The “one country, two systems” model that Beijing continues to herald has long since lost all appeal in that thriving democracy after its failure in Hong Kong. In this article I will explain why the PRC campaign has failed and how the Taiwanese view unification and cross-strait relations.
Explaining why the Taiwanese do not want unification is easy. First, identity politics is important. In the thirty years since Taiwan's democratization, Taiwanese identity has continued to rise, while Chinese identity on the island has declined to an almost negligible level (2.4% according to a 2022 survey), with a substantial proportion claiming dual identity (30.4%).1 From the end of World War II until the 1980s, the Kuomintang (KMT) from China ruled the island first with Chiang Kai Shek and then his son Chiang Ching Kuo as national leaders. Considered an émigré regime with no social base, the KMT did not hold national elections. Taiwan suffered great slaughter during the transition period from Japanese rule to Chinese rule in 1947, followed by 38 years of martial law and white terror. It is therefore unlikely that, having painstakingly dismantled the previous authoritarian regime, Taiwan's people will willingly accept another Chinese central government and renounce their de facto independent status.
Second, although China has promoted "peaceful unification" with Taiwan, it has never been willing to give up the option of using force. Beijing knows that if it dropped the threat of unification by force, the Taiwanese might be bolder in seeking de jure independence. Paradoxically, however, the threat of force from China makes Taiwanese feel even further removed from that country. So the threat of force is a double-edged sword for Beijing.
Third, after ten years of Xi Jinping's rule, China has reverted to a totalitarian regime that has severely repressed civil society, established re-education camps in Xinjiang, and broken its promise of a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong, ending the freedom and rule of law in Hong Kong along the way. All of these measures are self-evident to the Taiwanese, making it very difficult for them to trust the Xi regime and engage in political negotiations.
In addition, the national identity that the Communist Party of China defends is sealed with blood, as Xi Jinping said in 2015 during the meeting with Ma Yingjeou, the Kuomintang chairman: "There are no forces that can separate us despite the gusts of wind." and rain and the long isolation between us, because we are brothers whose bones are broken but whose sinews are still connected, and we are a family whose blood is thicker than water.”2 Encouraged by the regime, Chinese netizens intolerant of Taiwanese independence (taidu) have launched a witch-hunt against “taidu suspects”: legions of cyber-patriots fueled by China's huge internet market accuse Taiwanese singers, actors and directors of supporting taidu and press for an intervention by the authorities. China's use of netizens to bring Taiwan's entertainment sector to heel has seen the island's celebrities lining up to express their allegiance to China.
When the Chinese military conducted live-fire exercises around Taiwan following the visit of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Chinese Ambassador Lu Shaye warned: “Taiwan authorities are educating public opinion in desinization and is poisoned with the idea of Taiwan independence. Re-education must be carried out to eradicate these separatist and secessionist ideas.”3 The term re-education refers to what the communists have carried out with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Taiwan is, by contrast, an immigrant society with a multitude of ethnic cultures that embrace progressive values such as gender equality and gay rights. If the Taiwanese are creating a kind of nationalism under Chinese pressure, it is a novel national identity articulated around citizen equality. The two nationalisms on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are therefore incompatible.
Based on survey data, the way in which Taiwanese perceive the Chinese reunification offer is presented below.4
To the question: "Some say: 'If the economic and political development of mainland China is similar to that of Taiwan, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should be unified.' Do you agree or disagree with this statement?”, only 17.6% of those surveyed agreed compared to 79.5% who disagreed.
To the question: "Some say: 'If mainland China becomes a democratic country, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait should be unified.' Do you agree or disagree?", 35.4% agreed, while 61.1% disagreed.
These figures show that, even as China becomes an economically advanced and politically democratic country, the majority of Taiwanese are still unwilling to unify. The results indicate that the majority perceives China as a different country from Taiwan, regardless of its development.
