The Canada Gambit: TheSlow Road to Taiwanese

independence.

Matthew ReinertCross Strait Relations

Professor I YuanJanuary 20th, 2014

Abstract: A lot of the current thinking surrounding the Taiwan straits issue posits only two possible outcomes. The first scenario is one where Taiwan is gradually ensnared in China's economic orbit and its people are seduced by Chinese culture and gradually lose their identity, leading to an eventual political unification. The only alternative scenario in this narrative is one where Taiwan declares formal independence “before it's too late,” resulting in a Chinese military response and a regional war that could involve the United States or even Japan. The oft cited evidence for these scenarios is the population size disparity, the economic size disparity, the military imbalance, and the increase in economic and travel ties across the strait. This paper seeks to posit a third scenario, one where Taiwan maintains the status quo for the foreseeable future which leads to an irreversible solidification of Taiwanese identity along with less and less hostility from the mainland side, ending in two countries who share a culture, a language, a history, and deep economic ties but are nevertheless irrevocably separate something akin to the current relationship between Canada and the United States.

In late 2013,Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a speech tothe Brookings Institution, saying, “Right now, cross-Straits relations enjoy a momentum of peaceful development. It is the common desire of people on both sides of the Straits to have peace rather than war, cooperation rather than confrontation, and exchanges rather than estrangement. Gradual integration of the two sides through two-way interactions and cooperation will lead to ultimate reunification. This is a historical trend that no one can stop.” More recently this view has gained credence not just in China but in the west. Realist theorists with balanceof power narratives look at the military disparity and conclude that Taiwan's position is hopeless. Liberal thinkers see the ever growing Chinese economy and realize that Taiwan will become less and less economically significant to the mainland. Finally, constructivists despair because Taiwan is shut out of all international bodies. This paper seeks to challenge the consensus view that Taiwan is destined to unify and posits a different scenario where Taiwan runs out the clock on China eventually leading to freedom.

The origin of the consensus view lies in the origin of the original split between Taiwan and the mainland. In late1945, the Nationalist army under Chiang Kai Shek was was ordered to Taiwan by General MacArthur to Taiwan to accept the surrender of Japaneseforces on the island. Though sovereignty wasn't formally transferred at this time, the Cairo Declaration of 1944 very clearly stipulated that Taiwan was to be returned to the Republic of China as part of the final peace treaty with Japan. As a result, Chiang Kai Shek started governing Taiwan as part of the Republic of China in 1946. In 1948, with the Civil War going worse and worse, Chiang Kai Shek started making formal preparations to move the government to Taiwan and to fortify it asa stronghold until such point as he was ready to retake the mainland.

Chiang Kai Shek's wartime allies like Britain and France quickly recognized the newly formed People's Republic of China andexpected Chiang Kai Shek to be finally defeated within a few years. President Truman and the United States were similarly ambivalent about the fate of Taiwan but they were planning to waituntil the ROC was finally and 'regretfully' defeated to recognize the PRC. In January of 1950, President Harry Truman gave a speech where he pledged that the “The United States Government will not pursue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil conflict in China. Similarly, the United States Government will not provide military aid or advice to Chinese forces on Formosa1” In their estimation, it was only a matter of time before the PRC mustered together sufficient naval forces to affect a successful invasion. Hainan was taken easily despite the Nationalists possessing absolute superiority in men and equipment. The completedefeat on the mainland and long years of close cooperation with the Chinese military had given American policy makers little faithin the ability of Chiang Kai Shek to mount a successful resistance. The United States was waiting for a fait accompli to recognize the PRC.

The invasion of South Korea in 1950 changed all of that. It became unacceptable to the American public to allow communism to advance further in Asia. The United States went from ambivalence towards Chiang Kai Shek to active military support, moving the US Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait thus making a Chinese invasion militarily impossible. Over the next decade, the US wouldpour massive amounts of money into Taiwan as military aid as well as pledge active support to Taiwan during the disputes over Jinmenand Matsu. The US also lobbied aggressively on the international stage to keep the ROC as the holder of China's seat in the United

1 (Truman 1950)

Nations Security Council. For the three decades after 1950, the United States was a primary reason why Taiwan was able to maintainits separation from the mainland. This period also established the policy that the US would safe guard Taiwan's separate status.

Following the recognition of the PRC in 1979 and the withdrawal of US troops, the US's official support of Taiwan became legally more ambiguous. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act which pledged that the US would protect Taiwan in the event of an attack from the mainland as well as continue selling weapons “necessary for their own defense” to Taiwan. As of now, the US recognizes the PRC as China and does not recognize an independent Taiwan. However, the Taiwan Relations Act is still in effect and the US continues to sell weapons to Taiwan which areinevitably met with protests from the PRC. The United States is also careful not to confirm or deny that Taiwan is still under US protection. When talked about today, the cross strait relationshipis often referred to as a “strategic triangle” with three parties:Taiwan, the PRC and the United States.

