4. A Constructivist Analysis of Recent Cross-Strait Relations, 2000-2011
4.3 Revitalizing the Rules: KMT Rule under Ma Ying-jeou, 2008-2011
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All in all, it is striking to see that the most obvious lines of differences did not anymore run between Taiwan and China as they did for the most part of the 1949-1999 era. Instead they could be situated within Taiwan, that is between the governing and opposition parties. No matter whether it was with regard to upholding the “one China” rule via the constitution, the “1992 Consensus,” or the idea of the Chinese nation – there were more commonalities between CCP and KMT as between KMT and DPP.
4.3 Revitalizing the Rules: KMT Rule under Ma Ying-jeou, 2008-2011
4.3.1 Taiwan's Status and the Republic of China ConstitutionIn May 2008 the KMT came back to power with Ma Ying-jeou becoming the 12th term president of the Republic of China. Similar to Chen Shui-bian, Ma Ying-jeou started on a set of commitments with regard to the general direction of Cross-Strait relations in his inaugural address, which became known as his “three noes” (san bu 三 不) pledge. This promise of “no independence, no unification, no use of force” (bu du, bu tong, bu wu 不獨, 不統, 不武),168 basically was a high-order enshrinement of the “status quo” rule, further flanked by his “diplomatic truce” initiative through which neither the ROC nor the PRC would continue to try to lure away each other's diplomatic allies.169 The prerogative to define what the “status quo” meant (at least within Taiwan) had now been passed on to the new democratically elected KMT government. Right from the start, speech acts by agents of the Ma administration were aimed at reverting the course of strengthening the normative authority of the Constitution. In May 2008, Ma stated in his inaugural address:
As President of the ROC, my most solemn duty is to safeguard the Constitution. In a young democracy, respecting the Constitution is more important than amending it. My top priority is to affirm the authority of the Constitution and show the value of abiding by it. Serving by example, I will follow the letter and the spirit of the Constitution […]170
Pledges to safeguard and to respect the Republic of China Constitution, or
168PO (20 May 2008): “Inaugural Address: Taiwan's Renaissance,” via: http://english.
president.gov.tw/Portals/4/FeaturesSection/Other-feature-articles/20080520_PRESIDENT_
INAUGURAL/e_speech.html (accessed: 2011-07-20).
169By the time Ma stepped into office, 171 countries recognized the PRC while only 23 had official diplomatic relations with the ROC. As of November 2011, there have been no further changes.
170PO (20 May 2008): “Inaugural Address: Taiwan's Renaissance,” via: http://english.
president.gov.tw/Portals/4/FeaturesSection/Other-feature-articles/20080520_PRESIDENT_
INAUGURAL/e_speech.html (accessed: 2011-07-20).
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commissive speech acts allows us derive certain information as to the new government's identity, especially in comparison with its predecessor. The DPP government originally wanted to amend the Constitution, not only because many of its members did not identify with a political entity called “Republic of China” (even after it had been defined as being “Taiwan”) but also for the practical reason that according to the Constitution the ROC includes the territories of two internationally recognized countries: the PRC and the People's Republic of Mongolia. “Affirming the authority of the Constitution” and “follow[ing] the letter and the spirit,” of it on the other hand also means to recognize the territorial assumptions that are made therein.
Quite obviously, the new government would not continue the course based on the
“one country on each side” framework.
That this was indeed the case became clear in a variety of assertive speech acts, that, touching on Taiwan's international status, were quite fittingly, conveyed in international media outlets. In an interview with the El Sol de México on September 2, 2008,171 Ma asserted that according to the ROC Constitution, there was only one state on its territory, that is, the Republic of China, and that therefore relations between Taiwan and China may be described as “special” but were by no means “state-to-state relations” (fei-guo yu guo guanxi 非國與國關係), an apparent reversal of Lee Teng-hui's 1999 “special state-to-state” formula. He also rejected the idea of the existence of “two Chinas” and asserted that the “special relationship” was one between the
“Taiwan Area” (Taiwan diqu 臺灣地區) and the “Mainland Area” (Dalu diqu 大陸地 區) of the Republic of China.172 When the Presidential Office was asked to clarify these statements, the spokesperson invoked the authoritative text of the Constitution or more precisely the 11th Amendment to the Constitution as well as the Statute Governing the Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area (Taiwan diqu yu dalu diqu renmin guanxi tiaolie 臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條 列) to highlight the presidential statement's formal authority.
