The Perception of China Threat
4.1.3. The Strategy to Cope with Threat
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by Chinese government to integrate Taiwan.91 The first one is what he termed as coercive option and the later is the capture option. He suggests that the first option is more preferable than the later.92 Furthermore, Joel Wuthnow argues that since 2001 China has been implementing an integrated strategy that includes both cooptation and coercive options.93
China’s decision to adopt new policy initiatives to peacefully settle the Taiwan issue –that dated back in 1980s– resulted in doubt among Taiwanese leaders regarding Chinese intention to use force.
The result of such integrated strategy is still on hold.
94 The 1995-1996 missile crises raised an alarm for Taiwanese leaders to once again consider Chinese intention to use force. Since then, diverse observations over the possibility of Chinese use of force grew. This differing opinion among civilian groups resulted in different opinion on what would be the best strategy to cope with China threat.
4.1.3. The Strategy to Cope with Threat
The military threat that came from China is not the only dimension of China threat.
China is also considered by Taiwanese decision makers as having economy and political/diplomatic threat to Taiwan. The strategy to cope with China threat is
91 Andrew Scobell, “China’s Military Threat to Taiwan in the Twenty-First Century: Coercion or Capture” in Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai, Taiwan’s Defense Reform, pp. 29-40.
92 Scobell suggests that the capture option is only possible if three preconditions are met. Those are keeping actual fighting and war damage to a minimum, keeping the duration of the conflict brief, and keeping operational requirements manageable. Ibid, pp. 33-35.
93 Wuthnow’s coercive is similar with Scobell coercion option. Wuthnow’s understanding of
cooptation refers to “economic and political stratagems designed to attract support for the PRC position among various Taiwanese constituencies.” Joel Wuthnow, “The Integration of Cooptation and
Coercion: China’s Taiwan Strategy since 2001” in East Asia 23: 3 (Fall 2006), pp. 22-45.
94 Chase, Taiwan Defense Policy, p. 157.
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depending on which threat is considered as urgent and most likely to take place. The decision is subject to parties’ priorities, needs and interests.
The economic dimension of China threat is mainly focusing on Taiwan’s over dependence on Chinese economy. As suggested earlier, China is using economic interdependence, or dependence, as one important tool in integrating Taiwan with the Mainland. The data indicates that there was actually growing economic ties across the Strait of Taiwan. The increasing ties were not only in numbers of trade and investment flows but also in characteristic of industries. Taiwan businessmen are not only investing in labor-intensive industries as they used to do but also investing in technology-based industries. These developments create a fear of the hollowing out of economy.
There are, however, disagreements over the extent and consequences of such dependency. Some suggests that the hollowing out of economy is actually not taking place in Taiwan. What happened is simply a deindustrialization which is a natural result of economic fatigue in Taiwan. The removal of technology-based industries from Taiwan to China is limited to that of low-tech industries. Taiwan is still keeping the research and development in the island that makes China industries in the tail of Taiwan and not the other way around. To settle the problem of deindustrialization, Taiwan government needs take several steps to upgrade its industries.
Another debate also appears concerning the consequences of these growing ties. Some afraid that China is going to use economic leverage as weapon to integrate Taiwan to the Mainland in several ways such as using sanctions, compelling Taiwan to make political concessions by threatening Taiwan investments in and trade with China, blocking Taiwan from regional economic integration, isolating Taiwan from the geo-economic order, or taking advantage of the limited state capacity to manage
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internal cohesion.95
The debates over the extent and consequences of economic threat from China have been able in splitting civilian in Taiwan into two different camps. This division is somewhat following the political positioning of Taiwanese political parties. The pan-green camp tends to exaggerate, or at least concerned with, the real threat from and consequences of economic threat from over dependence to Chinese economy while the pan-blue less concerned with.
The last three strategies, I would say, are worth attention since they create division within Taiwan society that goes in line with political ideology rivalry.
Another worthy attention dimension of China threat is the diplomatic isolation.
