Taiwan

Consequently, Taiwan’s seeming success of the Three Triumphs in the mid-1990s was not a prelude to “living happily ever after.” Still, despite the Three Threats, during the late 1990s and early 2000s, Taiwan did not suffer any catastrophes in politics, economics, or foreign affairs. Rather, both domestic politics and cross-Strait relations were marked by continuing tensions, which remained unresolved (and perhaps were irresolvable in the short run) but which also appeared to be well short of inevitably becoming destructive to the polity and society that have developed in postwar Taiwan. This chapter, hence, discusses the second presidential term of Lee Teng-hui (1996–2000) and the first presidential term of Chen Shui-bian (2000–2004) in terms of two tensions: between growing political institutionalization and the rise of symbolic politics internally; and between the stability of the diplomatic status quo and the growing pressures in both Taipei and Beijing to challenge that status quo.

Consequently, cultural and symbolic issues are almost impossible to resolve no matter how well institutionalized a government might be. The fact that even the best political institutions may not be able to handle certain issues very well or even adequately raises two other points as well. First, while democratic institutionalization may be an important component of political development, there is no guarantee that particular political institutions will function well, and too much institutionalization can bring rigidification in decision making, which can often be counterproductive.³ Second, while political institutions are often conceived primarily in terms of constitutionally or legally constituted organizations (e.g., legislatures and cabinets) or procedures (electoral laws), informal practices can also be considered institutions and have profound implications for political, economic, and social outcomes.⁴

Taiwan’s democratization illustrates all of these more abstract theoretical points. The democratic transition of the late 1980s and early 1990s seemingly completed the political institutionalization of the country. Previously, the ROC was widely credited with having a well institutionalized executive bureaucracy that was quite effective in foreign affairs and promoting economic development.⁵ Yet, the authoritarian government structure left the process for making major policy decisions rather shadowy, arbitrary, and certainly uninstitutionalized. Democratization promoted political institutionalization in two important ways. First, the selection of officials became institutionalized through regular elections in a process that Shelley Rigger terms “Voting for Democracy.”⁶ Second, policy making became regularized through the actions of democratically selected governmental bodies and officials (e.g., the president, Legislative Yuan, etc.).

Taiwan’s democratic transition and the political institutionalization that accompanied it brought several real and potential problems along with them. Some of Taiwan’s central political institutions, such as the hybrid presidential-parliamentary system, had depended on the authoritarian dictatorship of the KMT party-state. Thus, democratization exposed how imprecise and, therefore, potentially unstable some of these institutional relationships were. Taiwan also faced the fairly serious possibility that cultural symbolic politics in the form of conflicts over national identity could tear the society apart. The KMT’s association with the “white terror,” most especially the horrendous tragedy of the murderous repression of the February 28, 1947, uprising (for a detailed discussion see Chapter 10 by Steven Phillips), made many fear that democratization would unleash ethnic conflict that had earlier been contained only by authoritarian controls.

Taiwan went through its democratic transition with a two-party system in which the old ruling party, the Kuomintang, remained dominant. Real two-party competition commenced with the founding of the DPP in 1986 in direct defiance of martial law. As Table 17.2 shows, Taiwan clearly had a two-party system, with the KMT holding a dominant position early in its democratic transition. For example, the KMT outpolled the DPP by two-to-one margins in the late 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s. Starting with the 1992 elections for the Legislative Yuan, which the KMT won by the considerable margin of 53 percent to 31 percent, this situation evolved toward more even two-party competition for two reasons. First, the DPP raised its level of support markedly from 25 percent in 1986 to just under 40 percent in most elections by the mid-1990s. Second, the New Party split off from the KMT in 1993 and won about 15 percent of the vote in several elections in the mid-1990s, although its popularity dropped precipitously thereafter. Consequently, by the late 1990s, Taiwan appeared to have a primarily two-party system, in which the KMT had a significant but far from overwhelming advantage in most elections. Indeed, the DPP actually won the 1997 elections for city mayors and county magistrates (chief executives), beating the KMT 43 percent to 42 percent and, much more important, winning twelve of these twenty-three positions compared to eight for the KMT and three for independents.

