16

The Chinese Communist Party’s Unfulfilled ‘Taiwan Dream’

Gunter Schubert

Introduction

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Taiwan policy, driven by the quest for eventual ‘unification’ (tongyi 统一) of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, has served as a major cornerstone of the Party’s ruling legitimacy argument, in which it portrays itself as the creator and perfector of the modern Chinese nation. Since the end of the Maoist era, and particularly after Taiwan’s transition to democracy in the late 1980s, CCP-driven Chinese nationalism has increasingly found itself challenged by Taiwan’s pro-independence forces and the gradual formation of a distinct Taiwanese national identity (guojia rentong 国家认同) (Wachman 1994; Lin 2016). While post-authoritarian Guomindang (GMD)-led governments, at least at a declaratory level, adhered to the ‘One China’ principle and were thus seen in Beijing as partners of the CCP in a joint effort to bring about ‘peaceful unification’ of whatever sort, the return to power of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2016 has made a cross-strait political rapprochement on the CCP’s terms a dim possibility at best. Since the days of former Party secretary Jiang Zemin (江泽民), the CCP has maintained a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, hoping to bring the island back into its fold. However, as the political tide changed in Taiwan over the years and fomented the idea of a ‘community of destiny’ based on an implicit consensus that a Taiwanese nation exists and should continue to exist, the CCP’s invocation of Taiwan being an ‘inalienable part of the great Chinese nation’ has become anachronistic and meaningless for most Taiwanese.¹

The CCP’s Taiwan policy has quite obviously failed to achieve ‘peaceful unification’, having underestimated, or intentionally ignored, how much the island’s democratisation and the ‘China impact’ (Schubert 2016; Wu 2016), which has loomed large behind all friendly gestures by Beijing, has driven Taiwanese nationalism. Today, under the leadership of strongman Xi Jinping (习近平), the CCP is forced to increasingly display its full range of ‘hard power’ to keep Taiwan’s quest for sovereignty – the code word of de jure independence – at bay and discourage international support for the island. In the context of China’s neo-imperial rise, Taiwan arguably embodies one of the most serious contemporary challenges to CCP legitimacy, a fact that has been further aggravated by Beijing’s recent suppression of Hong Kong ‘localism’ (Kwong 2016) and rising tensions in the US–China relationship.

This chapter traces the CCP’s Taiwan policy, focusing on developments since the early reform years, as there arguably existed no such policy in the Mao era when Beijing’s approach to Taiwan was frozen into the formula of ‘liberating Taiwan’ and the constant denigration of the ‘Chiang clique’ as lackeys of US imperialism. Since its conception in the early 1980s, then, Beijing’s Taiwan policy has remained relatively consistent, perhaps even ‘immovable’, but it has failed to adequately understand and constructively respond to Taiwan’s rising national identity – slowly evolving under the Republic of China (ROC) nameplate. The CCP has stuck to its long-time policy approach, relying on a two-pronged strategy of applying ‘hard power’ – military might and political ‘strangulation’ – alongside continuing policy efforts to lure the owners of Taiwan’s capital and the brightest Taiwanese minds to the mainland, where they may prosper but will have to bow to China’s irredentism. This strategy, however, has only reinforced the CCP’s reputation, both in Taiwan and the international community, as a revisionist and nationalist state with no sense for compromise and a determination to do whatever it takes to safeguard its ‘territorial integrity’.

In the remainder of this chapter, I briefly address China’s Taiwan policy in the Maoist era and then build on Chen Chien-Kai’s (陳建凱) (2012) analytical framework to distinguish between the periods of leadership by CCP general secretaries Jiang Zemin (1989–2002), Hu Jintao 胡锦涛 (2002–12) and, in greater detail, Xi Jinping (since 2012) to explain the relationship between their ‘patience’ – or ‘impatience’ – with solving the ‘Taiwan issue’. In accordance with Chen, I define two factors as critical for a Party leader’s (im)patience with Taiwan, which would induce him to convey messages of increasing urgency to solve the ‘Taiwan issue’, maybe even announcing timetables for achieving eventual ‘unification’: 1) his perception of Taiwanese domestic politics and of Taiwan’s China policy; and 2) his perception of the US–Taiwan relationship. The focus on perception related to these two factors on the part of the CCP’s general secretaries to explain the vicissitudes of China’s Taiwan policy is foremost methodological, as I do not claim that this is the major explanatory variable with no other players (e.g. the Chinese military or the CCP’s United Front Work Department) or perceptions having significant impact. However, given the superior position of the general secretary in the CCP’s hierarchy and this chapter’s focus on the Xi Jinping era, which involves a Party leader of exceptional clout and resolve, it makes at least some sense to probe this perspective.² While I do agree in most parts with Chen’s analysis of Jiang Zemin as displaying increasing impatience while Hu Jintao appears more patient with Taiwan, my assessment of the Xi Jinping era is one of rising and, arguably, irreversible impatience. This is driven by a dangerous ‘lock-in’ of the two factors determining perception – a situation that did not, at least not to this extent, exist in the previous two periods. Taiwan’s steadfast rejection of the ‘One China’ principle and the ‘1992 Consensus’ has resulted in deep alienation and a demonstrated readiness by the Xi Jinping regime to militarily threaten Taiwan, feeding into the deteriorating relationship between the US and China that, again, drives the conflict across the Taiwan Strait, arguably making Taiwan one of the most dangerous place on earth.³

The CCP’s Taiwan Policy under Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao

Taiwan Policy in the Mao Era

The CCP’s Taiwan policy after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was foremost determined by the Cold War and, in this regard, by the Beijing–Moscow relationship and Washington’s protection of the exiled Nationalist government in Taiwan. Beijing was mute on the Taiwan issue during the Korean War (1950–53), which had triggered the dispatchment of the Seventh US fleet to the Taiwan Strait to protect Taiwan from any attack by PRC forces. However, the Communist Party propaganda machine drummed up a public campaign to ‘liberate Taiwan’ in the summer of 1954, just before the signing of the ROC–US Mutual Defense Treaty on 2 December of that year.⁴ This treaty was a consequence of the First Taiwan Straits Crisis, which began in August 1954 when Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) sent some 63,000 soldiers to Kinmen and Matsu to fortify the military installations there. The message to Beijing was one of clear belligerence. The shelling of both islands by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces provoked an official note by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff on 12 September that nuclear weapons may be used against the PRC – a threat that was, however, not sustained by President Eisenhower. The PLA seized the Yijiangshan and Dachen Islands in January and February 1955, respectively, encouraging Mao Zedong (毛泽东) to ponder a military invasion of Taiwan. This only induced the US government to repeat their threat of nuclear attack, forcing Mao to back down and declare his willingness to negotiate by April 1955. This terminated the First Taiwan Strait Crisis but did not settle the problem (Garver 1997).

