In order to achieve its strategic objectives for Taiwan, namely "solving the Taiwan question and achieving national reunification," Beijing has decided on three major issues in its battle of rhetoric. They are: the one China principle, Chinese nationalism, and China's peaceful development (or rise). These three major issues form a united front against China's domestic population, Ta i w a n , and the international community. We can elaborate on these issues further:
1. The One China Principle
1.1 The one China principle is China's strategic framework for its Taiwan policy.
"one country, three systems," or "one country, N systems" depends on whether or not Taiwan's actions can satisfy Beijing. If the "nation" is not reunified peacefully, and instead uses non-peaceful means to take back Taiwan, Beijing's style of gov-ernance over Taiwan will depend entirely on Beijing's mood. Taiwan is given only this binary choice. Other potential models for the future political status of Taiwan are eliminated as possibilities, from the confederation model, the commonwealth model, one China under one roof, and the two Germanies model, to the EU model. Beijing adamantly opposes all of these.
4. Copying Half of the War Laws of the United States
The word "secession" in the English translation of the Anti-Secession Law has particular historical significance for Americans, and it strikes a sensitive nerve in American society. The American Civil War began after eleven Confederate States announced independence from the Union in 1861. Since that time, when American legal and history textbooks discuss the national split, they use the term "secession." This term does not only mean "withdrawal" and "sepa-ration;" it also has connotations of treason.9Beijing uses this translation to show the US that the CCP is trying to crush a sort of "traitorous," "secessionist" behav-ior on the part of Taipei. Beijing hopes that if it compares this situation to the American Civil War, the US will not apply a double standard by opposing Beijing.
However, there is no comparison between current cross-strait relations and the American Civil War of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, it was the CCP, not the KMT government, who split China and caused the cross-strait status quo. If we want to accuse one side of splitting China, it should be the CCP, not the ROC on Taiwan.
In addition, when drawing up the Anti-Secession Law, Beijing even adopted part of the spirit of the US' War Powers Resolution of 1973. According to this law, if American soil or armed forces are attacked, the President shall declare war, but he must seek the approval of Congress within twenty-four hours. If Congress opposes his decision, Congress can require the US military to withdraw within sixty to ninety days. On paper, the War Powers Resolution gives equal power to the President and Congress, but in reality, the President still holds a great deal of
Simply speaking, the issue of the one China principle is the issue of China's desire to unify with Taiwan. During the era of KMT rule, whether it was on moral grounds or a more basic position, the KMT could not deny the issue of unifica-tion. This position was skillfully turned into the one China principle, which became the framework for interaction with China, a framework that imposed all kinds of restrictions on Taiwan, tying its hands and feet, and one that has been difficult to breach. China's strategy of creating the one China principle, but then refusing to engage in discussions over its content, is primarily a way of maintain-ing the strategic high ground in negotiations. On the surface, China's rationale is that a "principle" is abstract, so it is unnecessary for both sides to discuss its sub-stantive content; they just need to accept it. As soon as the other party accepts the principle, that party has given Beijing the authority to define, change, and explain the content of that principle, and to criticize and even punish the other party for violating it.
When Taiwan faces the issue of the one China principle today, it needs to clearly understand the nature of this issue, lest it fall into China's trap.
2. Chinese Nationalism
2.1 The surge of Chinese nationalistic sentiment has some objective elements.
Nationalism was originally the "nuclear weapon" of countries that suff e r e d poverty or had been invaded. However, domestic and international events in recent years have given China a prosperity that it has never before experienced.
China faces no foreign threats or divisive domestic conflicts, and it reaps the ben-efits of its economic reforms. China is not impoverished and has not been invad-ed, but nonetheless, the aforementioned events have caused nationalistic senti-ments to surge among the Chinese people. While this development is difficult to imagine, it is not without its reasons, which are summarized below:
2.1.1 Since China's economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping, China's social-ist ideology has experienced three "crises of confidence." The June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident announced the bankruptcy of socialism as the basis The one China principle is China's strategic framework for its Taiwan policy,
and China applies it at all levels when dealing with Taiwan. For example, interna-tionally, China constricts Taiwan's space for diplomacy and existence, and gives the Taiwan problem a domestic status. Domestically, China uses the protection of its sovereignty and territorial integrity as an excuse to consolidate the authoritari-an rule of the CCP within China. In cross-strait relations, China denies Taiwauthoritari-an's legal system and jurisdiction as a basis for cross-strait negotiations, and it restricts Taiwan's strategic framework for negotiations. For example, China has declared time and time again that Taiwan must accept China's definitions of the 1992 Consensus and the one China principle in order to resume cross-strait negotiations. This is China's method for applying the one China principle frame-work to cross-strait negations.