Taiwan’s party system then moved quickly to one based on two competing blocs or coalitions of parties. The DPP and TSU became allied in the PanGreen coalition (named for the primary color in the DPP’s flag), while the KMT, PFP, and New Party formed the PanBlue bloc (named for one of the colors associated with the KMT and its symbols). As the bottom half of Table 17.2 indicates, these two coalitions competed quite evenly over the next few years. Chen Shui-bian retained the presidency for the Greens in 2004, by the razor-thin margin of 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent, while the Blues won narrow margins in the 225-seat Legislative Yuan in 2001 (115 to 100) and 2004 (114 to 101). The results of the 2001 city and county executives elections were somewhat contradictory in that the PanGreen candidates received more votes than the PanBlue ones (45 percent to 37 percent), but the Blues won more contests (12 to 9). More recently in 2005, the PanGreen Coalition won the May National Assembly elections 50 percent to 45 percent, while the PanBlue bloc won the elections for county magistrates and city mayors in December 52 percent to 43 percent. Even though the latter was widely viewed as a major defeat for the Greens and President Chen,⁹ the overall vote totals were almost exactly the same as those in the 2001 Legislative Yuan elections. Thus, while the support levels for the two blocs have fluctuated a little during this decade, the party system remains fairly evenly balanced and quite competitive.

In addition, the shake-up of the party system in 2000 clearly worked in the favor of the DPP and the PanGreen bloc since it ended the era of Kuomintang domination of Taiwan’s elections. For example, in 2000 Lien and Soong combined won 60 percent of the vote to Chen’s 40 percent, suggesting that the DPP won only because of the split between the opposition candidates. Yet, Chen won re-election in 2004 in a two-party race against a PanBlue ticket of Lien for president and Soong for vice president, and the PanBlue margin over the PanGreen parties in voting for the Legislative Yuan dropped substantially from 53 percent to 30 percent in 1998 as compared to 50 percent to 41 percent in 2001 and 50 percent to 46 percent in 2004.¹⁰ Clearly, the split between Lee and the KMT hurt the Blues and created an extremely competitive political environment.

By the middle of the decade, the nature of the party system did seem to be changing again in a significant fashion. As was noted earlier, during Chen’s first administration the party system was marked by competition between two blocs, each having one larger and one smaller party. Perhaps because of the fairly even partisan balance, the political battles were intense and polarizing; and the ongoing division between the Green executive and Blue legislature resulted in policy paralysis and gridlock that were widely decried across the political spectrum.¹¹ Many analysts believed that Taiwan’s party and electoral systems were at least partially to blame for this political hostility and polarization. The minor parties (the TSU in the Green bloc and the PFP in the Blue bloc) were more radical on the divisive national identity question and pressured the major parties away from moderate stances. Moreover, Taiwan’s large multimember electoral districts, in which only a fairly small percentage of the vote was necessary for victory, encouraged radical candidates whose victories made it harder for the parties to compromise.¹²

Both constitutional reform and practical politics in 2005 appeared, at least initially, to hold the potential for attenuating this polarization and gridlock. However, little changed in the short term, and in early 2006 Taiwan’s politics were as divisive and vicious as ever. Constitutionally, the amendments adopted by the National Assembly in 2005 included a major change in the electoral system that abolished the multimember legislative districts and replaced them with a combination of single-member districts and a central party list for proportional representation, and cut the size of the Legislative Yuan in half. This reform had the backing of both the DPP and KMT, which is not surprising because it would help the major parties at the expense of their smaller allies.¹³ Still, its actual effects, if any, must await the future. Even so, there are some signs the minor parties are fading somewhat. They did not do very well at the polls in 2005, getting 6 to 7 percent of the voting in the May National Assembly elections and only 1 percent in the December vote for the chief executives of local government. The PFP appears especially vulnerable to disintegration because a quarter of the PFP members of the Legislative Yuan defected to the KMT in late 2005 and early 2006.¹⁴ Thus, Taiwan may well be heading back to an essentially two-party system.

