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Costs are too high in
KMT-CCP relations
By Margot Chen ³¯ÄRµâ / On June 7 and 8, US President Barack
Obama and Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretary General
Xi Jinping (²ßªñ¥) held a two-day summit in California, during which Xi expressed
his wish that the two countries could establish a ¡§new type of relationship
between great powers.¡¨
Xi reminded Obama that the Pacific Ocean was big enough for them both.
Beijing has a two-fold intention here. First, it wants to promote China¡¦s
international status from just one of many powers to a ¡§new type of great power¡¨
on a par with the US itself.
Second, it views the Pacific as merely the starting point in this new
relationship and has its eyes set on replacing the US¡¦ primary status in the
Asia-Pacific region, with a new joint-primacy shared between Beijing and
Washington.
This joint-primacy will naturally involve sovereignty issues over Taiwan and the
Diaoyutai Islands (³¨³½¥x).
Also, China is keen to avoid the global responsibilities it has inherited as a
partner in the current order it shares with the US, preferring to concentrate
its efforts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Competition in the region between China and the US is set to constitute
challenges of increasing complexity for Taiwan and it must be careful not to
become one of China¡¦s core interests within this scenario.
Not one week after the Obama-Xi summit, former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (§d§B¶¯) met Xi in Beijing on Thursday and reiterated where
the KMT stands with regards to Taiwan.
Wu said cross-strait relations were not state-to-state relations: they were a
special relationship.
The KMT then brought up a seven-part proposal for promoting cross-strait ties,
including furthering political, economic, financial and cultural exchanges and
building a national identity.
Reading between the lines, the goals ¡X and the problems of the proposal are as
follows: First, the KMT wants to confirm to the new Chinese leadership and its
own membership the idea of a political ¡§one China¡¨ as an alternative way to
solve the nation¡¦s current economic malaise.
It does appear that the party is continuing along its well-trodden path of
relying on China to get Taiwan out of its economic difficulties.
However, the question is whether such as solution is really that simple. Serious
doubts have been cast on the continued economic reliance on China as the key to
the nation¡¦s economic woes.
According to a survey published in the latest edition of Forbes magazine,
Taiwanese salary levels rose a paltry 0.9 percent in the decade from 2000 to
2010.
Yet this was the very decade in which Taiwan opened up most to China, when it
was the most brazen and unguarded in its willingness to engage with China. A
causal relationship between the two would be expected.
Finally, the ¡§one China¡¨ framework has percolated through from the more
substantial political and economic levels into the more esoteric levels of
culture and national identity.
Dealings between the two countries benefit both sides and that national goals
and interests are at the forefront when formulating policy.
However, it is difficult to see just how the allowances the KMT is making in
these talks with Beijing are going to benefit Taiwan.
If the party is simply greasing the wheels for a better relationship with
Beijing, the cost is likely to be too high.
Truth be told, the furthering of a KMT and CCP relationship is more about the
ideological point of unification and little to do with improving Taiwanese
national interests.
Margot Chen is a member of a think tank.
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