With the radicalisation of domestic politics during the Great Leap Forward, the CCP leadership, and Mao Zedong in particular, confident in his observation that the ‘East Wind prevails over the West Wind’, provoked a Second Taiwan Straits Crisis only three years later. After PRC landing forces were repelled by the Nationalists without taking Dongding Island south of Kinmen in August 1958, the shelling of Kinmen and Matsu began again. However, Moscow was as disinterested as the US in risking a large-scale war over Taiwan with another superpower. However, the latter intervened by assisting the Nationalists with naval escort operations to the islands to protect supply lines and with modern missiles that gave the ROC air force a decisive edge over Chinese fighter planes. Mao did not dare to attack US forces and eventually had to back down again; a ceasefire was declared on 6 October, and by the end of the year the crisis itself had fizzled out, though a strange ritual of mutual and limited (but still dangerous) shelling on alternating even and odd days would last until the late 1970s (Szonyi 2008).⁵

After this, the CCP gave up on military invasion and restricted itself to mechanically calling for Taiwan’s ‘liberation’. The sentiment, however, was soon swallowed up in Mao’s Cultural Revolution and faced a GMD government in Taiwan that celebrated its mission to uphold traditional Chinese culture against the self-destructing ideological iconoclasm on the mainland. In fact, cross-strait relations ossified during the 1960s and 1970s as a composite result of uncompromising nationalisms pursued in Beijing and Taipei (Deans 2005), the breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, and Washington’s concurrent determination to keep things stable in the Taiwan Strait to allow for a US–China rapprochement. The latter materialised in the early 1970s, paving the way for a new chapter in the CCP’s history and Taiwan policy.

Reorientation from ‘Liberation’ to ‘Peaceful Unification’ under Deng

When Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) transmitted his ‘Message to the Compatriots in Taiwan’ on New Year’s Eve 1979,⁶ it seemed to usher in a new era of cross-strait relations after decades of sabre-rattling and non-communication between Beijing and Taipei. Henceforth, a strategy of ‘peaceful unification’ replaced the threat of ‘liberating Taiwan’, the latter much more strongly suggesting the use of force. In reality, Premier Zhou Enlai (周恩来) had already announced the Party’s intention to ‘liberate Taiwan by peaceful means under possible conditions’ in May 1955, and in a document issued on 6 October 1956, the PRC’s Defence Ministry delivered a ‘Message to Compatriots in Taiwan’ written by Mao Zedong proposing to ‘conduct negotiation’ to ‘achieve peaceful resolution’. However, concrete policy steps never emerged. Moreover, the Quemoy crisis in 1958 and the continued, symbolic bombardment of Kinmen from then until the day of Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Message’ on 1 January 1979, when he ordered a stop to this ritualised practice, were evidence enough that ‘unification’ was still primarily thought of in terms of enforced liberation (Lee 2020).

In historical hindsight, the ‘Message’ can be read as a corollary to Deng’s turn to economic reforms, inviting Taiwan’s people to participate in the project of rebuilding China after the disastrous Cultural Revolution (and much of what had happened before that), and at the same time relieving some of the pressure on the Chinese leadership to solve the ‘Taiwan issue’. Instead, all efforts could be focused on ‘reform and opening up’ (gaige kaifang 改革开放). At the same time, the text of the ‘Message’ highlights the strong connection between regime legitimacy and ‘unification’. The promise to modernise China – or ‘rejuvenate’ the Chinese nation, in Xi Jinping’s terms – can only be fulfilled by incorporating Taiwan into the party-state, which represents both China and the Chinese nation. With Deng’s ‘Message’, an explicit link was established between China’s reform trajectory and ‘unification’ with Taiwan, whereby the quest for ‘unification’ would feed into China’s modernisation project, and ‘unification’ could be postponed for the time being. Deng’s ‘Message’ abstained from using the phrase ‘liberating Taiwan’ and, for the first time, proposed cross-strait talks: ‘To create the necessary prerequisites and a secure environment for the two sides to make contacts and exchanges in whatever area’ (cf. Xin 2020).

The new policy approach towards Taiwan was backed up by Marshal Ye Jianying’s (叶剑英) ‘Nine-Point Proposal’ announced on 1 October 1981, and Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Six-Point Proposal’ of 26 June 1983. Both documents spelled out, though did not explicitly mention, the ‘one country, two systems’ formula as constituting the model for Taiwan’s political future in a ‘reunified’ China.⁷ However, as Deng reiterated repeatedly during the early 1980s, there was no hurry in bringing about ‘reunification’ when rebuilding China economically was of primary importance. Deng’s priorities were clearly set, which meant he did not need to be impatient about solving the ‘Taiwan issue’, nor did the US–Taiwan relationship at the time necessitate impatience. Diplomatic relations had been established between both countries on 1 January 1979, seven years after the Shanghai Communique was signed and the US–China relationship ‘normalised’. Although Washington reassured Taipei – by promulgating the Taiwan Relations Act on 1 April 1979 – that stability in the Taiwan Strait was of ‘grave concern’ to the US and that the ‘Six Assurances’ of 1982⁸ would hold, Deng and the CCP could be certain of overall international support for their ‘One China Policy’. Further, in Taiwan, GMD leader and ROC president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) led a government that also stuck to that principle, although already under ‘democratic pressure’ from indigenous forces. Put differently, Taiwan’s domestic politics and the international situation were advantageous enough for Deng to be patient and put ‘reunification’ on the backburner, while focusing on the immediate necessity of reconsolidating one-party rule through economic reform. This situation endured until the mid-1990s, when a legitimacy crisis at home coincided with political developments in Taiwan and a shift in the US–China relationship, producing new uncertainty on the ‘Taiwan issue’ for the Communist Party.