This paper will argue that this view is not an accurate description of the current situation and that it makes predictions and policy about Taiwan's future less accurate.

The PRC Perspective

The first part is the PRC perspective, US intervention prevented the PRC from invading Taiwan following World War 2. The legal claim to Taiwan rests on the PRC's claim to be the recognized successor state to the Republic of China, with legal jurisdiction over all of its territory and responsibility for its treaty obligations. Taiwan is recognized to be part of China and most of the world recognizes that all of “China” is under the jurisdiction of the government of the PRC. Under this formulation,Taiwan is a runaway province under a government with no legal standing.

As stated above, the PRC originally planned to settle the issue by force. Unfortunately for them, protection by the US made that impossible. The successive and unsuccessful Taiwan Straits crises made policy makers on the mainland rethink their approach to unification. China's opening under Deng Xiaoping helped. He wanted to rebuild China's economy and over 50% of China's foreign direct investment in the early years would come from Hong Kong andTaiwan. With that in mind, the PRC started talking more about peaceful reunification and less about forceful takeover. While they weren't formally renouncing the right to use force to settle

the Taiwan question, the PRC made it clear that this was to be a last resort.

Taiwan's turn toward democracy made the use of force as policytool more difficult for the mainland. Lee Deng Hui was a problem for the mainland. He was the first ROC president from Taiwan and he had a tendency to talk from a Taiwanese perspective. He angeredthe PRC by talking about the KMT being a “foreign regime” and saying that “Taiwan should belong to the Taiwanese” in a 1994 interview with Ryotaro Shiba.2 In 1995, Lee Deng Hui was invited togive a speech in the United States at Cornell. Previously, the United States had denied him a visa but this time the US congress came together to get him in. As a response, the Chinese military started staging military drills near Taiwan which resulted in President Clinton sending in two carrier groups to protest the Chinese action. At first the policy seemed to work to the mainland's advantage, the legislative elections of 1995 had seen the the pro unification New Party triple in representation with only a 3 seat increasee for the DPP.3 Despite being the head of thesupposedly pro unification KMT, the PRC government had begun to trust Lee Deng Hui less and less.

In 1996, the PRC enjoyed a stronger military advantage over Taiwan than they ever had before and the PRC attempted to influence the 1996 elections by firing missiles over Taiwan much as they had tried to influence the legislative elections. This waswidely seen as an attempt to bully the populace in the leadup to the 1996 elections.4 This was a contentious plan that was debated within the PRC a great deal. On the one hand, there were people like Jiang Zemin who emphasized his 8 points to Peaceful Reunification and that “Chinese will not fight fellow Chinese,5” and on the other there were military officials like Liu Huaqing and Zhang Zhen that suggested that any response from the US would be token and not seriously harm future Sino US relations. The planbackfired badly with the Taiwanese public becoming actively hostile to the PRC and any Taiwanese politicians who seemed to be supporting them. The two pro unification candidates on the ballot,Lin Yang-Kang and Chen Li-an, together only got less than a quarter of the vote. The election of Chen Shuibian in 2000 and 2004 further worried the PRC government because it alerted them tothe possibility that the DPP could actually win elections. It became important for them to consider how the PRC was viewed by

2 (Zhao 1999 p. 130) 3 (Lampton 2001 p. 325) 4 (Lampton 2001 p. 324) 5 (Lampton 2001 p. 77)

the Taiwanese electorate. This has lead to an odd situation that suggests that as the

military position of China vis a vis Taiwan and the United States has gotten stronger, the less and less they have been willing to use it. The PRC still reserves the right to use force but only because it serves as a check on the Taiwanese independence movement. In the PRC's estimation, the threat to use force helps marginalize the Taiwan independence movement by making the cost ofTaiwanese independence too high. Were Beijing to renounce the use of force, Taiwanese independence advocates might feel emboldened enough to actually declare independence, which Beijing would then be forced to respond to with the use of force. By keeping the use of force on the table, Beijing minimizes the likelihood that they will need to use it.6 The PRC does not want to unify Taiwan if it means leaving Taiwan a broken ruin.

