Taiwan Polls Dash China’s Unification Hopes

Taiwan’s recent legislative election has dashed Beijing's hope that greater economic integration between China and the renegade island could eventually bring about unification.

Following their joint accession to the World Trade Organisation, China had floated the idea of a Greater China Free Trade Area, comprising the mainland, Taiwan, Hongkong and Macau, in the hope that economic forces would gradually bring the two sides closer to each other politically.

Looking at some developments, such hope seems justified.

Taiwanese capital and personnel that flowed towards the mainland reached a record high this year.

The number of Taiwanese living and working regularly in the mainland is close to half a million, an unprecedented figure indeed.

And public opinion polls in Taiwan indicated that Taiwanese support for Beijing's proposed unification model - 'one country two systems' - is consistently on the rise.

All this has spawned optimism that economic integration would create the necessary conditions for unification.

Yet to Beijing's surprise, in recent years when election came around most Taiwanese had opted for the pro-independence camp.

In last Saturday's elections the separatist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) defeated the pro-unification Kuomintang (KMT) to become the largest party in Taiwan.

The other parties on the extreme ends of the reunification debate also produced dramatic results - the separatist Taiwan Solidarity Union managed to grab 5 per cent share of the 225-seat legislature, a good enough position previously used by the pro-unification New Party (NP) for horse-trading.

Seen by the voters as toeing too closely Beijing's line, the NP was almost wiped out from Taiwan's political landscape in the elections.

What surprised Beijing is nothing astonishing to Taiwanese. 'Economic decisions are rational but political ones are sentimental,' explained Mr Day Dongching, a research fellow at the the Eurasia Education Foundation, a think-tank in Taipei.

'This explains why Taiwanese businessmen flocked to the mainland to seek better opportunities. But when it comes to election, which could affect the future of the island, then one's attachment to the land, or sense of identity - a sentimental element - would take precedence,' he said.

'What Beijing has lost sight of is this rising sense of identity with Taiwan. It transcends social and ethnic divides and is especially strong when Taiwan is seen bullied by Beijing,' he said.

'Although this time Beijing did not use military threats to intimidate Taiwanese voters, its Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan's open humiliation of the Taiwanese representative at the Apec meeting in October has peeved Taiwanese all the same,' Mr Day said.

According to Dr Yan Xuetong of the Institute of International Relations of Qinghua University, the failure of the economic integration tactic means Beijing has to find new ways to advance its unification course.

The election result had also shown the 'united front tactics', which is basically about winning over the enemy's enemies, to be a failure, he said.

By putting the NP on the pedestal, Beijing brought about the opposite result - its complete decimation.

'The conclusion from the elections has to be that separatism is on the rise and there is no other way to keep it at bay except by showing military might,' said an official related to the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council who declined to be identified.

'If so, a vicious cycle would develop - the harsher Beijing is to Taipei, the farther Taipei will move away from unification,' the official warned.