Crisis Awareness and ‘Impatience’ under Jiang Zemin

Jiang Zemin was installed as CCP general secretary in 1989 to deal with the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident, which had damaged the ruling legitimacy of the Communist Party considerably. The focus in the first years of his reign was, therefore, placed on domestic reconsolidation of the one-party rule in China (Chu 2000). In Taiwan at the same time, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who had succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo in early 1988 as the first Taiwan-born GMD leader and ROC president, pushed for democratisation and initiated a new China policy to bring about a cross-strait détente and gain Taiwan more political manoeuvring space in the regional and international arena. By building a whole new institutional edifice for cross-strait policymaking and sub-official relations between Taipei and Beijing, Lee encouraged his Chinese counterparts to acknowledge, inexplicitly at least, the so-called 1992 Consensus by which both the PRC and the ROC governments would recognise that there was only ‘One China’, though they accepted different interpretations of its state representation (Hsieh 2003).⁹ This pragmatic turn in cross-strait relations allowed for a number of talks between non-official entities of both sides culminating in the first cross-strait summit held in Singapore in April 1993.¹⁰ Cross-strait relations thus seemed to have entered a new era in which ‘peaceful unification’, at some undetermined date in the future, remained a common objective of both sides.

In 1995, Jiang Zemin officially spoke out for the first time, giving the CCP Taiwan policy a personal imprint. His ‘Eight Points’ announced on 30 January of that year reiterated the official stance on Taiwan following Deng Xiaoping’s 1979 ‘Message’, but also confirmed the CCP’s willingness to ‘continually encourage exchange and contacts across the Taiwan Straits which promote mutual understanding’, invoking the possibility of establishing direct postal, transport and trade links across the Taiwan Strait.¹¹ Soon afterwards, however, he was confronted with an unexpected setback that had been building in the background for some time. A white paper on cross-strait relations published in 1994 announced Lee Teng-hui’s strategy of pragmatic or flexible diplomacy, and spelled out Taiwan’s future position of a ‘divided government’ along the lines of Germany and Korea after World War II. Henceforth, the ROC government would no longer compete with its Chinese counterpart for international representation of China, would abolish its policy of establishing official relations only with those countries supporting Taipei’s claim, and would strive for internationally recognised statehood.¹² One year later, Lee was allowed to enter the United States to visit his alma mater, Cornell University, after considerable bickering between the Oval Office and Congress, and gave a public speech in which he told his audience the story of democratic Taiwan and joined the chorus of the time in declaring that ‘Communism is dead or dying’.¹³ Although he was travelling in a private capacity, this was seen as a provocation by Beijing and led to what then became known as the ‘Second Taiwan Strait Crisis’, lasting from late 1995 until Taiwan’s presidential elections in March 1996.

Lee Teng-hui’s (re-)election was a blow to the CCP and pointed towards a Taiwanese determination to resist any Chinese pressure to vote for a political leader favoured by Beijing. Jiang Zemin was alarmed by this development and interrupted cross-strait talks. They briefly resumed in 1998, while the state media in China pounded Lee Teng-hui as a traitor of the Chinese nation as he increasingly displayed an independentist line. This regression in cross-strait relations then culminated in Lee’s sudden move to spell out a ‘Two States Theory’ in an interview with German radio channel Deutsche Welle in May 1999, suggesting that relations across the Taiwan Strait were of a special state-to-state nature.¹⁴ Even though this ostensible break with the GMD’s China policy eventually led to Lee Teng-hui’s expulsion from the ruling party, the damage to cross-strait relations was done.

In 1998, Jiang began speaking in terms of ‘unification’ timetables. In the months following Lee’s Deutsche Welle interview, he referred on various occasions to the possible use of force against Taiwan and suggested that the ‘Taiwan issue’ may be resolved by the middle of the twenty-first century (Shirk 2007, 191; Cheng 2005, 352).¹⁵ The State Council’s 2000 white paper on Taiwan arguably highlighted Jiang’s impatience by stating that Taiwan’s rejection of ‘reunification’ negotiations would result in the use of military force. In his work report to the Sixteenth CCP National Congress in November 2002, Jiang’s farewell speech again insisted that resolution of the ‘Taiwan issue’ could not be delayed indefinitely (Chen 2012, 957). At this point, Taiwan had already been governed for two years by an independence-minded president from the DPP, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who had come to power in May 2000 after the first change of government since Taiwan’s democratic transition. After some tactical reservations, Chen had publicly claimed in August 2002 that Taiwan and China were two countries on each side of the Taiwan Strait.¹⁶ Jiang Zemin had reason to be worried, but it was not only Taiwan’s domestic political development that nurtured this sense of urgency in him.

The United States had carefully observed Taiwan’s democratic transition throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s; indeed, Washington had been an important driving force of democratisation. As mentioned above, Lee Teng-hui was granted a visa to visit the United States in May 1995, giving him unprecedented international status and a public platform to praise Taiwan’s economic and political development, and to publicly promote ROC sovereignty. In December 1995, the US government dispatched an aircraft carrier, the Nimitz, and in March 1996 two aircraft carrier battle groups were sent into the Taiwan Strait to deter China from further threatening the island with military exercises close to its coastline ahead of Taiwan’s 1996 presidential elections. Even though President Clinton tried to de-escalate the situation between the two countries during his state visit to China in June 1998 by assuring Jiang that the US did not support Taiwan independence, his successor George W. Bush claimed publicly only a year later that the US would do ‘whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself’.¹⁷ This did little to help assuage Jiang Zemin’s distrust that Washington would stick to its Taiwan policy approach of ‘strategic ambiguity’ and opposing Taiwan independence. Impatience and distrust brought cross-strait relations to an all-new low at the end of Jiang Zemin’s term, by which point he had obviously lost confidence in a peaceful solution of the ‘Taiwan issue’. However, there was little he could do besides reiterating the CCP’s official stance that Taiwan independence was a no-go and that there was no leeway for cross-strait talks, and continuing to patrol the international arena to make sure that most states toed Beijing’s line.