1.2 The one China principle is China's policy tool for controlling the entire process and outcome of negotiations.
A great deal of experience in negotiating with China has shown that, at first, China will find a way to persuade the other party to agree to several seemingly innocuous, inconsequential principles, but it will not define the substantive con-tent of these principles. This tactic can facilitate smooth negotiations with few objections or can leave the other party with no way to object on the basic grounds of its position and morals. If the other party accepts, it is trapped, because this becomes the framework that China uses to control the entire process and outcome of the negotiations. Throughout the negotiations, China will bring up these principles to attack the other party, accusing it of violating these basic principles or the "spirit" of these basic principles. "Spirit" really has no meaning here, and it is used purely to attack or shame the other party. It is meant to frame the other party as the guilty party that broke the negotiations, or to put pressure on the other party to make it at least partly responsible for breaking negotiations.
1.3 China has a monopoly over the authority to define, reform, and explain the content of the one China principle, and over the author-ity to criticize and even punish the other negotiating party for vio-lating this principle.
nationalism, however, possesses qualities that are quite different from those of the nationalism of the past:
2.2.1 Nationalism has become the most important message of the CCP's current administration: The tighter political atmosphere that followed the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident caused Chinese society to engage in discussions of new conservatism and patriotism. Through Beijing's support and encouragement, the specter of nationalism appeared in the air once more. After thirteen years of guidance under Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao has now made fanning the flames of Chinese nationalism the ultimate goal of his own administration.
2.2.2 Nationalism is a synonym for patriotism: Beijing skillfully equates nationalism with patriotism, and moreover, with patriotism for the "nation led by the CCP." Faced with a notion of communism that is growing more hollow by the d a y, and with a notion of socialism that has changed beyond recognition, the basis of China's ideology has been stripped down to mere nationalism. China attempts to use traditional thinking about loyalty and patriotic sentiment to justify patriotism, reaffirm that Confucian culture is the spirit of the nation, emphasize China's memories of its era of "national humiliation," and rekindle people's senti-ments about saving the country, all so that the people will love their nation led by the CCP.
2.2.3 China wants to become a representative of East Asian national-ism: In the post-Cold War era, China has gradually shifted the target of its nationalist identity from the Third World onto Asia, or the development of East Asian nationalism. As an Asian country, China boldly tries to market itself as a model of success for Asian nationalism, but the "rise of Asia" really means the
"rise of China" here. Asian nationalism belongs to the Third World, and it is an Eastern nationalism. Therefore, on one hand, it contains an anti-Western ele-ment, reflected in the idea that "Asia belongs to the Asians." On the other hand, it uses East Asian culture to represent traditional Asian culture. This is one of the important characteristics of the development of current Chinese nationalism.
2.3 China uses nationalism to isolate democratic free thinking.
of the Chinese government's legitimacy. Patriotic movements followed the inci-dent in order to fill China's ideological void.
2.1.2 China learned an important lesson from the collapse of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Poland: the collapse of political legitimacy is more dangerous than social stagnation. Nationalism thus became a weapon for elimi-nating that risk.
2.1.3 In the post-Cold War era, confrontation over ideology has been replaced by confrontation over the interests of nationalistic countries. While Western countries used to call it "Communist China," they now simply call it
"China," changing its status into that of a nationalistic country.
2.1.4 China's economic reforms have produced tremendous results, bring-ing forth a surge of economic power and turnbring-ing China's economy more and more into a capitalist market economy. This change gave China's economy capi-talist expansionist and aggressive qualities. In China's eyes, this capicapi-talist expan-sionism requires nationalist theory to justify its legitimacy and rationality.
2.1.5 Over the past twenty years, China's economic reforms have made great achievements. They have created remarkable economic growth and increases in the quality of life for the Chinese people, and they have strength-ened China's nationalist self-confidence. As a result, China now expresses more nationalist pride to the outside world than it did previously.
2.1.6 The economic reforms have also caused conflict in China's politics, e c o n o m y, and society to increase, creating a crisis of nationalist identity and enticing China to emphasize nationalism as a way to solve this crisis of identity.