The PRC policy has become to try to entice Taiwan into peaceful reunification under a One Country two systems framework as originally espoused by Deng Xiaoping and developed further under Jiang Zemin's 8 point proposal. The means to achieving this are not primarily military. The first pillar is increasing economic ties. China and Taiwan have had a productive economic relationship for nearly thirty years. The trade volume for 2012 was 168 billion US dollars.7 The introduction of ECFA and its passage on Taiwan was seen as a major milestone of economic integration and is often seen on both sides of the strait as evidence that China is maneuvering Taiwan closer to unification. While this relationship was initially purely market driven, it's been increasingly seen as the primary method that China seeks to use to promote reunification.8

The second part of China's strategy is tourism and the free flow of people across the strait. This is part of the Three Linkages strategy (三三）that dates back to the early 80's. In 2008, direct passenger and and cargo flights across the strait were restored.9 Along with this there has been an explosion of tourist industries that favor both sides of the strait. For example, Taiwanese hospitals are aggressively courting customers from the mainland to come to Taiwan for medical tourism.10 On the other side, Chinese travel agencies and locations are trying to get Taiwanese customers to come explore China as a leisure activity 6 (Zhao 1999 p. 135) 7 (“Statistics of Mainland-Taiwan Trade and Investment in January-December

2012” 2013) 8 (Keng and Schubert 2010 p. 289) 9 (“Expansion of Direct Flights Welcomed” 2008) 10 (Kuo 2012)

and not just for work. The last part of China's strategy is the continued diplomatic

isolation of Taiwan. While there has been an entente recently withChina refusing to allow Panama to shift recognition from the PRC to the ROC.11 The long term strategy has always been to force the ROC to use Chinese Taipei in international organizations and competitions and to prevent them from entering these organizationson their own terms.

One of theoretical assumptions behind this strategy is acculturation. Acculturation in this context is the Redfield definition “those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups”12 There is an assumption in Beijing that increased contact between Taiwanese people and peoplefrom the mainland will lead to a sharing of views and less fear and animosity. If Taiwanese people come to see and know mainlanders on a regular basis, then they will realize that their commonalities outweigh their differences and that this will make them more amenable to considering themselves Chinese. If they consider themselves Chinese, then it should make it easier for them to accept unification under a Chinese government.

Another theoretical assumption is that the economic integration will give China leverage over Taiwan. According to Chen Yuan Teng, there are two ways this could work, “economic sanctions (through disruption of economic benefits derived from trade and financial ties) and economic inducement (through provision of economic benefits from trade and financial ties).13” Both of these together could theoretically be used aspolicy instruments to coerce or entice Taiwan towards unification. The last assumption that the PRC is making, is that their threat to use force against Taiwan is credible. The One Country Two System framework is only acceptable to Taiwan if the PRC can promise that not accepting unification will lead to something worse. The PRC is offering the ROC complete autonomy on all internal affairs and the acceptance of them maintaining their own armed forces in exchange for a symbolic submission to the PRC. Theonly reason that Taiwan would consider accepting this is if they believe that not accepting will lead to worse terms in the future.The PRC believes that time is on their side as far as Taiwan is concerned and that they will get it back whether it takes 100 or 1000 years in the words of Deng Xiaoping.

11 (Beach 2011) 12 (Navas et al. 2005 p. 22) 13 (Tung 2003 p. 139)

The Taiwan Perspective

Because the Taiwan system is democratic with far more diversity, this section will examine how Taiwan originally developed than gradually moved away from the One China Policy as well as the differing views on independence exhibited by both the KMT and the DPP.

The original One China Policy dates back to the Chinese Civil War and its immediate aftermath. During this period, the KMT underChiang Kai Shek, was aggressive internationally about prevent foreign recognition of the PRC and was adamant that the governmenton Taiwan be referred to as China or Free China. He had the support of the United States when it came to making this policy a reality, but at the same time, the United States also prevented him from reengaging militarily with the mainland on two occasions.Chiang Kai Shek's offer to send soldiers to Korea was rebuffed anda planned 1960 invasion attempt was vetoed by the United States.

Domestically, the KMT enacted several policies designed to increase the amount of citizens who identified as Chinese. The legitimacy of the current ruling structure of the ROC then rested on an election that was conducted on the mainland in 1947 which Taiwan did not participate in. It was important that Taiwanese people start seeing themselves as Chinese to help build legitimacyfor the Republic of China government. Schools started teaching exclusively in Mandarin. Taiwanese was banned in official media. Chinese history and culture were heavily emphasized in schools andthe national media. The development of any regional or local identity in opposition to the Chinese one was actively discouraged.14

After the loss of US recognition, Chiang Ching Kuo engaged in a direct diplomatic contest with the PRC on the international arena. He fervently opposed dual recognition in international affairs and said that there was a fundamental contradiction between orthodox and heterodox.15 The Taiwan independence movement was also still banned. However, the aging of the KMT and the deathof Chiang Kai Shek had led to more and more native Taiwanese people joining the KMT.