Reassurance and Patience under Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao replaced Jiang as CCP general secretary in November 2002 and took up the state presidency one year later. Interestingly, he seemed, from the outset, to be less troubled about the ‘Taiwan issue’ than Jiang was in his final years as the CCP’s paramount leader. Taiwan seemed to be on a stiff trajectory of ‘de-sinicisation’ (quzhongguohua 去中國化), referring to government policies aiming to weaken or eradicate Taiwan’s links to Chinese history or cultural symbols and the National People’s Congress. In a move raising eyebrows worldwide, Hu promulgated an ‘Anti-Secession Law’ in March 2005 to deter Taiwan’s pro-independence forces. However, despite these tensions, Hu remained rather moderate in his public statements and emphasised at various occasions that cross-strait relations needed stability and perseverance to achieve ‘unification’ by peaceful means.¹⁸ Starting in the same year, he and GMD leader Lien Chan (連戰) met several times in China and set up regular party-to-party talks as a channel for circumventing the DPP government and cross-strait parallel diplomacy to demonstrate to the Taiwan people how much they could expect to gain once the GMD was back in power. This process was accompanied by the establishment of a CCP–GMD platform for cross-strait economic and cultural exchange that foremost targeted Taiwanese elites, encouraging them to interact with their Chinese counterparts and thereby bring about more cross-strait interaction, if not integration, and build trust (Beckershoff 2014). The ‘peaceful development’ of cross-strait relations, which was first proposed in 2004 and then further endorsed by the CCP’s national congresses in 2007 and 2012 (Gang 2016), could be seen as the manifestation of Hu Jintao’s demonstrative patience with the ‘Taiwan issue’. He was confident that the GMD, which retook the government in 2008, would help the CCP’s cause. ‘Peaceful development’ did not only mean harmonious party-to-party relations, however, but also winning the Taiwan people’s hearts and minds by accentuating the promising possibilities of cross-strait economic integration and downplaying China’s military threat – an approach formalised in Hu’s December 2008 ‘Six-Point-Proposal’ celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Message to the Compatriots of Taiwan’.¹⁹

At this point, the GMD under Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had indeed returned to power after an astounding electoral victory in January 2008, when it gained both the presidency and an absolute majority in the Legislative Yuan, bringing home the point that the Taiwan people had been convinced of the GMD’s China-friendly policy approach and had realised the dead-end into which DPP-sponsored Taiwanese nationalism had led them. In fact, Ma did not hesitate to make good on his promise to turn the wheel in cross-strait relations, and, based on the agreements made in the CCP–GMD Party talks of the foregoing years, he negotiated the restoration of the ‘three links’ – direct trade, transport and communication – before the end of his first year in office. In 2010, both sides negotiated an ‘Economic Framework Agreement’, which was particularly advantageous for Taiwan, and more cross-strait agreements were signed.²⁰ Thus, Hu Jintao had many reasons to be patient, as his moderate policy approach to the ‘Taiwan issue’ seemed to be bearing fruit. Until the end of his term, he did not mention a timeframe for ‘unification’, and Ma Ying-jeou’s re-election in 2012 allowed for further confidence in this focus on cooperation with the Taiwan government, under the auspices of the ‘One China’ principle, even though Ma’s mandate was weaker than it had been four years before.

At the same time, the US government’s behaviour since Hu’s coming to power was more reassuring than disheartening for China’s ‘unification’ ambitions. In December 2003, President Bush, who had claimed that the US would do what it took to defend Taiwan, expressed his stern opposition to Chen Shui-bian’s plan to hold a referendum for a new Taiwanese constitution by stating, in the presence of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝), that ‘the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo – which we oppose’.²¹ The Bush administration also openly rejected: Chen’s efforts to rename Taiwan’s representative offices abroad and its state-owned enterprises from ‘ROC’ to ‘Taiwan’; his efforts to ‘rectify the country’s name’ campaign and ‘Taiwanisation’ policy; his hidden move to abolish the ‘National Unification Council’, established in the early days of the Lee Teng-hui presidency; and the revitalisation of Chen’s project of constitutional reform.²² It seemed Washington was not in favour of Taiwan rocking the boat of Sino-US relations, again reassuring Hu Jintao that solving the ‘Taiwan issue’ was not urgent. Hu could feel even more relaxed as the US government repeatedly expressed its optimism for the future of cross-strait relations after the election of a ‘China-friendly’ ROC president in 2008. Clearly, Washington was relieved that there would be no further sidestepping of US demands to coordinate Taiwan’s China policy with Washington’s prerogatives on Taipei’s part.

During his state visit to China in 2009, President Obama, newly elected, declared in a joint statement with Hu Jintao that the US ‘applauded the steps that the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan had already taken to relax tensions and build stable ties across the Taiwan Strait’.²³ During his eight years in office, Obama and his leading officials remained very cautious on Taiwan and constantly uttered support for the cross-strait rapprochement that had set in after Ma Ying-jeou took office. The US would not waver in its arms sales to Taiwan, however, which served to reassure Taiwan that Washington’s general policy line concerning the ‘Taiwan issue’ had not changed. When Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the DPP’s candidate for the 2012 presidential elections, visited Washington in September 2011 to make herself, and her prospective China policy, known to US officials, her efforts did not prove particularly convincing. One US official publicly stated that ‘she left us with distinct doubts about whether she is both willing and able to continue the stability in cross-Strait relations the region has enjoyed in recent years’ (Tiezzi 2015). And the following November, during the APEC Economic Leader’s Meeting held in Honolulu, Obama told Hu Jintao that ‘the U.S. is glad to see continuous progress made in cross-Strait relations’ and that it would ‘continue to pursue the one-China policy based on the three China-U.S. joint communiqués and does not support Taiwan independence’.²⁴

With Taiwan’s domestic politics following a course to China’s liking and US support for cross-strait rapprochement continuing on the basis of the ‘1992 Consensus’, Hu Jintao obviously saw no reason for impatience when it came to solving the ‘Taiwan issue’. In contrast to Jiang Zemin’s negative perception of the ‘Taiwan’ and ‘US factor’ in cross-strait relations in his final years as CCP general secretary, Hu’s perception was more positive, even though he chose to ignore the changing tide within Taiwanese society, and the increasing resistance to Ma Ying-jeou’s China policy (Sullivan and Smyth 2018). Assured of sound US–China relations at the time and confident that the GMD would carry the day in Taiwan, he could probably not have foreseen the nationalist turn that his successor would bring to Chinese politics, which would prove potentially as important a factor impacting the cross-strait relationship as Taiwanese domestic politics and US–Taiwan relations.