One month later, in October 2008, President Ma again called on the Constitution to make a statement about the country's political identity by defining it over its
171The following quotes are translated from the original interview in the El Sol de México (2 September 2008): “Taiwan Promotes Reconciliation,” via: http://www.oem.com.mx/oem/notas/
n836891.htm (accessed: 2011-11-16). (Spanish)
172Although to be correct, the Constitution does not contain a reference to the “Taiwan Area,” it speaks only more generally of the “Free Area” meaning all parts of the ROC territory that are effectively administered by Taipei. It does, however, contain the term “Mainland Area.”
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territory. And again the interview was given in the international press, this time in the Japanese magazine Sekai (世界). Therein, the president reiterated that according to its Constitution, the Republic of China was an “independent and sovereign state” and added that “Mainland China is also a part of the territory of the ROC.”173 Taking both statements given in the international media outlets into account it becomes clear that by abiding by the ROC constitutional framework the Ma administration does not view
“Mainland China” itself as a country, and therefore by implication neither “Taiwan”
because both of them are only “regions” and as such parts of the overarching political structure called “Republic of China.” In this the new government's position is similar to that of previous KMT governments before Lee Teng-hui's state-to-state formula and a complete reversal of the Chen Shui-bian administration's preference to turn
“Taiwan” into a country in its own right with no jurisdictional and territorial claims over what is recognized by most states of the international community as PRC territory.
Just as the DPP tried and continues to try to convey its own ideology through a certain choice of words, Ma's pledge of upholding the Constitution requires certain language conventions in other areas as well, as can be derived from other instances when the government dealt with foreign political and media circles. One example was when in November 2008, the representative of Taiwan's Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), Jason Yuan ( 袁 建 生 ), reportedly wrote a congratulatory note to newly president-elect Barack Obama and signed this note with
“Republic of China” instead of “Taiwan.”174 This action would not be noteworthy in itself was it not a reversal of a practice by the former DPP government that tried to proliferate the use of the name “Taiwan” for the country. A second example was related to the choice of designation used for Beijing-controlled China. Whereas the international community usually refers to the “People's Republic of China,” many KMT officials shy away from using this name when addressing an international (or domestic) audience and instead use “Mainland China” (Zhongguo dalu 中國大陸),
“the Mainland” (Dalu 大 陸 ) or refer directly to the “the Chinese Communists”
173Quoted after Taipei Times (8 October 2008): “Ma Refers to China as ROC Territory,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/10/08/2003425320 (accessed: 2011-11-16).
A reference to the interview can be found on the magazine's website under http://www.iwanami.co.jp/sekai/2008/11/036.html (accessed: 2011-11-16).
174Taipei Times (7 November 2008): “Ma Congratulates Obama,” via: http://www.taipeitimes.com/
News/taiwan/archives/2008/11/07/2003427935 (accessed: 2011-11-16).
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(Zhonggong 中共). So also did head-of-state Ma Ying-jeou in a long interview with The Washington Post on December 9, 2008 when he used the above terms around 35 times without once mentioning “The People's Republic.”175 In early 2011, the president went on the offense to advocate during a meeting with government officials the idea of returning to the use of “mainland” when referring to the PRC.176 After being criticized by pan-green politicians for “denigrating Taiwan's sovereignty” the Presidential Office merely insisted that such a wording was based on the constitution and intended to “avoid confusion.”177 Yang Yi (楊毅), spokesman of Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office welcomed the comments and reiterated “[b]efore the two sides are unified, the fact that the mainland and Taiwan are part of China remains unchanged.”178 The reason for Ma's choice of words is, that if a high-positioned agent such as the president himself referred to a “People's Republic of China” this would be an implicit recognition of that state's legitimacy as well. Despite Ma Ying-jeou's proposition that Cross-Strait relations should be guided by a principle of “mutual non-denial” (xianghu bu fouren 相 互 不 否 認 ), a phrase that he has used since his campaign in 2007, this does not translate in mutual recognition, because the basic positions of CCP agents in Beijing and KMT agents in Taipei regarding each other's state's status does not allow for such a step. This became evident at a “Forum on Constitutional Interpretation” that was held in Taipei that same month. Here Ma asserted again, this time in front of a public and mostly academic audience, that:
Within the framework of our Constitution, I would define the Mainland as ‘Mainland region’ and Taiwan as ‘Taiwan region’ — this is what the Act Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area [...] is all about.