In terms of practical politics, leadership changes in both the DPP and KMT during 2005 seemed to give some potential for moderating extreme partisanship, but in actuality had little impact. In the DPP, the mayor of Kaohsiung, Frank Hsieh, assumed the premiership in early 2005 and indicated that he wanted to pursue a policy of “coexistence” that would de-escalate tensions with the Blue-controlled Legislative Yuan, while Ma Ying-jeou, with a reputation for avoiding vicious politics, won the KMT chairmanship in July 2005 with an overwhelming 72 percent of the vote in what could only be described as a strong rejection of old-style KMT politics. Yet, there was little change in Taiwan’s polarized partisanship, and Hsieh resigned as premier in January 2006, citing both gridlock with the Blue bloc and less than harmonious relations with President Chen (as well as being tarnished by the Kaohsiung scandal that had hurt the DPP at the polls in the December 2005 elections).¹⁵

One of the key factors determining how a party system operates is the nature of the major political issues in a nation. Table 17.3 presents an overview of the KMT’s and DPP’s positions on the major issues in Taiwan’s politics since the country’s democratic transition commenced in the mid-1980s. These data clearly indicate two central facets of the issue divisions or cleavages in Taiwan. First, Taiwan’s politics has evolved over the last two decades toward a concentration on the single issue of national identity. Second, the party system worked to weaken the emotional and symbolic effects of the national identity issue during the 1990s. Following the 2000 presidential election, the partisan divide on this issue became increasingly heated and intransigent.

Two other issues have also affected at least some elections in democratic Taiwan, but now have generally faded in importance. One of these is corruption or what has been called “Heijin” or “black and gold politics” (black signifying gangsters and gold rich businessmen). Under the KMT authoritarian regime, corruption and crime had remained fairly limited at what might be termed “first world” rather than “third world” levels. Democratization unfortunately unleashed burgeoning corruption as both business and gangsters were able to gain access to the increasingly expensive political processes.¹⁷ As the party in power, the KMT was obviously by far the most tainted by “black and gold politics.” In contrast, the DPP and initially the New Party undoubtedly benefited from their much “cleaner” images. For example, the Soong scandal during the 2000 presidential elections, in which the KMT accused Soong of mismanaging huge slush funds when he had been the party’s secretary general, played a major role in that campaign.¹⁸ Yet, the election of Chen Shui-bian created a DPP administration, thereby making it much harder for the PanGreen forces to use this issue. More recently, for example, several scandals, especially the one concerning the Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corporation, were seen as important factors in the Greens’ poor showing in the 2005 elections for county magistrates and city mayors.¹⁹

Second, while social welfare policy has been less contentious on Taiwan than in most developed nations, significant party differences did emerge during the 1990s in this area. During the authoritarian era, Taiwan’s social welfare programs were quite modest; and the government repressed the labor movement to help the island maintain its niche in the global economy as a source of low-cost industrial goods. Consequently, the DPP took some interest in criticizing the regime on these issues; and, in fact, Yun-han Chu and Tse-min Lin argue that the DPP’s appeal on these issues contributed considerably to its electoral success in the early and mid-1990s.²⁰ Yet, the opposition party’s principal interest in the national identity question limited the aggressiveness of its policy thrusts in these areas. Instead, independent “social movements,” such as environmental groups and farmers’ and women’s associations (but perhaps surprisingly not labor unions), took the lead in bringing these issues to the national agenda during the 1980s.²¹ Furthermore, once social welfare policies, such as medical insurance were developed, they created strong bureaucratic and popular constituencies that cut across party lines.²² Correspondingly, the KMT moved to take reformist positions on most of these issues once the popularity of the positions espoused by the social movements and the DPP was established. Thus, social welfare policies now seemingly have little play in Taiwan politics.

A little thought would have suggested that neither of these bets were particularly well placed. On the one hand, the KMT’s strong performance at the polls in the late 1980s and early 1990s demonstrated that the DPP’s assumption that it could ride to power on a wave of Taiwanese nationalism was quite dubious. On the other hand, the KMT ignored signs of growing resentment against the treatment of the Taiwanese culture and language of the large majority of the population as second class and failed to realize that democratization would make the maintenance of official myths untenable and that clinging to them would also give the PRC more leverage over Taiwan. In such a situation of two less than desirable alternatives, therefore, the potential opened up for a creative policy entrepreneur to transcend the existing policy debate. President Lee Teng-hui responded to this opportunity with what appeared to be inspired statesmanship at the time of his direct election as president in 1996.