Since the US shifted their recognition from Taipei to Beijing and Taiwan lost its UN seat, the Chinese government has been actively isolating Taiwan from international space. Taiwan was not only losing its position in various international organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, but also losing allies due to extensive Chinese diplomacy. The diplomatic rivalry between the two is evident in both bilateral and multilateral relations.96
95 Chyungly Lee, “Cross-Strait Economic Ties and Taiwan’s Economic Security: An Analytical Framework from a Nontraditional Security Perspective” in Issues and Studies 43: 1 (March 2007), pp.
189-216. On the first two fears see for example Chen-yuan Tung, “Cross-Strait Economic Relations:
China’s Leverage and Taiwan’s Vulnerability” in Issues and Studies 39: 3 (September 2003), pp. 137-175.
The “one China policy” is the main source of the rivalry between the two countries in which China has been actively forcing many states to adopt such policy. Samuel Ku suggests that Taiwan should adopt three
96 See for example Thomas V. Biddick, “Diplomatic Rivalry in the South Pacific: The PRC and Taiwan” in Asian Survey 29: 8 (August 1989), pp. 800-815 or Samuel C.Y. Ku, “Taiwan’s Diplomatic Maneuvers in the Asia-Pacific: A Perspective of Complex Interdependence” in Issues and Studies 34: 6 (June 1998), pp. 80-97 or Robert R. Ross, “Explaining Taiwan’s Revisionist Diplomacy” in Journal on Contemporary China 15: 48 (August 2006), pp. 443-458.
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strategies of seeking full involvement in the areas of economic issues, developing bilateral interactions, and participating of activities in INGOs as a way to break Chinese isolation.97
The diplomatic dimension of China threat is also capable of creating quarrel among civilian in Taiwan. An example of this would be Taiwan’s World Health Organization (WHO) memberships. This issue creates sharp disagreement within civilian camp in Taiwan which parallel with political rivalry between pan-blue and pan-green camps. Taiwan’s recent success in becoming an observer in World Health Assembly meeting, the highest body of the WHO, is under criticism from pan-green over the naming of Chinese Taipei and the fact that the invitation is available only under the consent of Chinese government. Such criticism shows that the main problem with the issue is within Taiwan border and not necessarily on cross-strait relationship.
From those three strategies, however, only the first strategy is likely to succeed. Taiwan successful bid of WTO membership is one of the success stories of the implementation of strategy. Nowadays, Taiwan is giving full concern on the economic regionalization in Asia-Pacific in order not be excluded from such regional economic cooperation.
In conclusion, the following table shows the indicators that I would use to analyze the congruency of China threat perception among civilian groups in Taiwan.
Since there is no disagreement over the actual threat that might came from China, I will not give a significant portion for this issue.
97 Ku, “Taiwan’s Diplomatic Maneuvers in Asia-Pacific,” p. 97.
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Table 4.1. Framework on the Congruency of China Threat Perception among Civilian Groups in Taiwan
Indicators Category
Identification of threat The actual threat Exist
Not exist The intention to use force Likely
Unlikely
The strategy to cope with the threat Economy
Political/Diplomatic Military
4.2. Assessment
As already mentioned in Chapter 2, most assessment on civilian control –or civil-military relations– in Taiwan is giving a particular importance to domestic politics or identity politics as factor that explain the establishment of civilian control while the other is focusing on the nationalization of the military or the de-politicization of the military. There is quite limited number of assessments that gives weight to the threat perception or security environment as factor that influence the establishment of civilian control.
The first two types of assessment argue that the establishment of objective control in Taiwan is not possible due to the existence of political rivalry among civilian based on identity line. The rivalry refers to political contest between pan-blue and pan-green which rooted in differences in identity attachment. I doubt this premise –that the rivalry is due to identity contestation– and consider the political rivalry between pan-blue and pan-green is not merely a result of identity contestation.
In fact, identity politics is merely a cover for pragmatic political goal to gain voters.
Parties’ attachment on identity issue is subject to adjustment depending on circumstances and necessities. The strategy to gain voters has two components:
voters’ preferences and voters’ ideology. Political parties must consider both of these components in their political behavior. In addition, political parties will also need to
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consider their own ideological attachment. In conclusion, it is voters’ preferences that steer political parties’ strategy to use ideology as a tool to attract voters instead of identity attachment that drives voters’ preferences toward certain party.