He went on to elaborate that: “According to our Constitution, we cannot recognize that there is another country on the mainland, which is part of the Republic of China.”179 In other words, the current government has adopted a position of “mutual
175The Washington Post (9 December 2008): “Transcript of Interview,” via: http://www.washington post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/09/AR2008120902788.html?sid=ST2008120902792&s pos= (accessed: 2011-11-16).
176Taipei Times (8 February 2011): “Ma Wants a Return to Use of 'Mainland,'” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/02/08/2003495360 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
177Taipei Times (9 February 2011): “Calling China the 'Mainland' is Based on Constitution: Lo,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/02/09/2003495441 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
178Quoted after: Taipei Times (24 February 2011): “Beijing Praises Ma's Use of 'Mainland' Designation,” via: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/02/24/2003496648/1 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
179Quoted after Taipei Times (22 December 2008): “Ma Repeats Region-to-Region Comment,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/12/22/2003431770 (accessed: 2011-11-16).
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denial of each other's sovereignty and mutual non-denial of each other's jurisdiction.”180 The frequent references to the Act Governing the Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area are not only meant to clarify the Ma government's position on Cross-Strait relations but serve the double purpose of creating a convention by pointing out the fact that a formal document had been in place even under previous governments despite their different ideologies. For example, when the president attended a Workshop on Mainland Affairs, which was attended by senior government officials in Taipei, he said:
The concept [of the Act] was introduced 17 years ago [1991] during Lee Teng-hui’s presidency and the former Democratic Progressive Party administration did not change it at all during its eight years in power.181
The president also used this opportunity to assert once more (this time in front of a different audience) that “[t]he free region [Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu] and the mainland area are part of the territory of the Republic of China” and “The Republic of China is a sovereign country, whose sovereignty has been independent since it was founded in 1912.”182 Also, in basically all of his important speeches, Ma resorted back to the older name of “Republic of China” instead of “Republic of China on Taiwan”
or simply “Taiwan” when referring to his country.
Emphasizing the Constitution does not yet in itself dispel the criticism of some pro-formal-independence proponents in Taiwan that question not only the Constitution but also the legitimacy of ROC rule over Taiwan in general. Proponents of this view that goes back to ideas of the Independence Movement that saw the KMT regime of the Cold War era as an “illegal immigrant regime” argue that 1) Taiwan had not been part of the ROC when it was founded in 1912, because the Qing government had given the island away after losing the First Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895) by signing the Treaty of Shimonoseki some 17 years earlier; 2) when Japan lost the Pacific War and was forced to renounce its claims over its former colonies (including
180Although, sometimes these lines wre blurred as in the case when the ROC's Ministry of Justice demanded legal jurisdiction over the mainland when Taiwanese allegedly committed crimes there.
(see Taipei Times (11 February 2011): “Taiwan Planning to Try Fraud Suspects If Repatriated:
MOJ,” via: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/02/11/2003495611 [accessed:
2011-11-20]).
181Of course, as mentioned in the previous section, since the KMT who is against changing this Act (or the Constitution for that matter) in a way that would favor the DPP's ideology, held a majority in the Legislative Yuan even during these eight years of DPP government, made changes to the act impossible without.
182Quoted after Taipei Times (29 December 2008): “Ma Sticks to ROC Constitution's Writ,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/12/29/2003432343 (accessed: 2011-11-16).
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Taiwan and Korea) in the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, the Japanese side had never specified that the recipient was indeed the Republic of China. Such a position would hollow out any legitimacy of the Constitution since it effectively portrays the ROC government on Taiwan after 1945 as a “foreign regime” or “government-in-exile.”183 In order to counter these claims, Ma Ying-jeou again made use of assertive speech acts to strengthen the Constitution's authority. During a ceremony at the Taipei Guest House in April 2009 he asserted that the Treaty of Taipei of April 28, 1952 confirmed “between the lines” that the ROC had become the legal ruler over Taiwan.184 For the new administration, even the Declarations of Cairo (1943) and Potsdam (1945), often considered to be mere “press releases” in pro-independence circles, were to be regarded as binding “treaties” in accordance with international law.185 Therefore, when the head of Japan's Interchange Association, Masaki Saito (齋 藤正樹), challenged that position in May 2009 by describing Taiwan's status on an annual meeting of the Republic of China (ROC) International Relations Association in Chiayi County as being “still unresolved,” he caused outrage among government officials and KMT members, although the US had voiced that same position back in 2007.186 And when in 2011, DPP legislator Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) called the ROC a
“past entity” or “government-in-exile,” Premier Wu countered that it was a state that had been in “unwavering existence” because its constitution has been kept until today and all of Taiwan's elections were based on it.187 Just as the validity of the Constitution, so too has this position regarding the legality of ROC rule since then been reiterated numerous times in the form of statements in order to increase its significance and normativity. While agents of the green-camp have never stopped
183The applicability of such terminology has been discussed in detail by several scholars, see for example STANFORD PROGRAMON INTERNATIONALAND CROSS-CULTURAL EDUCATION (2004): Introduction to Sovereignty: A Case Study of Taiwan and in particular HARTZELL/LIN: The Status of the Republic of China on Taiwan as a Government in Exile, via: http://www.taiwankey.net/dc/rocexile.htm (accessed: 20 November 2011). See also CHEN / HSUEH / LI / HU 2005.
