight.  Across the Strait, Mr. Jiang has not been so blessed. To this day, he may have the topmost position, but he has to share power and authority with his peers. 

     Lee’s changing power position seems to be directly related to the evolution of Taiwan’s Mainland policy during the last decade.  The 1991 paradigm was clearly a break from the past.  It served to undermine the power and legitimacy of those mainlander /politicians, and win the support of the liberal wing of the KMT and the general public.  Indeed, by the end of 1991, all the senior LY members who had held on to their jobs for decades without reelections were retired en masse.  The opening to the Mainland and the SEF-ARATS talks during 1992-1995 further enlarged the popular support for Mr. Lee and strengthened his hand against the Old Guard.  His humiliating stopover at Honolulu on his way to Central America in May 1994 aroused the “victimization syndrome” throughout Taiwan, so much as that the visit to Cornell University in June 1995 was initially greeted with a chorus of joy and excitement at home.[23]  The PRC’s subsequent missile firings reinforced the “victimization syndrome” and gave Mr. Lee a comfortable majority over his three competitors.  At the same time, however, Taiwan’s “heart” and “mind” began to part their ways.

     The “later Lee” of post-1996 years seems to have followed his “heart” more than the “earlier Lee” of the early 1990s did.  He was by then definitely the man in charge. All other politicians, KMT or DPP, were his juniors who competed for his favors. So, at home, he set out to abolish the “Taiwan Province” (December 1996) and enlarge the presidential power to appoint a premier without prior approval of the LY (July 1997).  Armed with the secret fund, he could combat Clinton’s “three nos” with “the special state-to-state relationship.”  He also sought to slow down the capital outflow into the Mainland by enforcing the “go slow, be patient” policy.  And he could do all of these without full consultation with high-level government or KMT officials.  The launching of the new paradigm, in the form of the remarks about “the special state-to-state relationship”, is a good example.  As the picture now becomes more clear, it began as a NSC study commissioned by President Lee to Dr. Tsai Ing-wen in August 1999, just weeks after the “three nos” was made in Shanghai.  Funded by the secret fund, the study group, composed mostly of scholars who were not KMT members, and under the leadership of Dr. Tsai, also a non-KMT member, went on to study ways to “strengthen Taiwan’s sovereignty”. [24]  Before and after the conclusions and policy suggestions were presented directly to the President sometime in May 1999, no substantive consultations were made outside the NSC.  Apparently, President Lee  alone made the decision to use the occasion of the German radio interview on July 9 to make the pronouncement. [25]  The burden of the ensuing mini-crisis, however, had to be borne by the government and the KMT.  Thus, ironically, democratization in Taiwan led not to limited power and separation of powers, but increasingly to concentration of power in the presidency.

     When Mr. Chen Shui-bian assumed the Presidency on May 20, 2000, he inherited all the powers that Mr. Lee amassed for that office.  According to the pre-1990 Constitution, the President had only the power to oversee the “fundamental policies,” other than being the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.  So the two Chiangs and Lee led the government more through their position as the chairman of the ruling party, not as the head of the government.  That esteemed title belonged to the Premier.  After six rounds of constitutional revisions in the 1990s, the ROC President could pick the Premier without LY approval (Chen picked three in two years: Tang, Chang and Yu).  Because the Premier owes his job solely to one man, the President can thus make most, if not all, of the cabinet appointments.  Henceforth, he could govern directly through the Premier.  Furthermore, thanks to Mr. Lee’s swan song, the National Assembly was frozen in April 2000.  President need no longer go to the National Assembly once a year to report to and be questioned by the Assemblypersons, as Mr. Lee had done in the past decade.  He also need not face the press, as Mr. Chen chose to meet the press only four times in his first two years as President. President Chen could thus lead the government and let the Premier and other cabinet members take the heat from the LY, opposition parties and the press on his behalf.