Growing Impatience under Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping was elected CCP general secretary in November 2012 and president of the PRC in March 2013. During the first years of his reign as China’s paramount leader, he seemed to be willing to continue Hu Jintao’s policy of accentuating ‘peaceful development’ in cross-strait relations within the overall framework of China’s carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan. This visibly changed after the 2016 national elections in Taiwan and the return to power of the DPP, which both seized the presidential office and gained an absolute majority in the Legislative Yuan. Since then, China’s Taiwan policy has become increasingly uncompromising, if not belligerent, both in terms of language and action – though perhaps not in overall strategy. Arguably, Xi Jinping’s perception of the ‘Taiwan issue’ has taken a pessimistic turn, in response to the DPP’s strategy of institutionalising de facto independence by rejecting the ‘One China’ principle and the ‘1992 Consensus’ on the one hand, and decreasing Taiwan’s economic dependency on China on the other. These developments also coincide with a new China policy consensus in Washington aiming to push back against China’s rise and global ambitions.

Xi Jinping’s Taiwan Policy before 2016: Patience, but a Rising Sense of Urgency

During his first years in office, with a ‘pro-China’ GMD politician as Taiwan’s leader, Xi Jinping was foremost interested in incorporating Taiwan, on the discursive level, into his narrative of the ‘rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation’, itself the centrepiece of his so-called ‘China Dream’. This narrative was part of an ideological project to recount the CCP’s story of China’s rise to national pride, prosperity and global power, accompanied by measures to recalibrate the political system and develop a blueprint for geo-economical influence-building in China’s ‘periphery’: the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. In April 2013, at the occasion of the Twelfth Boao Forum, Xi met Taiwan’s representative Vincent Siew and called for both Taiwan and China to ‘work hard towards realising the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ and to foster closer economic cooperation.²⁵ Several months later, in October 2013, Xi met Siew again at the APEC meeting in Bali, Indonesia, pronouncing that both China and Taiwan ‘are of one family’ and that, in referring to the ‘Taiwan issue’, they ‘cannot hand those problems down from generation to generation’.²⁶ This indicated a sense of urgency that had not been articulated so explicitly at any point in the Hu Jintao era.

This sense of urgency came to the fore again in September 2014 when Xi Jinping told a visiting delegation of pro-unification groups from Taiwan that ‘the basic guideline to solve the Taiwan question is “peaceful reunification; one country, two systems” and it is also the best way to realize national reunification’ – language that had not been heard in many years.²⁷ At this time, the CCP and Xi were already aware of a serious downturn in cross-strait relations, as Taiwan’s ‘Sunflower Movement’ in March–April 2014 had unmistakably demarcated the limits of Ma Ying-jeou’s China policy by successfully mobilising against the Cross-Strait Trade in Service Act (Ho 2019; Jones 2017). When this development culminated in the election of a new independence-minded DPP president, Tsai Ing-wen, in January 2016, after eight years of relatively stable cross-strait relations, Xi’s perception of the ‘Taiwan issue’ changed from increasingly sceptical to utterly pessimistic. It quickly became clear that ‘peaceful unification’ negotiated with a Taiwan government committed to the ‘1992 Consensus’ and the ‘One China’ principle was no longer a realistic option, at least not in the medium term.

This assumption is also supported by the CCP’s earlier frustration with the Ma administration’s hesitant response to any effort to push cross-strait talks beyond issues of economic integration. With all the low-hanging fruits already having been harvested, cross-strait relations were getting into the deep water of politics. Even if Ma Ying-jeou and his government felt bound by rising domestic opposition against the government’s ‘pro-China’ policies and accusations of ‘selling out’ Taiwan to China, or if these policies had just always been tactically framed by ‘unificationist’ terminology, the CCP could not make any headway in its efforts to achieve its ultimate objective. After 2016, Taiwan’s responses to the CCP’s Taiwan policy thus became increasingly irrelevant as Xi embarked on a refurbished approach that would no longer bet on cross-strait negotiations nor on the GMD as a political force that could help the CCP’s goal of ‘unification’.

After 2016: Impatience and Intensifying Sabre-Rattling

It is not far-fetched to assume that Tsai Ing-wen’s approach to the cross-strait relationship has proven incredibly frustrating for Xi Jinping and the CCP, as it combines political restraint in provoking China with an unwavering strategy to solidify Taiwan’s de facto independence with a resolute project aiming to ‘de-sinicise’ Taiwan, aptly summarised by Lee Wei-chin (李偉欽):

In order to fulfill its independence vision, the DPP government has discreetly adopted a persistently constructive approach to identity indigenization through the change of educational contents and name rectification schemes as part of social engineering. It has been a deliberate effort to de-legitimize the China-oriented cultural identification and historical genealogy for the expansion of the ‘Taiwan-centered’ social construct and a collective history without ‘China’ in cultural and political reference. Given time, such a constructive movement would quietly transform public conviction and cultural identification and convince future generations of the irrelevancy of China in Taiwan’s democratic politics through elections and public referendums. (Lee 2020, 207)

Against this background, Xi Jinping recalibrated the CCP’s Taiwan policy by both sweetening the carrots and strengthening the sticks. The platform for this track change was the Nineteenth CCP Congress held in October 2017, when Xi maintained the general tone of the CCP’s long-term Taiwan policy of ‘peaceful development’ but also used stern language in his lengthy report to make sure that nobody misunderstood China’s resolve to deter ‘Taiwan independence’ and achieve ‘national unification’.²⁸ In his report to the Twentieth CCP Congress held in October 2022, he addressed what had been discussed within the CCP as the ‘Overall Policy Framework for Resolving the Taiwan Question in the New Era’ (Xin shidai dang jiejue Taiwan wenti de zongti fanglüe 新时代党解决台湾问题的总体方略) since the Sixth Meeting of the Nineteenth CCP Central Committee in November 2021. This is not a strategy put down in a formal Party document but rather a comprehensive set of ideas and ‘axiomatic thinking’ that make the CCP’s Taiwan policy and informs all official statements on Taiwan, including the latest white paper, entitled ‘The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era’, released in August 2022.²⁹