In the same survey, the question was asked: "What do you think is the most probable outcome of relations between the two sides of the Strait in the future?" The question did not refer to the immediate choice between reunification or independence, as is usually done in surveys,5 but to the possible future outcome of relations between the two sides of the Strait. 32% of those surveyed believe that “China will unify Taiwan”, 45.9% that Taiwan will become independent and only 14.9% that Taiwan could “maintain the status quo”. That result is significant because in conventional polls, the majority always choose to "keep the status quo." However, the new question measures projection for the future, with the result that only a minority of respondents choose to maintain the status quo. A reasonable deduction is that the Taiwanese know that the so-called status quo is a temporary and uncertain state and that the future cannot be frozen forever. In fact, the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is increasingly influenced by the rapid geopolitical changes taking place in East Asia. For example, Chinese fighters have recently breached Taiwan's air defense zone and the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
For decades, China has resorted to a carrot-and-stick strategy with Taiwan. Beijing has granted it a series of economic concessions, has nurtured collaborative individuals and groups who depend on China's privileged treatment, and has built a dense political network across the Straits, creating a political constituency with which to influence and intervene in the island's elections. In the 2012 presidential election, dozens of big businessmen with economic interests in China endorsed the 1992 Consensus, which enshrines Beijing's “one China” principle. The KMT candidate, Ma Yingjeou, won re-election because many economic voters believed that the 1992 Consensus was necessary to maintain peace and prosperity.
Therefore, the Taiwanese have long considered economic interests to be more important than national sovereignty and security. However, in recent years there has been a drastic change in public attitudes towards China. Since 2019, those who consider national sovereignty and security to be more important have become the majority.
What caused the turnaround in public opinion in 2019? Various factors. First, the significant slowdown in Chinese economic growth, which halved the attractiveness of the country.
Second, and perhaps more crucially, that in 2018 China began waging a massive information and cognitive war against Taiwan. The island paid a painful price, and public opinion was put on guard against pronounced Chinese power operations. For example, when a typhoon struck Japan's Kansai airport in fall 2018, Beijing seized the opportunity to wage a propaganda war against Taiwan by portraying its diplomats in Japan as callous and incompetent compared to their wolf-like Chinese counterparts. Collaborated with pro-Chinese local news outlets, this misinformation precipitated a political storm that cost the life of a diplomat and dealt a heavy blow to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in the elections.
Third, the Hong Kong situation. In 2019, the unprecedented mobilization of the Anti-Extradition Movement (protests against a proposed revision of the law allowing the extradition of criminal suspects to China) and the brutal crackdown on protesters by the Hong Kong authorities sparked the general sympathy of the Taiwanese. The social movement sector was thrown into the struggle of the people of Hong Kong. These factors have made the majority aware of the importance of national sovereignty and security.
Along with democratization and geopolitical changes, the landscape of Taiwan's identity politics has also been dramatically transformed. One of the most notable phenomena is the renewal of support for independence. In 2012, when the population was asked about the options for Taiwan's international status, 28.1% opted for independence, 12.3% for unification and 59.7% for maintaining the status quo. In 2022, support for independence rose to 39.7%, unification held at 13.8%, and the status quo dropped to 46.6%.
Most impressive has been the rise in supporters of the taidu among the younger cohorts. In 2012, 29.9% of the 18-34 age group supported independence, just above average; that year, the oldest group represented the most support, at 34.6%. These figures reconfirmed the previous results that the taidu was the concern of the older generations. However, in 2016, the younger generation became the main pillar of the taidu, with support jumping to 52.2%, a trend that was reinforced in 2022.
In short, the PRC's propaganda for peaceful unification has failed, and its once fluid will-buying strategy has hit a snag; This has led to a return to the same old tactics used for decades: diplomatic containment and military threats. That strategy has its limits, however: it can deter the Taiwanese from their quest for legal independence, but the threat of force cannot convince them to voluntarily accept a union with China.
Therefore, the Chinese government's last resort has become cognitive warfare and invasion by force. In fact, the international community is now very concerned about security in the Taiwan Strait and most concerned about the possibility that China will resort to force in the next decade. However, there is also growing public awareness, and more and more are preparing for a Chinese attack on Taiwan. At the end of 2022, the Taiwanese government announced the extension of conscription from four months to one year and promised to reform the national defense system.
The US government, a longtime supporter of stability in the Straits, has strongly urged Taiwan to strengthen its national defense and deploy asymmetric weapons. Congress has approved military aid to Taiwan. President Biden has also reiterated that the US will help defend Taiwan militarily. Under such circumstances, the Chinese drive to achieve forced reunification and Taiwan's consequent response are bound to be the most explosive issue in the future.
Wu Jieh-min is a researcher at the Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology, Taiwan.