The KMT changed it's emphasis on the One China Policy the mostafter Lee Deng Hui assumed power in 1988. The lifting of martial law anf the accompanying liberalizations made allowed previously jailed independence advocates to participate in public discourse. He also formally acknowledged an end to the period of communist

14 (Wachman 1994 p. 108) 15 (Zhao 1999 p. 139)

rebellion and admitted that the effective jurisdiction of the Republic of China was only Taiwan and a few outlying islands. In addition, he was very successful at institutionalizing the status quo by forming the Mainland Affairs Council and Strait Exchange Foundation in 1991. His largest breakthrough was the formation ofthe 1992 consensus with Beijing.16 As detailed in the earlier Chinasection, he would later become a strong advocate for Taiwanese independence and started hinting more and more about Taiwan's independence.

The 2000 presidential elections where Lee Deng Hui maneuvered to prevent James Soong from campaigning on the KMT ticket and put forward the less than stellar Lien Chan led many to suspect an intentional plan by Lee Deng Hui to maneuver the pro independence DPP into a win despite lacking a majority.17 His ouster as head of the KMT and his formation of the explicitly pro independence Taiwan Solidarity Union could be cited as further evidence signs that he intentionally promoted independence while paying lip service to the One China principle during his time in office.

The incoming Chen Shui Bian administration was more aggressiveabout promoting Taiwanese independence but the president was forced to accept the so called “Four no's and one without” due to Chinese pressure. In it, he essentially pledged to maintain the status quo across the strait and not seek independence through referendum. He would later break that promise in the lead up to the 2004 election by campaigning loudly on the idea of a referendum, but no referendum ever happened.

Instead, the DPP apparently believed in Ernest Gellner's firstdefinition of what constituted a nation, "Two men are of the same nation if and only if they share the same culture, where culture in turn means a system of ideas and signs and associations and ways of behaving and communicating.”18 The DPP designated Taiwanese as a formal language. They started teaching it in schools along with other non mandarin dialects. The history curriculum officially separated Chinese history and Taiwanese history. Chinese literature was considered “World Literature” as opposed to to something native to Taiwan. Chiang Kai Shek Memorialwas renamed to the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall in 2007.19 There were genetic studies commissioned to show that most modern Taiwanese citizens have ancestors who were Taiwanese indigenous peoples.

The interesting thing about Chen's stance and policies was

16 (Chao, Dickson, and Zhao 2002 p. 10 ) 17 (Chao, Dickson, and Zhao 2002 p. 21 ) 18 (Gellner 2008 p. 6) 19 (Wang 2009 p. 1)

that they represented an implicit concession to the PRC's justification for sovereignty over Taiwan. By trying to make the outward signifiers of nationality as different from the mainland as possible, the language and the shared ancestry, the DPP was tacitly admitting that the mainland was justified in considering Taiwan part of China if they continued to speak Mandarin and sharecultural characteristics with the mainland. It tried to cast the political dispute between the straits as an ethnic one and it was,at best, very limited in its success. It was a policy that by definition was guaranteed to alienate those who's ancestors came in 1949, or those who considered themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese.

The placing of the ethnic issue to the forefront also diminished the power of Gellner's second definition of “nation” "Two men are of the same nation if and only if they recognize each other as belonging to the same nation. In other words, nations maketh man; nations are the artefacts of men's convictions and loyalties and solidarities. A mere category of persons (say, occupants of a given territory, or speakers of a given language, for example) becomes a nation if and when the members of the category firmly recognize certain mutual rights and duties to each other in virtue of their shared membership of it. It is their recognition of each other as fellows of this kind which turns them into a nation, and not the other shared attributes, whatever they might be, which separate that category from non- members.20” A more successful and broader coalition for independence might have been built if the case for independence had been framed as the right ofTaiwanese people to form their own self governing polity due to political differences as opposed to ethnic ones.

In any case, the rapid fall of the DPP following the Chen's corruption charges restored the nominally pro unification KMT to power in the person of Ma Ying Jeou. At the same time as this election, two concurrent referendums on membership to the UN failed due to low turnout. President Ma was swept in on a landslide of 58% and like both candidates ran on a policy of maintaining the status quo along with closer economic ties to the PRC. In his inaugural address, he pledged, the three Noes which were No Independence, No Reunification and No War. Despite this pledge he is generally seen as being pro eventual unification and he is given credit for the increase in friendly cross strait relations.

In office, his biggest achievement was arguably the passage ofthe Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement. This agreement opened up vast amounts of the Chinese market in goods and servicesto Taiwan's companies while opening up a smaller portion of the Taiwanese market to China. It was also viciously contested by the

20 (Gellner 2008 p. 6)

DPP culminating in one of the most epic legislative fistfights in Taiwanese history. The implication that he's seen as pro unification was given further support when his election victory in2012 received warm congratulations from Beijing. Since then, therehave been moves towards normalizing and increasing ties like allowing mainland spouses to stay in Taiwan21 and opening up Taiwanese colleges to mainland students22. He's also increased the amount of entry permits issued to mainland Chinese tourists.23

For the DPP, the Ma years have been one of relative crisis. They remain in the minority legislatively and they accuse President Ma of being a Trojan Horse for Chinese interests, a playon his surname.24 The implementation of ECFA is lamented as the slow decline of Taiwan's economic independence and there has been a shift away from formal independence to emphasizing that the status quo already represents formal independence.