Xi explicitly subscribed to the ‘1992 Consensus’ as the embodiment of the ‘One China’ principle but omitted any hint of the ‘two interpretations’ formula, which was foundational for the GMD’s Taiwan policy whenever it had governed Taiwan. Xi also emphasised that Taiwan’s future was firmly linked to the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ model, deliberately ignoring an overarching consensus in Taiwan that this arrangement is a no-go. In his speech on 2 January 2019 commemorating the fortieth anniversary of Deng’s ‘Message to Compatriots in Taiwan’, Xi Jinping dispersed all remaining hopes, particularly within the GMD, that there was still some leeway to return to the ambiguous understanding of the ‘1992 Consensus’, in which both sides had agreed to disagree on what ‘One China’ means.³⁰ Though Xi did not mention a timeframe for ‘reunification’ in his Taiwan-related speeches, he certainly transmitted a sense of urgency and impatience with solving the ‘Taiwan issue’ that was well noticed in Taiwan. Interestingly, as GMD chairman Jiang Chi-chen (江啟臣) told me in May 2020, Xi Jinping had taken the ‘1992 Consensus’ away from the GMD, so that no such thing exists anymore. The moment had, therefore, come for the GMD to take a stand, either by giving up on the consensus or adhering to it against all odds, signalling to China that dialogue with Taiwan would not be possible without it and that legitimate sovereignty for the ROC under the auspices of the ‘One China’ principle is indispensable. However, since the recent election of a new GMD Party chairman, Chu Li-lun (朱立倫), in September 2021, the ‘1992 Consensus’ has been revitalised – obviously because the GMD has nothing else it could otherwise offer to the CCP. Tsai Ing-wen issued a resolute statement in the afternoon of the same day, in which she first rejected Xi’s implication that the ‘1992 Consensus’ was equal to subscribing to ‘One County, Two Systems’, a suggestion unacceptable for the vast majority of the Taiwan people. Future cross-strait negotiations, she continued, must be led by governments or government-authorised agencies.³¹

Since 2016, pressure on Taiwan has heightened considerably in both political and military terms. For instance, in May 2018, China forced 44 international airlines to revise their website identifications of Taiwan to indicate Taiwan’s subjugation to the ‘One China’ principle.³² Airlines now have to identify the territory as ‘China Taiwan’ or ‘China Taiwan region’. Moreover, Beijing snatched away seven of Taiwan’s few diplomatic allies after the DPP came to power, so that, at the end of 2023, no more than 13 countries have stayed in Taiwan’s camp.³³ Chinese aircraft and naval operations in the Taiwan Strait have increased progressively since November 2016, resulting in the highest-ever density of Chinese fighter planes entering Taiwan’s airspace and warships crossing the medium line in the Taiwan Strait in spring 2021. Chinese intrusions into Taiwan’s airspace continued for the rest of the year. This, among other issues pertaining to great power politics, has induced a number of US officials and high-ranking military officers to predict that a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan is imminent and will materialise over the course of the next few years (Roy 2021). These voices argue that China’s increasing military capabilities and sharp power assertiveness,³⁴ against a background of deteriorating US–China relations and unperturbed Taiwanese nationalism, will progressively strengthen China’s sense of urgency and impatience, pushing the Xi administration to solve the ‘Taiwan issue’ as soon as possible. At the very least, China will continue posturing under Xi, displaying willingness and capability at the possibility of a showdown, so that those who feel the US must intervene to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will perhaps think twice.

At the same time, Xi Jinping has added new carrots to his Taiwan policy, exclusively targeting the ‘hearts and minds of the Taiwan people’ and accentuating China’s focus on people-to-people relations. In February 2018, the State Taiwan Affairs Office promulgated a package of 31 preferential policies (PPs) (huitai zhengce 惠台政策) to be granted to Taiwanese businesses: 12 policies promised the equal treatment of Taiwanese and domestic Chinese companies concerning access to government procurement and infrastructure projects, but also to sectors previously banned for Taiwanese (and foreign) companies, for instance, private medical clinics and solicitors; the remaining 19 announced the opening up of the Chinese job market for high-skilled Taiwanese labour and university graduates.³⁵ These central policies have been taken up quickly at the local level and, in the course of adaption, have been expanded by provincial and city governments, resulting in, for instance, 66 PPs in Fujian Province and 68 PPs in Fuzhou City. On the surface, the 31 PPs and their lower-level specifications have ushered in a new era for China’s ‘united front’ strategy, as they promise to do away with almost all restrictions for Taiwanese people and entities on the Chinese mainland. This extends into the realm of residency rights,³⁶ market access (including investment opportunities in sectors so far controlled by Chinese state-owned enterprises) and occupational freedom. In fact, there is some demand for these ‘goodies’. A sluggish economy, low wages and the expected consequences of recent pension reforms are important push factors for Taiwanese businesspeople and professionals, but also young university graduates and even high school students, to leave Taiwan, while China’s vast market and its new policy incentives arguably make for strong pull factors.³⁷ All Taiwanese are invited to equally share the benefits of a prospering Chinese economy with their mainland ‘compatriots’ – at least, this is the message sent across the Taiwan Strait.³⁸ The Western media also reported on Xi Jinping’s trip in March 2021, when he visited Fujian, the mainland province directly opposite Taiwan, telling officials that they should explore new forms of cross-strait economic development and integration.³⁹ It is clear that the DPP government faces increasing pressure to come up with convincing policy responses that could revitalise the Taiwanese economy and thereby incentivise its citizens to stay.