     However, there is a crucial difference between Lee and Chen.  Although both were popularly elected, President Chen does not command the authority that Lee enjoyed during the 1996-2000 period.  Chen was elected only with 39 % of the popular vote.  He was not and has never been the DPP Chairman.  His relationship with the new Chairman Frank Hsieh has always been more competitive than collaborative.  Many DPP elites – mostly his peers and elders – were eager to share power and glory after the long-awaited electoral victory.  Until the end of 2001, the KMT still dominated the LY where the DPP only had one-third voting strength. Besides, he might have popular prestige, but as a new leader he had yet to establish his professional reputation as an effective manager of national affairs.  The sudden termination of the fourth nuclear power plant project nearly halved his popularity, from where he is still struggling to recover.

     When it comes to the Mainland policy-making, President Chen seems to be doubly inferior to the “later Lee.”  By 1996, Mr. Lee had accumulated enormous knowledge and first-hand experiences.  He had also built a loyal group of experts around him.  By contrast, President Chen was not anywhere nearly as knowledgeable and experienced, and he and the DPP as a whole were in dire need of talents.  So he had to borrow from outside the DPP.  As the most natural ally who shares the same “new paradigm,” Lee was invited to fill the void in the national security system with his loyal lieutenants who have since been serving in the NSC, the MAC, and a few other key positions.  The collaboration of the “two presidents” would presumably free Chen’s hands for domestic affairs, particularly his reelection campaign.  It also helps to ensure the continuation of the “new paradigm” initiated by Lee in 1999. 

Although President Chen has taken a low-key approach since May 2000, his inclinations toward the “new paradigm” seem to be more pronounced and more frequent in his second year as the President Chen than in his first year.[26] As said earlier, the “new paradigm” has as its core the assertion that “Taiwan is a sovereign country whose name, according to the present Constitution, is the Republic of China.”  So the treatment respectively given to “Taiwan” and “Republic of China” by the President himself on the National Day (October 10) of the ROC each year may serve a useful guide to the inner thinking of the President.  As Table 2 shows, not counting the ceremonial mentions in the very beginning (“Today is the National Day of the Republic of China”) and in the very end (“Long Live the Republic of China”) of the President’s National Day speeches each year, President Lee mentioned “Republic of China” or “China” 11 times on average each year between 1988 and 1995.  The number dropped to roughly 5 times each year between 1996 and 1999.  President Chen cautiously followed Lee with 5 times in his speech of 2000.  But on October 10, 2001, the official name of the country completely disappeared.  Instead, Taiwan (even Formosa) was mentioned 15 times, the highest point ever.  This trend seems to correspond exactly with the slide from 1991 paradigm to post-1995 tension and to 1999 new paradigm, as discussed earlier.

Table 2: National Day Speeches, 1988-2001[27]

     Recently President Chen has come perilously close to an open statement of the “new paradigm” when he told the Newsweek magazine that “no matter if you agree or not, whether you accept it or not, Taiwan is (already) an independent country…”[28] The fact that President Chen is still reluctant to lay open the new paradigm is probably due, Beijing and US factors aside, to his relatively weak internal position and the fact that Taiwan people’s “heart” still yields to the “mind.”  In the next few years, if his power and authority grows and the heart/mind balance tips in favor of the former, it seems likely that Taiwan’s Mainland policy will enter into a new stage.

Conclusion

     Taiwan’s Mainland policy has come a long way since 1987.  It was built from ground zero and evolved through the vicissitudes of tumultuous domestic political life. Because of its vital importance, too many fingers have tried to dip into the pie.  And the rules of the game were in such a fluid state that the observers – or even the participants – had to feel their ways toward a better understanding.  While this paper attempts merely to analyze the domestic determinants of Taiwan’s Mainland policy, leaving out any discussion of the Beijing and US factors, the separation may become increasingly unrealistic in the near future, because these two big-power factors, each in its own way, are apparently injecting themselves into the domestic Taiwan scene more forcefully than before. Taiwan’s elections, previously lauded as steps toward democratization, would henceforth be watched nervously abroad as harbingers of a new policy or paradigm.  Were the tail to wag the dog this way, Taiwan’s democratization would have really come with a twist.