2.2 The nature of Chinese nationalism
China's current nationalism bears obvious differences from its nationalism in the past. For example, during the time of the Hsinhai (or Xinhai) Revolution, Sun Yat-sen promoted nationalism in order to drive out the Manchu Qing Dynasty, reestablish a China with the Han people as the dominant ethnic group, and to handle the problem of invasion and division by foreign powers. The current
in increasing numbers to use force against Taiwan. A large number of online forums and posts now reveal an animosity towards Taiwan that no longer echoes merely the sentiments of certain political leaders; it has changed into the percep-tion that Taiwan "does not want to unify with China and is focusing on Ta i w a n independence." "Taiwan" is now practically another word for "relying on the pro-tection of foreigners, dividing the nation's territory, and betraying the national interest."
3. Peaceful Development (or Rise)
On November 3, 2003, Zheng Bijian, former Deputy Director of the CCP's Central Party School and currently Chair of the China Reform Forum, delivered an address at the Boao Forum for Asia, entitled "The New Path for China's Peaceful Rise and the Future of Asia." In this speech, he was the first to bring up the concept of "China's peaceful rise." In December of the same year, Premier of the State Council, Wen Jiabao, expressed during remarks on a visit to the US that China had chosen a path of "peaceful rise and development." Leader of the PRC Hu Jintao expressed a similar viewpoint during a commemorative forum on the one hundredth anniversary of Mao Zedong's birth. Suddenly, the so-called
"peaceful rise" theory seemed to turn into the guiding philosophy for China's diplomacy in the new century. In fact, there is still some internal dispute over the peaceful rise theory within China; the central leadership of the CCP, all branches of government, and Chinese academics all have different thoughts on this issue.
Therefore, after June 2005, the Chinese leadership stopped mentioning the word
"rise," although this term is still very popular among Chinese academics. The pri-mary reasons are as follows:
3.1 The "China threat theory" and the "China collapse theory"
In promoting the peaceful rise theory, China's intention is to use the term
"peaceful" to refute the "China threat theory" and use the term "rise" to refute the
"China collapse theory." This wording is primarily directed at China's neighboring countries and the international community. On one hand, China hopes to have a peaceful environment so that it can focus entirely on its economic development.
On the other hand, China hopes the theory of its peaceful rise can allay its neigh-After more than twenty years of economic reform, the basic contradictions in
China's thinking and ideology are erupting one by one. At the root of these con-tradictions is the issue of the democratization of the Chinese regime. It has been true for some time that the reforms in the economic system demand correspond-ing reforms in the political system, but Beijcorrespond-ing is not willcorrespond-ing to take large steps towards political reform. Instead, Beijing attempts to use nationalism to conceal various economic and social conflicts, creating a strange state of affairs. The cur-rent swell of nationalist sentiment is not caused by a strong nationalist identity. It is actually caused by the fact that the survival of China's nationalism faces a seri-ous crisis, urging China to react by lifting high its banner of nationalism.
2. In raising the banner of patriotism to create a united front against the outside world, China's primary target is Taiwan.
Under the slogan of patriotism, current cross-strait problems can be classi-fied as problems of the "great task of reunifying the motherland." If Taiwan does not unify with China, then "Unless and until this state of affairs is brought to an end, the trauma experienced by the Chinese nation will not be remedied and the Chinese people's struggle for national reunification and territorial integrity will continue." China mistakenly defines the cross-strait division of political authority as the problem that Taiwan has yet to be taken back. This unification strategy of appealing to nationalism is not just meant to persuade the people of Taiwan; it is also meant to call on the people of China. Nationalist rhetoric like "cooperation, not separation," "increased benefits with solidarity, increased suffering with sepa-ration," and "after brothers have weathered the storm together, they may smile and rid themselves of hatred," appears frequently in Chinese periodicals and academic publications.
2.5 The demonizing of Taiwan under Chinese nationalism
Before 1996, China's patriotic propaganda against Taiwan emphasized the increased benefits of solidarity through talk of "national solidarity" and "sharing in national prosperity." After 1996, it changed as China focused on the negative side by sending punitive expeditions against Taiwan with terms like "national criminals." Chinese netizens have even been calling on the Chinese government
3.3 China's "peaceful rise" and the "Taiwan problem"
China views the Taiwan problem as a domestic issue that must be solved during the course of China's peaceful rise, and it perceives the Taiwan problem to be the biggest and most important obstacle in the course of its peaceful rise, so properly handling this problem is an important condition to successfully achieving China's peaceful rise. However, China's peaceful rise is a rise within the context of China's geopolitical strategy, which has two important implications: one is that China must take the path of peaceful development and not threaten others; the other is that China must protect itself against invasion. The Taiwan problem has been classified as a domestic affair, and so it falls within the scope of the second implication. As such, it does not fall into the "peaceful rise theory" category, and so China does not pledge to give up non-peaceful means to solve the Ta i w a n problem.