The following explanation is supporting this claim. The data suggests that most voters are in the center position of the contestation between unification versus independence, which quite often be interpreted as representing Chinese versus Taiwanese identities.98 By center position means that most voters choose status quo rather than unification or independence. In term of identity holding, most voters would rather define themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese than Chinese or Taiwanese. If most voters are on the center of the ideological contestation, all political parties in Taiwan are supposedly moving to the softer line of its ideology to garner voters and not the other way around. Yu-Shan Wu confirms this result when he analyzes the political parties’ behavior in Taiwan, particularly on the issue of cross-strait relations.99 According to Wu, there was a tendency of a convergent pattern of political parties’ in the 2000 presidential election.100 This trend, however, changed during the 2004 presidential election to a rather pro-independence stance due to Chen Shui-bian’s and Lee Teng-hui’s political maneuver over the referendum issue.101
The 2004 shift, I would say, was following the major trend among the voters.
The general shift to the direction of independence was due to growing perception of China threat among voters. T.Y. Wang confirms that “the policy preferences of the This shift, however, was conducted by both camps, especially DPP and KMT.
98 See for example set of data from Election Study Center, National Chengchi University or Mainland Affairs Council (http://www.mac.gov.tw/public/Attachment/01716483994.gif).
99 Yu-Shan Wu, “Taiwan’s Domestic Politics and Cross-Strait Relations” in The China Journal 53 (January 2005), pp. 35-60.
100 Ibid, p. 44.
101 For detail see his explanation on Ibid, pp. 47-56.
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island’s citizens are not just a function of primordial factors but are also conditional on their perception of threats, i.e. the likelihood of armed intervention by the United States on Taiwan’s behalf in a cross-strait military conflict and a generally unfriendly Beijing policy toward Taiwan.”102 His argument implies that China threat does play important role in voters’ preferences so that political parties need to consider this perception in their strategy to attract voters. Wang also notices that Taiwanese public tends to take a softer position vis-à-vis China if China takes softer policy toward Taiwan or Taiwanese public believes that the US would intervene in the case of China’s use of force. The latter signifies the importance of the strategy to cope with China threat, as forging a closer tie with the US is an option for safeguarding Taiwan security. In the case of period surrounding the referendum in 2004, the data from MAC indicated that public perception on Beijing hostilities toward Taiwan was considerably high.103
The main disagreement between pan-blue and pan-green over the issue of China threat is twofold. First, pan-blue is on the opinion that China does not only possess a threat to Taiwan security but also hold opportunity for Taiwan. Second, pan-blue would rather consider the option to engage China in order to maximize the opportunity rather than confront the threat. Both were not the opinion of Chen government. Chen and his party considered China threat as real including the possibility of the use of force. Chen’s government was quite frequently citing the Chinese missiles directing toward Taiwan and the danger of over dependence to Chinese economy as serious threat to Taiwan. Chen’s government did not feel hesitate
102 T.Y. Wang, “The Perception of Threats and Pragmatic Policy Choice: A Survey of Public Opinion in Taiwan” in Issues and Studies 41: 1 (March 2005), p. 87.
103 The data could be seen in MAC website at
http://www.mac.gov.tw/public/Attachment/01716493383.gif.
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to take action toward formal independence. The decision to do so is subject to Chinese intention to use force against Taiwan, as Chen cleverly stated in his first presidential remark.
However, instead of being ideological, at the beginning of his administration Chen was forced to open a wider economic links with Mainland. The decision was due to a deteriorating economic condition in Taiwan. The businessmen who eager for making profit in the tempting Chinese economy pushed the government to set regulations that will govern a closer economic cross-strait relationship. This decision, which showed Chen’s pragmatism, indicates that ideological-pragmatic approach is the main driver of political parties’ strategy.
In the military front, Chen government showed consistency in not to engage China. Since the beginning of his presidency Chen has been insisted that China possesses military threat to Taiwan due to the deployment of missiles along the eastern coast line directing toward Taiwan. In 2002, Chen accused Beijing with similar charge mentioning the deployment of more than five-hundred short-range ballistic missiles targeted at Taiwanese people, especially those who lived in Southern Taiwan which is known as the DPP base. Following this accusation, Chen proposed to hold referendum on independence as an attempt “to demonstrate Taiwan’s courage against the military threat from China.”104 The referendum did take place in 2004 – simultaneously with the presidential election– but the result was considered invalid since only 45% of eligible voters took part.105
104 Mumin Chen, “From Five No’s to Referendum: The Making of National Security Policy in Taiwan”
in Issues and Studies 43: 3 (September 2007), p. 206.
