PREAMBLE
A Global Times opinion piece describes the author simply as a “senior Taiwan expert” (资深台湾问题专家).
Zhou Zhihuai (周志怀) is a well-known figure among China’s Taiwan-watching community. He was most notably the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’s prestigious Institute of Taiwan Studies from 2013 until his semi-retirement aged 60 in early 2017. He has since held a number of research positions and has continued to work within the framework of China’s United Front Work Department.
Zhou has previously voiced his concern over Taiwan’s population’s increasing rejection of the PRC. He also worries that China’s staunchest nationalists will at some point become impatient with their government’s lack of “big moves” (大动作) to curtail this trend.
In this article, he chooses to emphasise one of the very few “positive” changes that he sees as having recently emerged in Taiwan: a fear of war and, thus, a growing desire to maintain the status-quo rather than move towards de jure independence. This is conducive to preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, he says.
THE “TAIWAN INDEPENDENCE” DEATH KNELL WILL BE STRUCK HARDER AND HARDER
Zhou Zhihuai (周志怀)
Source: Global Times (环球时报) – 24 January 2024
Translated by an ATA-certified linguist.
A reposting from Sinification.
The dust has settled on the Taiwan region’s 2024 general election. By holding power three consecutive times, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has broken the eight-year cyclical pattern of alternating rule between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the DPP. The 2024 election process and voting shifts will not only promote important changes in the island’s politics, social situation and public opinion [社情民意], but will also have a profound impact on the future direction of cross-Strait relations.
The election results show that, while there are non-Greens [i.e. anti-DPP] in Taiwan, there is no so-called [non-Green] “camp”.
The KMT’s loss was not caused by the collapse of the “Blue-White alliance” [KMT = Blue / TPP = White], but rather stemmed from long-standing structural contradictions [within the Successive party chairmen have never been able to find effective solutions to the party’s structural problems despite attaching great importance to doing so. [These include:] conflict over whether to adhere to ‘getting along with mainland China” [和中] under the “1992 Consensus” or to “distancing itself from it” [远中]; its heavily criticised ability to reform and restructure itself and its many internal integration difficulties; its lack of fresh blood and low levels of identification among the young; and its difficulty in breaking away from the Green camp’s “pro-China, selling out Taiwan” [亲中卖台] smear [campaign]. The election process has made clear that placing one’s hopes of election victory on other parties inevitably puts one under the control of others. None of the political forces on the island are internally monolithic, and where two political forces have different philosophies and underlying colours, as in the case of the Blue and White parties, the subjectivity, interests and political calculations of the parties make it difficult for them to integrate.
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is far from a mature political party and its development prospects are uncertain. The White party force represented by [Former Taipei mayor] Ko Wen-je was the attention-grabbing newcomer, [but] although it held on securely to third-party status in this round of elections, judging from the history of party politics on the island, [it will be] difficult for it to sustain itself as a third force apart from the two major parties, the KMT and DPP, for long. Although the TPP won 26% of the vote, it currently has no solid base to speak of. Take Ko Wen-je, who went from dark green to anti-Green, first allying [himself] with the Greens, then with the Blues and then going it alone. This kind of capriciousness and playing off both sides highlights the party’s development bottleneck going forward.
Judging from the current situation, competition among Taiwan’s political parties has entered a new “localisation” [or “Taiwanisation”] showdown phase. In this election, the “localisation versus localisation” rivalry [“本土对本土”的博弈现象] between Lai Ching-te (DPP), Hou You-yi (KMT) and Ko Wen-je was clearly visible, indicating that in this 2024 election the island’s inter-party competition has begun to shift from the traditional reunification-independence and Blue-Green duelling to a “localisation contest” [本土对决]. [Furthermore,] this so-called localisation is no longer the DPP’s exclusive franchise. Changes in the underlying colours of the opposing camps [对垒阵营底色的变化] will inevitably affect the political direction of the island’s major political parties and will also pose certain challenges to the peaceful reunification of the country. For the Green camp, localisation and “Taiwan independence” are a pair of connected twin brothers and the White camp’s localisation naturally shows a rich green hue. For the Blue camp, it will be worth watching closely whether the connotations of its version of localisation can become a new argument for the KMT’s survival. As to whether the KMT’s version of localisation can neutralise the DPP’s now-stale “honesty, diligence, love of homeland” localisation, and thus gain a voice [拿到话语权], is still highly uncertain.