Lee Teng-hui: From Unifying Statesmanship to Polarizing Partisanship

As Chapter 16 described in some detail, Lee Teng-hui’s creative leadership played a large role in the completion of Taiwan’s democratization. In particular, he used the 1990 National Affairs Conference to transcend the deadlock in the still semi-authoritarian Taiwan and to create a blueprint and momentum for establishing fully democratic institutions. Likewise, he was able to transcend the seemingly intractable divide between the DPP and old KMT on national identity, thereby promoting ethnic reconciliation and justice. However, Lee’s leadership had some drawbacks. He was associated with the rise of “black and gold politics” as he used business support to help overcome the power of entrenched KMT factions. Moreover, by the end of his presidency, he had become associated with rising tensions on national identity and cross-Strait relations.²³

For its part, the DPP began to moderate its position on Taiwan Independence in the mid-1990s as well. This was due in part to a radical image on this issue that seemed to be limiting its popularity. Thus, when DPP candidates emphasized Taiwan Independence in their campaigns, as they had done in the 1991 National Assembly, 1994 provincial governor, and 1996 presidential elections, the party’s share of the vote dropped noticeably (see Table 17.2). Consequently, some (but far from all) DPP leaders began to argue that Taiwan was already an independent nation, making a Declaration of Independence immaterial. Indeed, the evident desire of most DPP politicians to move toward a more centrist view on national identity caused several leaders and groups to defect from the DPP and to form the Taiwan Independence Party (TAIP) in 1996, claiming that the DPP had forsaken its major issue, which helped to moderate the image of the DPP.²⁵

Following his direct election as president in March 1996, Lee again seemed poised to act as a unifying statesman in promoting Taiwan’s political and economic development. He called for a National Development Conference (NDC) in December 1996, aimed at replicating the 1990 National Affairs Conference’s ability to break through political gridlock and meet the growing challenges that faced Taiwan. Each of the three major parties appointed representatives to the conference; and President Lee also invited representatives of academia, the business community, and social interests to participate. Series of pre-conference meetings and workshops were organized to help define issues and create a basis for consensus, leading to the work of the NDC being divided into three important areas: economic and social development, cross-Strait relations, and constitutional reform.

President Lee’s political domestic strategies continued to transcend the ethnic divide into the late 1990s. Most important, perhaps, he created the basis for a new national identity during the very high profile 1998 campaign for Taipei’s mayor in which the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou challenged Chen Shui-bian, the popular DPP incumbent with approval ratings of 70 percent. To help Ma overcome the disadvantage of his ethnic heritage, Lee had him proclaim his loyalty to Taiwan in a manner that redefined the categories of national identity on the island:

Lee’s concept of a “New Taiwanese” identity was open to everyone and implied that old ethnic enmities could be left in the past, creating a new approach to national identity that appeared to be widely popular across the political spectrum.²⁸

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the political institutionalization of Taiwan’s democratic transition and the creative leadership of Lee Teng-hui in both shaping and using these institutions had prevented the question of national identity from becoming an explosive “cultural symbolic issue.” This could be seen both directly and indirectly in the functioning of the party system. Directly, as illustrated in Figure 17.1, the major parties both moved toward the middle on national identity and cross-Strait relations, leaving the extreme positions to fairly inconsequential minor parties. Indirectly, Taiwan’s parties began to treat each other in quite pragmatic, opportunistic, and cynical terms. As noted above, the National Development Conference produced a temporary alliance of the KMT and DPP. Simultaneously, however, the DPP and New Party, who were clearly opponents on national identity, were cooperating at times to harass the Kuomintang majorities in the Legislative Yuan and the National Assembly, while factions within the major parties could be very conflictual as well.²⁹