Within Taiwan, there is a fear or a consensus depending on what side of the political aisle one falls under that Taiwan has been put on the course to inevitable reunification. To quote a 2009 editorial, “Now, he [President Ma] is creating an irreversible trend toward unification using hypnotic slogans that entice the unwary. Once this goal’s foundations, such as an ECFA, are complete, Taiwan will be helpless when dealing with China and there will be no turning back..”25

The Ma Ying Jeou era policies have had results. Taiwan and China's bilateral trade continues to grow by leaps and bounds totaling 168 billion dollars in 2012. In 2012, 2.58 million tourists from the mainland came to visit Taiwan and hundreds of thousands if not millions of Taiwanese people live in the PRC. There has been rapid expansion of banking from Taiwan to the mainland with 12 Taiwanese banks opening up branches on the mainland.

Those who think that Ma Ying Jeou has put Taiwan on a path to reunification are operating under a certain set of theoretical assumptions much as their counterparts on the mainland are. The first is that increased economic ties will give the mainland irresistible leverage over Taiwan. Either in the form of sanctionsto cripple the economy or in terms of inducements that will cause Taiwan to sacrifice sovereignty to gain cash. An example often cited as the latter is the continuing purchase of fruit by the mainland from Southern Taiwan above cost26. In terms of sanctions,21 (三三三三三 2010) 22 (三三三三三三三三 2009) 23 (Lee 2013) 24 (Bush 2013 p. 116) 25 (“EDITORIAL:  ECFA: An Instrument of Betrayal - Taipei Times” 2013 p.1) 26 (Kastner 2011)

trade with China makes up the majority of Taiwan's exports. Were it to be interrupted, the consequences for the island's economy would be apocalyptic.

The second theoretical assumption is that the KMT is making the populace of Taiwan more pro China or somehow lessening the appetite for Taiwanese independence. The theory goes that, as longas the KMT is in power, Taiwanese people will see themselves as more and more Chinese, with the final culmination being reunification. This differs from the PRC's theoretical assumption as it sees the KMT itself and not continued contact with Chinese people as the primary driver of loss of identity.

The last bit of evidence for China's inevitable victory as brought about by the KMT is that people from the mainland will come and swamp Taiwan's population. There are more and more tourists every year. They recently gained the right to travel as individuals and not just in groups. Similarly, Taiwanese universities have started admitting students from the mainland. The law has also been changed to allow spouses and children from the mainland an easier path towards permanent residency and ROC citizenship. The assumption is that Taiwan's 22 million people will not be able to maintain their distinct identity against the mainland's far greater population.

The perspectives outlined for both sides share a lot of similar assumptions. Both of them are also not very hopeful for those who fear reunification with China. On both sides of the strait, the Ma administration is seen to be moving Taiwan towards unification faster than any previous president. American think tanks and strategists contemplate formally abandoning Taiwan to it's inevitable fate so as to improve Sino American relations. There is a tone of doom and gloom in American and Taiwanese policycircles as they contemplate their options in the face of ever increasing Chinese economic and military power.

The Theoretical Assumptions are Wrong

This paper aims to show that such talk is, at best, premature.The reason being that both sides are making theoretical assumptions that have thus far not been borne out by reality.

Let's examine the mainland's United Front strategy and their assumption that increased cross strait tourism and contact with the mainland will lessen Taiwan's distinct identity. On paper, it seems like a safe assumption. Unfortunately, for the PRC they overlooked one fatal flaw in their idea. It relies on Chinese tourists and people on the mainland making a good impression on

Taiwanese people. In reality, mainland tourists have become synonymous with

rude, low class, and unruly behavior as tourists. There was a story a few years ago about a mainland mother allowing her 4 year old son to poop on the floor in the middle of the Kaohsiung airport. There are complaints about Chinese patrons being loud andtaking off their shirts in restaurants. For Taiwanese people traveling to the mainland, they can't help but notice that there is more trash on the streets, more pollution in the air, and more people spitting everywhere. Even Chinese people visiting Taiwan have commented that Taiwanese people show better breeding and manners.