However, Xi Jinping must be worried by the changing US–China relationship, which will likely reinforce Taiwan’s determination to withstand China’s quest for unity. If Washington increasingly regards Taiwan as the focal point of a great power conflict that will decide the future global order, Taiwan could benefit from this renewed attention. As the Chinese expected, the Biden administration has so far continued its predecessor’s policies of strengthening the US–Taiwan relationship in both words and deeds, most notably in having maintained the Taiwan Travel Act and the National Defense Authorization Act for US naval port calls to Taiwan, both promulgated in 2018, and sales of modern weapon systems fiercely opposed by China. Such measures certainly intensify Xi Jinping’s sense of urgency to solve the ‘Taiwan issue’ sooner rather than later, and, although a timeframe has never been publicly mentioned, Xi has implicitly linked ‘unification’ to the centennial goal of the People’s Republic becoming a ‘developed country’ and attaining great power status by 2049. Some pundits even contend that he is personally willing to do whatever it takes to bring Taiwan back to the motherland before he steps down, which would be much earlier than 2049. To what extent such alarmism should be taken seriously is anybody’s guess, but it is obvious that – alongside the Taiwan and US factors in Xi Jinping’s Taiwan policy – the continuous modernisation of the PLA, Xi’s refusal to disconnect the ‘Taiwan issue’ from Chinese ethno-nationalism and the CCP’s continuous quest for legitimacy in ruling China – which is, in itself, connected to the idea of a unified Chinese nation-state – do not bode well for a peaceful solution of the conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

Conclusion

Despite the CCP’s hollow threat to ‘liberate Taiwan’ throughout the Mao era, for much of the early reform era, the CCP seemed confident in its goal of ‘peaceful unification’ by adjusting the ‘One County, Two Systems’ model to Taiwan. The island’s increasing economic dependence on the Chinese mainland coupled with rational calculation on the part of the Taiwanese people – many of whom migrated to and pursued a career on the mainland – seemed to suggest that achieving unification was a question of when, not if. Accordingly, ‘peaceful unification’ was the buzzword of China’s Taiwan policy from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao and into the first years of the Xi Jinping era. Despite periodic friction, successive Chinese leaders’ overall patience with Taiwan was based on positive assessments of Taiwan’s political development on the one hand and the US factor in China–Taiwan relations on the other. Even facing an independence-minded president, Chen Shui-bian, who ruled Taiwan throughout most of the 2000s, Hu Jintao remained patient with Taiwan as the US was willing to rein in the DPP government, thereby supporting the CCP’s Taiwan policy, which relied primarily on deterring independence. Besides, China was focused on its domestic problems and reform requirements, and was not yet ready to assume a more assertive role in the Taiwan Strait.

Under Xi Jinping, however, it seems that the CCP has finally come to realise that the expectation of ‘peaceful unification’ was largely based on a miscalculation. The assumption was that a common Chinese historical and cultural heritage, economic gain and the promise of enduring peace across the Taiwan Strait would eventually lead the Taiwanese towards political subservience – or, to put it in more positive terms, that it would foster a growing enthusiasm for being ‘unified’. With the ‘Sunflower Movement’, the CCP understood that Taiwan – with a rising, though not uncontested, national identity of its own – would never subscribe to ‘peaceful unification’. At the same time, the US, now feeling threatened by China’s ‘rightful rise’, would prove to be an obstacle rather than a helping hand holding ‘creeping Taiwan independence’ at bay. Xi Jinping has, therefore, become observably impatient on the ‘Taiwan issue’ and, backed by impressive military clout, is arguably more willing to press for ‘unification’ by force. An even more disturbing indicator of a regressing cross-strait relationship is the irrelevance of the GMD – or any Taiwan government for that matter – as a factor in the CCP’s Taiwan policy. Carrots are still offered to attract Taiwanese investment and human capital to China under the banner of deepening people-to-people relations, but these policies suffer from the usual implementation gap in China’s political system. At the same time, these policies cannot turn the tide in Taiwan’s public perception of the ‘China threat’, a perception in itself caused by Xi Jinping’s reinforced focus on the stick-side of this method, both in terms of words and deeds.

For all its credit as an adaptive and pragmatic, problem-solving party that has secured regime survival against all odds in the previous four decades since the launching of the reform and opening-up policy (Shambaugh 2008), the inflexibility and ideological narrow-mindedness of the CCP’s Taiwan policy is striking. The link chaining regime legitimacy to ‘unification’ has never been critically assessed by the CCP leadership. Retrieving Taiwan is foundational for Chinese nationalism and its current narrative of the ‘rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation’. At the same time, ‘unification’ is of geo-economical and geopolitical significance, because Taiwan is a production and innovation hub of the global semiconductor industry and a gateway to military control over the Western Pacific. In this context, creative solutions towards some form of ‘shared sovereignty’ have never made it to the agenda-setting stage of the CCP’s Taiwan policy. On the contrary, by erasing the ambiguous ‘1992 Consensus with different interpretations’ once and for all, Xi Jinping has effectively told the Taiwanese that they must give up any hope for a deal with China beyond a modified version of the Hong Kong ‘One Country, Two System’ model, which would mean abandoning their current de facto sovereignty as well as their democratic system. Xi Jinping’s Taiwan policy arguably exhibits a degree of impatience not seen since the later days of Jiang Zemin’s reign, or even since Mao’s last efforts to test the waters of military invasion, culminating in the 1958 Quemoy crisis.

Taiwan has become so critical for the maintenance of the CCP’s legitimacy that the slightest retreat from the claim to ‘unification’, or any effort to creatively redefine what ‘unification’ could mean in terms of ‘shared sovereignty’, would be interpreted, both within and outside China, as the beginning of the end of one-party rule. Having boxed itself into a corner of nationalist and ideological petrification, the CCP under Xi Jinping’s leadership can now only threaten Taiwan (and the Taiwanese) with military invasion to force submission. This serves to confirm to the world, and particularly to the US, that China is ready not only to fulfil its holy mission to rescue the Chinese nation from Taiwanese ‘separatism’, but also, putting it very simply, to go to war for Taiwan and thereby end American hegemony in the Asia-Pacific. This perception, though it may sound alarmist, can only strengthen the belief of the Taiwanese people that their country’s sovereignty must be defended, no matter the cost. It also nurtures an anti-China sentiment around the world, strengthening those voices who predict a violent showdown between the US and China, with Taiwan arguably one of the most likely places where such a clash will happen. This again can only drive Xi Jinping’s impatience to solve the ‘Taiwan issue’ as soon as possible, because time is no longer on Beijing’s side. Thus, the CCP’s Taiwan policy under Xi Jinping has reached a dead-end, equating to a formidable failure, as the costs of deterring independence rise while the probability of ‘peaceful unification’ becomes proportionally smaller and smaller.⁴⁰ This failure may, over time, not only be detrimental to the CCP’s ruling legitimacy but also, in the worst of all cases, to regional and global peace as well.