“Scepticism towards independence” will inevitably give rise to a political shift among Taiwan’s new generation. The voting behaviour of the island’s younger generation in the 2024 election shows that an “independence-sceptic” generation has emerged. Young voters still have a huge voice and enormous energy for swaying elections, but the DPP’s once-solid fan base among the young has begun to slip away. Some of the young students of the 2014 “Sunflower Movement”, who opposed the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, had once expressed support for “Taiwan independence”, but their “Taiwan independence” fantasy has been shattered by reality over the ten years since they entered society and in the context of the choice between “war and peace”. Whether it is the “sandwich generation” over 30 years old who experienced the “Sunflower Movement” or the so-called “post-Sunflower generation” between the ages of 20 and 30, [both] have begun to be sceptical of the illusory idea of “Taiwan Independence”, which could even lead to a dreadful war. They are [also] more strongly critical of the corruption and chaotic governance of the DPP. “Lai-scepticism” [疑赖论] in particular, which began to bubble up in the United States and Taiwan during the election process, became an important factor encouraging some of the younger generation to stay away from, or even abandon, the DPP. The emergence of an “independence-sceptic” generation clearly contributes to the peace and stability of the situation in the Taiwan Strait. In addition, the average age of newly elected KMT members is the youngest of the three parties in this [year’s] legislative election. As the KMT’s new generation moves towards centre stage, what role it will play in the adjustment of future cross-Strait policy in Taiwan will also merit attention.
The facts show that “Taiwan independence activist” [行动派台独] Lai Ching-te is very dangerous. Neither Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian nor Ma Ying-jeou [three former Taiwanese presidents] ever admitted that they were “Taiwan independence” [activists]. Lai Ching-te is thus the only DPP leader to have tagged himself with the “Taiwan independence” label. During this election, Lai Ching-te wanted to tear off this label. However, the disastrous argument he brought up during an election debate with regards to the so-called “Republic of China” and “Republic of China Constitution” was not only in the same vein as Tsai Ing-wen’s “the Republic of China is a government-in-exile” [statement], but was also a true confession of his heart, exposing his real intention towards “Taiwan independence” [暴露了“台独”本心]. Lai’s obsession with “Taiwanese independence” may encourage him to risk universal condemnation and rashly engage in “radical Taiwan independence” activities [贸然进行“激进台独”活动]. After Lai’s victory, he claimed that Taiwan had “successfully resisted efforts from external forces to influence [this election]”, [thus] declaring to the world that he was not only “conceptually a Taiwan independence [worker]” [理念型台独], but also an extremely dangerous “Taiwan independence activist” [行动派台独].
Will the DPP stay in power a long time? When Chen Shui-bian was re-elected in 2004, some in the DPP were quite optimistic that the DPP would remain in power for the next one-to-two decades. They did not expect that the situation would collapse with a bang four years later, however. Even if there are people on the island who really want the DPP to be in power for a long time, no group of impractical “Taiwan independence workers” is ever going to be able to provide satisfactory answers to the questions of: whether or not the people of Taiwan can live and work in peace and contentment; how to avoid going into the abyss of war; and what kind of Taiwan Strait risks can be withstood.
When scholars on both sides of the Taiwan Strait talk about the cross-Strait situation, they repeatedly argue that Taiwan is standing at a crossroads and that there is no turning back if it takes a wrong step. That being said, the direction and path of cross-Strait relations do not allow for trial and error, so there is no script other [than the one leading to reunification] that can be chosen. What is the way out for Taiwan? What is [its] future direction? In fact, there is only one road and that is, there must be reunification. Reunification is inevitable and there is no crossroads to speak of.
The end of the so-called “Taiwan independence” road is reunification. The impasse between us and the DPP over “Taiwan independence” cannot be untangled, our ties with the political parties on the island that adhere to the “1992 Consensus” and oppose “Taiwan independence” cannot be cut, and we will not stop integrating with Taiwan’s economy and society. The death knell for the DPP’s “Taiwan independence” will be struck harder and harder. Some people in the DPP have been engaging in wishful thinking, claiming that it would be impossible for the mainland not to interact with Taiwan after Lai’s election and that it could not change Taiwan if it wanted to. I would like to advise the “Taiwan independence” workers and their followers: Give up this idea!
The Author