Instead of making Taiwanese people more likely to see themselves as Chinese, it's more likely to do the opposite. A possible prediction of what this process could mean for future Taiwanese attitudes is Hong Kong. Immediately after the handover, Hong Kongers were wary of the mainland, but were generally friendly to people from the mainland. Public opinion surveys conducted by Hong Kong University showed a steady rise in the amount of people self identifying as “Chinese” following 1997. It went from 20% to 38.6% in 2008, with a similar drop in the number of people self identifying as Hong Konger from 34.9% to 18.1%. However, as more and more mainland tourists came to visit, the better that Hong Kong got to know them, and the more they began toactively dislike Chinese people. In the next 5 years, the population identifying themselves as Chinese plummeted back down to 23% while “Hong Konger” shot up to 38.2%. 27 Similarly, in Singapore, the influx of people from the PRC has caused the phrases “Chinese” and “China” to take on negative connotations.28 If someone is accused of being “too China” in Singapore, it means that they are thought to be rude, shallow or stingy. The more direct cross strait to strait contact there is between the mainland and Taiwan, the faster familiarity will come to breed contempt.

The second theoretical falsehood is the idea that Taiwanese identity is decreasing. It isn't. According to the Election Study Center, the percentage of Taiwanese people identifying themselves as solely Taiwanese is 54.3%. That percentage has increased by at least 1 to 2% every year for as long as the poll has been conducted. It didn't matter what party was in power or what their policies are, Taiwanese identity has always increased and continues to do so, despite four years of KMT rule. This flies in

27 (“Categorical Ethnic Identity - Per Poll (18/6/2013)” 2013) 28 (“Ferrari Crash Fuels Singapore Anti-foreign Sentiment” 2013)

the face of the idea that KMT administrations are successfully altering Taiwan's self identity towards unification.29

Another important facet of Taiwan's identity is the acceptanceamong Taiwanese people that they are culturally Chinese but not politically Chinese. In February of this year, the polling firm AiPuluo released a poll on behalf of the Taiwan Competitiveness Forum, a pro unification think tank. The poll was trumpeted in themainland press for its conclusion that “61% of Taiwanese people see themselves as Chinese30.” However, these articles neglected theactual meaning of the poll questions as explained by vice president Qiu Bao Yi. He explained that this poll explicitly assumed that given a split choice between Taiwan and China that people will naturally choose Taiwan first, so this poll was dealing with the Chinese identity, in addition to, not as a replacement for the Taiwanese identity. Even this poll, though, shows worrying news for China. A second poll conducted only threemonths later using the same questions, showed that the amount selfidentifying as Chinese dropped by 2% to 59% while The amount of people considering themselves purely as Taiwanese went up from 35%to 37.6%31 from the first quarter to the second. While this is within the margin of error, if it represents a larger trend, that's still bad for the PRC's plans.

So people might say, fine, Taiwanese identity is not diminishing in the face of increased contacts with China, but surely Taiwan's security is permanently compromised by the increase in economic linkages? This assumption is also false. Theproblem is that the mechanisms of coercion are too difficult for China to use. Taiwan is China's sixth largest trading partner with168 billion dollars of bilateral trade in 2012.32 When taken at the level of the individual province Taiwan is often a much largerpartner. For example, cross strait trade accounted for over a third of Guangdong's international trade from 2011 to 2012.33 Taiwan is Fujian's fourth largest trading partner34 The Taiwanese company Foxconn is mainland China's largest private employer.35 At the same time, China's growth has been slowing with the most recent revision putting it at 7.5% for 2013, though it might go

29 (“Taiwaness / Chinese Identification Trend Distribution in Taiwan” 2012) 30 (“三三三三三三三三三三三三三” 2013) 31 (“Do We Consider Ourselves Chinese?” 2013 p.1) 32 (“Statistics of Mainland-Taiwan Trade and Investment in January-December

2012” 2013) 33 (“三三三三三三三三三三三三三三三三三三 34.7%” 2013) 34 (三 2013) 35 (Johnson 2013 p. 1)

lower.36 For the PRC to use its economic leverage over Taiwan in the

form of sanctions, it would have to significantly harm it's own growth. Think about the cost benefit analysis of a sanction policyfor the PRC and officials in the provinces. If they use sanctions,there are known and immediate costs in terms of lost growth, largeunemployment, international backlash (Would Apple be happy if Foxconn's assets were seized?,) and losing any good will that the PRC has spent years painstakingly cultivating on Taiwan. What would be the benefits for the mainland? There is no guarantee thata coercive policy would actually work to force unification, even though it would be devastating to Taiwan. The ROC has actually gone through the process of catastrophic economic collapse before in WW2 and the country didn't surrender then. In addition, even ifthe policy of coercion were to work perfectly, the immediate benefits would be small. No one official or interest group would gain much from Taiwan symbolically submitting to Chinese authority. However, the amount of people and provinces on the mainland who would be specifically harmed by enacting sanctions isquite large.37 This makes the threat of sanctions a paper tiger. The more Taiwan and China become interdependent, the less that China can credibly threaten to use it as coercion. Sanctions wouldundoubtedly cause far more pain on Taiwan than they would on Chinabut that's besides the point. The pain it would cause for China istoo much. As an analogy, when a bee stings a person, the person gets a little pain while the bee dies. This doesn't mean that people are eager to get bee stings.