References

Beckershoff, André. 2014. ‘The KMT–CCP Forum: Securing Consent for Cross-Strait Rapprochement’. Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 43 (1): 213–41. doi.org/10.1177/186810261404300108.

Chen, Chien-kai. 2012. ‘Comparing Jiang Zemin’s Impatience with Hu Jintao’s Patience Regarding the Taiwan Issue, 1989–2012’. Journal of Contemporary China 21 (78): 955–72. doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2012.701034.

Chen, Guiqing (陈桂清). 2022. ‘新时代党解决台湾问题的总体方略: 历史形成与核心内涵’ (Overall Policy Framework for Resolving the Taiwan Question in the New Era). 统一战线研究 (Journal of United Front Science) 6: 81–93.

Chu, Yun-han. 2000. ‘Making Sense of Beijing’s Policy toward Taiwan: The Prospect of Cross-Strait Relations during the Jiang Zemin Era’. In China under Jiang Zemin, edited by Hung-mao Tien and Yun-han Chu, 139–212. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. doi.org/10.1515/9781685859220-012.

Deans, Phil. 2005. ‘Cross-Strait Relations since 1949: From Radicalism to Conservatism and Back Again’. China aktuell 3: 25–35.

Friedman, Edward. 2007. ‘China’s Changing Taiwan Policy’. American Journal of Chinese Studies 14 (2): 119–34.

Gang, Lin. 2016. ‘Beijing’s New Strategies toward a Changing Taiwan’. Journal of Contemporary China 25 (99): 321–35. doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2015.1104863.

Garver, John W. 1997. The Sino-American Alliance: Nationalist China and American Cold War Strategy in Asia. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe.

Ho, Ming-Sho. 2019. Challenging Beijing’s Mandate of Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Hsieh, John Fu-sheng. 2003. ‘Taiwan’s Mainland China Policy under Lee Teng-hui’. In Sayonara to the Lee Teng-hui Era: Politics in Taiwan, 1988–2000, edited by Wei-chin Lee, T. Y. Wang, 185–99. Lanham: University Press of America.

Hsu, Szu-chien and J. Michael Cole. 2020. Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy. Manchester: East Bridge.

Jacobs, Bruce J. and Ben I-hao Liu. 2007. ‘Lee Teng-hui and the Idea of “Taiwan”’. China Quarterly 190: 375–93. doi.org/10.1017/S0305741007001245.

Jones, Brian Christopher. 2017. Law and Politics of the Taiwan Sunflower and Hong Kong Umbrella Movements. London: Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781315575063.

Kwong, Ying-ho. 2016. ‘The Growth of “Localism” in Hong Kong’. China Perspectives (3): 63–8. doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.7057.

Lee, Wei-chin. 2020. ‘Multiple Shades of China’s Taiwan Policy after the 19th Party Congress’. Journal of Asian and African Studies 55 (2): 201–20. doi.org/10.1177/0021909620905063.

Lin, Shirley Syaru. 2016. Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. doi.org/10.1515/9780804799300.

Rigger, Shelley. 2018. ‘Has China’s Taiwan Policy Failed? And If So, What Next?’ In A New Era in Democratic Taiwan: Trajectories and Turning Points in Politics and Cross-Strait Relations, edited by John Sullivan and Chun-yi Lee, 142–55. London: Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781315161648-8.

Rigger, Shelley and Gunter Schubert. 2017. ‘Taiwan’s Development Experience for the Chinese Mainland: The Perspective of Chinese Intellectuals’. In Taiwan’s Impact on China: Why Soft Power Matters More than Economic or Political Inputs, edited by Steve Tsang, 95–123. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Roy, Denny. 2021. ‘Rumors of War in the Taiwan Strait’. Diplomat, 20 March. thediplomat.com/2021/03/rumors-of-war-in-the-taiwan-strait/.

Schubert, Gunter, ed. 2016. Taiwan and the China Impact: Challenges and Opportunities. London: Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781315671116.

Shambaugh, David. 2008. China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation. Berkeley: University of California Press. doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.4755.

Sheng, Michael M. 2008. ‘Mao and China’s Relations with the Superpowers in the 1950s: A New Look at the Taiwan Strait Crisis and the Sino-Soviet Split’. Modern China 34 (4): 477–507. doi.org/10.1177/0097700408315991.

Shirk, Susan L. 2007. China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Su, Chi. 2009. Taiwan’s Relations with Mainland China: A Tail Wagging Two Dogs. London: Routledge. doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.4959.

Sullivan, Jonathan and James Smyth. 2018. ‘The KMT’s China Policy: Gains and Failures’. In Assessing the Presidency of Ma Ying-jiu in Taiwan: Hopeful Beginning, Hopeless End?, edited by André Beckershoff and Gunter Schubert, 17–36. London: Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781351045117-2.

Szonyi, Michael. 2008. Cold War Island: Quemoy at the Front Line. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tiezzi, Shannon. 2015. ‘Cross-Strait Relations: The DPP’s Tightrope Walk’. Diplomat, 11 June. thediplomat.com/2015/06/cross-strait-relations-the-dpps-tightrope-walk/.

Wachman, Allan M. 1994. Taiwan: National Identity and Democratization. Armonk-London: M. E. Sharpe.

Wu, Jieh-min. 2016. ‘The China Factor in Taiwan: Impact and Response’. In Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Taiwan, edited by Gunter Schubert, 426–46. London: Routledge. doi.org/10.4324/9781315769523-29.

Xin, Qiang. 2020. ‘Having Much in Common? Changes and Continuity in Beijing’s Taiwan Policy’. Pacific Review 34 (6): 926–45. doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2020.1773908.

Xu, Shiquan. 2001. ‘The 1992 Consensus: A Review and Assessment of Consultations between the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Straits Exchange Foundation’. American Foreign Policy Interests 23 (3): 121–40. doi.org/10.1080/108039201317057661.

---