184Taipei Times (29 April 2009): “Treaty Confirmed Sovereignty: Ma,” via: http://www.taipei times.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/04/29/2003442293 (accessed: 2011-11-16).
185Taipei Times (11 October 2010): “Taiwan Belongs to ROC: Ma,” via: http://www.taipeitimes.com/
News/taiwan/archives/2010/10/11/2003485094 (accessed: 2011-11-20); see also the statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Taiwan Today (5 September 2011): “MOFA Reaffirms Sovereignty Over Taiwan, Penghu,” via: http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=175313&ctNode
=454&mp=9 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
186Saito eventually resigned from his post in December that year after the KMT urged the Executive Yuan to declare him a persona non grata.
187Taipei Times (12 October 2011): “ROC Not an Exile Government: Wu Says,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/10/12/2003515524 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
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their criticism and time and again renewed their call for abolishing the old constitution in order to give Taiwan one that would be more suitable to its current situation,188 the KMT's agents such as the party's former chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳 伯 雄) have insisted that their interpretation was equal to “maintain[ing] the status quo.”189
For the preparation of his reelection campaign Ma's side came up with the slogan of “the ROC is our country and Taiwan is our home” calling both of them
“inseparable.”190 Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the DPP's presidential candidate, on the other hand, emphasized on National Day in 2011, that the DPP would go back to its older position that consisted of the assertions “Taiwan is the ROC, the ROC is Taiwan, the ROC government today is the government of Taiwan.”191 This moderate statement caused a stir within the pan-green camp and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) contradicted it, saying that “Taiwan is Taiwan. It is a de facto independent country.
The TSU always maintains that what Taiwan really needs is name rectification and a new constitution.”192
Since the China visits of Lien and Soong in 2005, a rapprochement between the KMT (or pan-blue camp in general) and the CCP was on its way. The government's reorientation after Ma Ying-jeou stepped into office must have additionally struck a chord with China. For strengthening the “one China” rule, China not only seemed to have agreed to the diplomatic truce proposal,193 it also gave Taiwan a little additional international space by letting it participate in the WHA as an observer (under the name “Chinese Taipei”) since 2009. Such a conciliatory approach had been announced in Hu's “six points” on December 31, 2008 in which the Chinese President called for “Taiwan's 'reasonable' participation in global organizations.” Most notable
188See Taipei Times (22 March 2011): “Lee Calls for Constitution to be Scrapped,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/03/22/2003498790 (accessed: 2011-11-17).
189Quoted after Taipei Times (29 March 2011): “KMT Is Not Selling Out Taiwan, Wu Poh-hsiung,”
via: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/03/29/2003499387 (accessed: 2011-11-17).
190Taipei Times (30 October 2011): “Ma Campagins For Veterans' Day Votes,” via: http://www.taipei times.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/10/30/2003517039 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
191Taipei Times (11 October 2011): “Tsai Attends Flag-raising Ceremony in Tainan,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/10/11/2003515461 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
192Taipei Times (12 October 2011): “Hornets' Nest Continues to Buzz After Tsai Comments,” via:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/10/12/2003515526 (accessed: 2011-11-20).
193Although it should be noted that its embrace of the “mutual non-denial” formula has been questioned by leaked diplomatic cables: Taipei Times (11 September 2011): “China does not
193Although it should be noted that its embrace of the “mutual non-denial” formula has been questioned by leaked diplomatic cables: Taipei Times (11 September 2011): “China does not