The last reason that economic sanctions are unlikely is that the PRC has refrained from using them in the past even though theywould have suffered less pain and were dealing with greater provocations. In 1996 and 1999, the PRC explicitly threatened Taiwan with sanctions but they did not follow through. At that point, the PRC was less integrated with Taiwan than they are now, yet they were still unwilling to suffer that little bit of pain.38 The PRC was also quick to reassure Taiwanese businessmen that there investments were safe in China. That brings up a second point, according to Keng and Schubert, Chinese attempts to use Taiwanese businessmen in China as agents of unification are likelyto be unsuccessful. They have no formal structure and are not partof the central government. Any inducements or punishments would have to be negotiated through local officials who often enjoy pre

36 (“GLOBAL ECONOMY-Fear of Fed and China Slowdown Take a Toll” 2013) 37 (Keng and Schubert 2010 p. 300) 38 (Tung 2003 p. 141)

existing decades long relationships. This means that Taiwanese businesspeople are much more likely to be a guarantor of the status quo than a Chinese fifth column. According to Keng and Schubert, “Against much established wisdom among political activists in Taiwan, the taishang and taibao may be the best guarantors for Taiwan’s survival that one can imagine.”

The last theoretical assumption is that Beijing's threat to use force in the absence of unification is credible. From a military standpoint, China's advantage has never been greater. If China decides to commit to an attack on Taiwan, Taiwan can make itcostly but they can't stop it. In addition, the growing Chinese military strength makes the US unlikely to want to commit forces to stop a Chinese invasion as there is a great likelihood that such an action would bring significant casualties. Many senior US officials openly talk about the possible benefits of abandoning Taiwan.39 It's clearly only a matter of time before the PRC becomes impatient with Taiwan's dithering and forcefully reunites the island goes the narrative.

This is not the case because of two false assumptions. The first is that the primary reason that China doesn't attack is fearof US intervention. That was certainly the case in the past, but almost certainly not the case in the new millennium. The US has grown increasingly war averse following Iraq and Afghanistan40 and a shooting war with China is the last thing America wants to have.Couple this with the fact that most Americans can't tell Taiwan from Thailand and you have no reason that the United States ambiguous protection should be considered ambiguous.

The real reason that the mainland doesn't attack is that for better or worse Taiwanese people are considered Chinese. The threat to use force is specifically directed at foreign anti Chinese forces, not the Taiwanese themselves. This may not have been credible in the 1980's when the concept was first promulgatedbut since that point the PRC has specifically and repeatedly blamed Taiwan's pushes for independence on foreign forces, small minorities, or individual actors like Chen Shui Bian or Lee Deng Hui. At the same time, it's taught in schools that Taiwanese people are Chinese41 and emphasized in the the news that most Taiwanese people see themselves as Chinese.42

This directly conflicts with any attempt to wage aggressive war against Taiwan. As China moved away from communism, it turned 39 (Halloran 2011 p. 1) 40 (“Most Americans Do Not Want U.S. Involved in Syria: Reuters/Ipsos Poll”

2013) 41 (三 2012) 42 (“三三三三三三三三三三三三三” 2013)

to other ideas to justify it's rule. The most important was the material well being of its citizens, closely followed by the “meritocratic” government system and pure nationalism where love of the country must therefore equal love of the government.43 The problem with this is that it has erased the original ideological division that separated Taiwan and the PRC. For an aggressive war to be launched against Taiwan, the PRC would necessarily have to launch a war against a people who they've spent the last 20 years telling their own citizens are Chinese. A crucial part of of launching any war is the need to convince the citizenry that the enemy constitutes a dangerous “other” that is a material threat tothe polity. To do that, the PRC needs to put Taiwan “outside the scope of justice”. According to Opotow's moral exclusion theory, those outside “are morally excluded, beyond our moral concerns, and eligible for deprivation, exploitation, and other harms that might be ignored or condoned as normal,inevitable, and deserve have to create a moral exclusion where the people are seen as not worthy of consideration.”44 The necessary step of dehumanization needed to justify an attack on a morally excluded group has not happened on the mainland with regards to Taiwan. The mainland has pushed a narrative that Taiwanese people are Chinese which directly conflicts with a narrative needed to convince Chinese people that Taiwanese people are “essentially and morally inferior to one's own group?as inhuman or subhuman and thus not within one's realm of moral consideration.45” JiangZemin was adamant that Chinese should not kill fellow Chinese and any attack on Taiwan would result in this happening. This makes China's ability to issue some sort of deadline of using force if unification is not achieved less than credible.

A Future Scenario: The Canada Gambit.