The referendum indicated the DPP’s seriousness in considering China threat. The referendum could also be easily
105 Ibid, p. 208.
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interpreted as DPP’s move of crossing the China threat boundaries. However, Chinese leaders seemed to be reluctant to use force in solving the problems.
Another case that shows the differing perception on China threat among civilian was the case of Chinese military modernization program. One important element in Chinese military build-up is the emphasis on missiles system and precise strike capability. Another focus of Chinese military modernization is on naval capability including amphibious attack capability.106
In response, Chen’s government proposed a doctrinal change and weapons procurement plans to enhance Taiwan’s capability to counter such strike. Chen argued that Taiwan should adopt the “offshore decisive battle” strategy or in York Chen’s words “decisive campaign outside the territory.” To implement this strategy, Taiwan must possess an excellent preemptive capacity to neutralize the possible enemy’s attacks. For this reason, it is extremely important for Taiwan to have a sound naval capability, an enhanced missile system, and a good electromagnetic warfare system.
When the US in 2001 offered such necessary weapons system, Chen was soon welcoming the offer. However, he needed more than two years to propose the budget plan due to political problem.
This idea soon received a bunch of criticisms from the pan-blue. Pan-blue opposed Chen’s proposal which they consider as an attempt to cross the boundaries.
The new doctrine and the procurement list could be considered by Chinese leaders as
106 For detail assessment on Chinese military modernization see for example Cole, Taiwan’s Security, pp. 32-51 or Richard D. Fischer, Jr., China’s Military Modernization: Building for Regional and Global Reach, Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger Security International, 2008, pp. 66-79.
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“provocative action.” If such is the case, the Chinese leaders would not hesitate to strike Taiwan.107
The abovementioned two cases show that the problem with China threat perception within civilian camp is revolving around the judgment of whether or not such decision is crossing the boundaries that might resulted in Chinese use of force.
Those cases also indicate that both camps were on different opinion over how to tackle such threat from China. It was due to those two differences that Taiwan suffered from subjective type of control. The rivalry that took place prevented Taiwan from fully implementing an objective civilian control.
The rivalry was further worsened by a successful Chinese strategy of divide-and-rule.108 Chinese government always supported opposition leaders to gain political and economic benefits against the DPP. This strategy proved to be capable of creating confusion among Taiwanese and raised tension in Taiwan domestic politics. The case surrounding the enactment of anti-secession law in 2005 is a clear example of this success. Cheng-yi Lin writes that the KMT and PFP “blamed the DPP government, particularly President Chen Shui-bian, for forcing Beijing to adopt such a law.”109 Furthermore, soon after the passage of the anti-secession law, Chinese leader Hu Jintao invited Lien Chan, KMT chairman, and James Soong, the PFP chairman, separately to visit Beijing in which both Taiwanese opposition leaders pledged a shared commitment with Hu Jintao to oppose any moves toward Taiwan independence.110
107 Logan and Carpenter, “Taiwan’s Defense Budget,” p. 4. See also Chen, Fragile Partnership, p. 23-24.
As a reaction to the enactment of the anti-secession law, the DPP
108 Sheng Lijun, China and Taiwan: Cross-Strait Relations under Chen Shui-bian, Singapore: ISEAS, 2002, p. 74.
109 Lin, “The Rise of China and Taiwan’s Response,” p. 172.
110 Ibid, p. 174.
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government mobilized a demonstration in Taipei to show public’s opposition to unification. Polls also indicated that most Taiwanese rejected the enactment of the law.111 The pan-blue camp, however, showed no interest in joining the action. The above case indicates that pan-blue and pan-green have different understanding of China threat, especially on what would be the best strategy to deal with China.
4.3. Conclusion
The 2002 National Defense Report of the Republic of China clearly states that the major threat to Taiwan security comes from the Beijing regime which has never
The 2002 National Defense Report of the Republic of China clearly states that the major threat to Taiwan security comes from the Beijing regime which has never