The election of the DPP’s ticket of Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu represented a break from the past in more than one way. The DPP had finally achieved power in what could only be considered a direct repudiation of Taiwan’s (and the old KMT’s) authoritarian past. For example, both candidates had been jailed for their political activities in the 1980s (Chen for eight months and Lu for five years). The images of these two on national identity differed somewhat, presumably representing some conscious ticket balancing. During the course of the 1990s, not just the DPP but Chen Shui-bian himself moved away from Taiwanese nationalism and support for Taiwan Independence. Shelley Rigger noted that, for example, Chen had supported Taiwan Independence when he ran for the legislature in the early 1990s from a multimember district where Taiwan’s electoral system of the “single nontransferable vote” means that a fairly small percentage of the voters can elect a candidate, thereby encouraging radical stances. In contrast, when he ran for mayor of Taipei in 1994 and 1998 and for president in 2000, he took much more measured positions on national identity issues.³³ As mayor of Taipei from 1994 to 1998, he pursued a successful reformist agenda, was able to work with a city council that was split in partisan terms and was highly popular. Thus, Chen, like the DPP as a party, had evidently concluded that moderation and pragmatism on national identity formed a prudent policy. In contrast, Annette Lu was much more of a firebrand, although her relations with Chen appeared a little strained throughout his first term.³⁴

Chen Shui-bian thus faced conflicting incentives and pressures as he assumed the presidency. The DPP “base” wanted and expected major policy changes, while the political dynamics in Taiwan during the 1990s (see Figure 17.1) seemed to be working against radical policy shifts. Furthermore, the DPP only had about a third of the seats in the Legislative Yuan, which created serious political problems for Chen. Initially, he opted for a conciliatory approach. He appointed former defense minister Tang Fei of the KMT as premier, and Tang’s cabinet had a fairly large number of non-DPP members. Chen’s approach to create what he called “a government for all people” with himself as “President for all people” did not prove stable because it was undermined by both the KMT and DPP. In the Legislative Yuan, most KMT members saw Tang as representing their enemy Chen Shui-bian, and many DPP members resented the premiership going outside their party. Thus, executive-legislative relations soon moved toward gridlock.

The DPP activists, moreover, pushed Chen to be more supportive of their agenda. Here, the focus of their efforts in the summer of 2000 was not national identity but halting the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, in line with the DPP’s traditional environmentalism. By the end of the summer, Chen switched positions on this issue, helping to precipitate Tang’s resignation. When the new DPP premier announced the cancellation of the power plant in October 2000, the KMT majority in the Legislative Yuan declared war on the Chen administration. Initially, they threatened to impeach him, but then backed down due to popular opposition and their reluctance to face the voters (because this would also have brought the dissolution of parliament). While the crisis over the nuclear plant faded, strong hostility and nearly total gridlock between the executive and legislature ensued.³⁵

The 2001 elections for the Legislative Yuan, therefore, became a high stakes political game for several reasons. First, it was a test of power between the PanGreen and PanBlue coalitions over who would set the direction of politics in Taiwan. Second, the two new parties, the PFP and TSU, finally had an opportunity to demonstrate whether they had significant pull at the polls. Third, Taiwanese nationalism became more of an issue as the DPP sought to mobilize its base, faced more competition from the TSU advocates of Taiwan Independence in multimember districts, and hoped to secure the defection of “localized” KMT legislators who remained loyal to Lee Teng-hui after their election. In coalition terms, the elections showed mixed results. The DPP, PFP, and TSU were all winners. The DPP outpolled the KMT and became the largest party in the Legislative Yuan with 87 seats; the PFP did quite well, winning nearly a fifth of the vote and 46 seats; and the TSU had a respectable showing with 8 percent of the votes and 13 seats. In contrast, the KMT saw its number of seats cut almost in half from 123 in 1998 to 68; and the New Party was almost obliterated, obtaining just a single seat. Overall, the PanBlue bloc retained a narrow majority of 115 seats out of 225 to 100 for the Greens and 10 for independents. Despite intense speculation, Taiwanese KMT legislators did not defect to the Greens after the election, and Chen’s attempt to form some type of coalition government went nowhere. Indeed, the new TSU legislators put pressure on the DPP to take a more aggressive position on national identity. For example, they tried to pass legislation mandating that the president be born on Taiwan, which seemed aimed at raising nationalist resentments toward such PanBlue leaders as Lien, Soong, and Ma.³⁶