This paper proposes that the most likely future scenario for Taiwan is in fact a continuation of the status quo followed by formal independence. This will be coupled with increasingly friendly ties with the mainland along with deep economic cooperation. The relationship will resemble the current one between the US and Canada.

Like the Taiwan and China, the United States and Canada were opposite sides of a civil war fought within Britain's North American colonies. Also like Taiwan and China, the relationship remained antagonistic for decades afterwards with the last

43 (Bell 2012) 44 (Opotow, Gerson, and Woodside 2005 p. 305 ) 45 (Maoz and McCauley 2008 p. 95)

conflict being the so called Pig War in 185946. Further similarities also exist. The US like China is far larger than Canada in terms of population. America also possesses a far stronger and larger military than Canada does. The two countries also share a language and a culture which has been getting closer for centuries. The two countries are also deeply economically intertwined with the US being Canada's largest trading partner by far. Furthermore, millions of Canadians and Americans cross the borders every year to live and work in each others country. If this relationship were analyzed using the same assumption as the cross strait relationship is, all of this would be conclusive evidence that the America's plan for peaceful unification with Canada is inevitably moving towards success. The 20th century has made people forget that, 100 years after the Revolutionary War, some Americans were still promoting a union between the United States and Canada. William Ellison said in 1891, “Time alone will prove to the Canadian people the advantages of union with this country, while a greater degree of information about Canada and her resources will surely incline our people in the same direction...I can say that the invitation given Canada a century ago to join her fortunes with the American Republic is still open, and that the child is born who will see it accepted.”47

This of course did not happen. This paper attempts to show that all of the existing rhetoric assumes that Taiwan and China will behave like a magnet. Getting closer and closer before the forces of culture and economics compel them to form a single political unit. But there is a much more likely alternative scenario where the two nations get closer economically and culturally, but then just stop. The United States and Canada are about as similar and economically intertwined as any two countriescan be, certainly more similar than Taiwan and China, yet that similarity, contrary to the conventional wisdom, does constitute an irresistible force towards unification.

The scenario that is more likely for Taiwan is that the statusquo will continue on in the short to medium term. Meanwhile, the longer term trends of increase in Taiwanese identity and habituation to de facto independence will continue on. The KMT andthe DPP will function with China in a sort of good cop/bad cop relationship. The PRC's fear of an electoral victory by the DPP will make them more conciliatory and exert less pressure on the KMT than they otherwise would. The continual exposure to mainlanders will make Taiwanese people more vocal about expressinga distinct identity, even as actual relations between the two

46 (Scholefield and Howay 1914) 47 (Ellison 1891 p. 9)

governments improve. Whether or not the KMT is doing it intentionally, their current policy of deeper cross strait ties are functioning like a slow play in poker against the mainland. A slow play in Poker is when the player holding a very strong hand bets passively and reactively in order to deceive an opponent intobelieving that the player has is holding a very weak hand continuein a pot. Small policy victories, like ECFA or the increasing amount of mainland tourists, serve to convince the PRC that their policy of peaceful reunification is having success. This persuadesthem that they should continue to use carrots instead of sticks with the government of Taiwan. This suits the government of Taiwanjust fine as it makes the status quo far more feasible economically. However, unification isn't actually making progress as the trends determining Taiwan identity are not actually diminishing or being altered. Taiwanese people may be more likely to admit that they are ethnically Chinese than before, but that doesn't actually change their political views. People on both sides of the strait continue to become more habituated to the status quo as does the rest of the world. The impetus for reunification cools down, the Chinese government continues to liberalize and eventually Taiwan's right to decide its own independence is no longer forcibly challenged.

This scenario could still be derailed by a few situations. Taiwan unilaterally declares independence in the short to medium term, which would force a mainland military response which Taiwan would lose. Taiwan tries to disengage from China economically. This would both reduce the incentives for local actors on the mainland to support the status quo and it would threaten Taiwan's own economic growth. Some economic catastrophe in China could cause the government to turn to extreme nationalism and revanchismfor internal legitimacy prompting aggressive moves against Taiwan.Fortunately, none of these seem likely

In conclusion, the status quo is far more sustainable than worried people in Taipei and Washington realize. Looking objectively, the Taiwanese government has maneuvered the mainland into a position where Taiwan gets preferential trade treatment, preferential tourism support, agricultural support and a host of other policies that make life on Taiwan easier in exchange for allowing the PRC to attempt to win hearts and minds on the island.Since the PRC has failed to do so for 25 years, it's a singular achievement that the Taiwanese administrations from both parties have managed to convince the mainland that the policy should be continued. If the PRC continues the policy, it will likely see a continued lack of success. All Taiwan has to do is not contradict

the PRC's assumptions about the effectiveness of their strategy while Taiwan runs out the clock.

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