The administration used its executive power to promote what it called a “Taiwanese subjectivity” that certainly was aimed at its base constituency. Wei-chin Lee, for example, argues that Chen promoted a “cultural revolution” (reference to Mao’s Cultural Revolution intentional) that included such initiatives as changing the name of many agencies and organizations to stress “Taiwan,” promoting Taiwanese in language policy, revising the official policy toward the mass media to reverse the previous KMT domination of outlets (including the encouragement of underground radio stations), and changing the focus from Chinese to Taiwanese history in education policy.³⁷ Daniel Lynch termed this a “self-conscious nation-building project,” indicating that Chen and the PanGreen bloc were trying to create a new nation rooted in Taiwanese history and culture.³⁸

The changed nature of the party system also promoted the rise of symbolic politics focusing on national identity. During the 1990s, as shown in Figure 17.1 above, the major parties (i.e., the KMT and DPP) had moved toward the middle, while the extremes were represented by fairly inconsequential parties (i.e., the Taiwan Independence Party and the New Party). With the fracturing of this primarily two-party system in the 2000 presidential election, parties with more extremist images became much more powerful in Taiwan politics. James Soong’s People’s First Party attracted KMT Mainlanders and others who had opposed Lee Teng-hui, as well as absorbed much of the New Party. Thus, despite Soong’s proclaimed allegiance to a “New Taiwanese” identity, it became identified as pro-Mainlander and pro-China in the minds of many Taiwanese. Conversely, the Taiwan Solidarity Union strongly supported Taiwan Independence and often chided Chen and the DPP for not being aggressive enough in this area.³⁹ Consequently, these more powerful minor parties were able to put the national identity question much more centrally on Taiwan’s political agenda.

Chen Shui-bian’s appeals to Taiwanese nationalism intensified as preparations for the 2004 presidential election commenced. Jacques deLisle termed it the “Taiwan Yes!; (China No!)” campaign after one of its central themes and slogans.⁴⁰ Part of the reason for this strong dose of Taiwanese nationalism almost certainly came from the fact that Chen clearly trailed in the polls by ten percentage points or more as the campaign got started in earnest in the fall of 2003.⁴¹ Candidates who are behind need to be aggressive and to “shake up the pot” in the hope of changing the dynamics of the election. Given the centrality of national identity and cross-Strait relations in Taiwan politics, there were few (if any) alternative issues to ride.⁴² Moreover, DPP campaigns have traditionally emphasized mobilizing supporters in large campaign rallies,⁴³ and the emotionally laden national identity issue is clearly the best way to generate such enthusiasm and support among the PanGreen “base.” Thus, Chen and his Green bloc evidently made the calculation that they would get more votes by appealing to their committed constituency rather than to the “moderate middle.”

Chen Shui-bian’s advocacy of a referendum turned out to have two quite distinct and separate appeals. It certainly appealed to supporters of Taiwan Independence among the PanGreen forces.⁴⁵ It also had wide support among the general public who rejected Independence as too radical and provocative, presumably because referenda were seen as a way of surmounting the ongoing gridlock in Taiwan’s politics. Consequently, the politics of the referendum issue during 2003–4 turned out to be quite convoluted. The legislative enactment involved a three-sided struggle among Chen, more radical PanGreen advocates of using the referendum to achieve Taiwan Independence, and the narrow PanBlue majority in the Legislative Yuan who initially opposed passing a referendum law but came to support the idea when its strong popular support became apparent. Ironically, Chen ultimately used a referendum law that was passed by the reluctant PanBlue forces to hold referenda on two issues—whether Taiwan should build up its military in the face of the growing threat from China and whether Taiwan should negotiate with China (the subjects of the referenda that Chen proposed changed considerably over time). On election day, a PanBlue boycott resulted in only 45 percent of the electorate voting for them (as opposed to the 80 percent who voted in the presidential race), causing them to fail despite overwhelming support of the votes cast because they obviously could not get the 50 percent of the registered voters necessary for passage.⁴⁶

The same logic applied to Chen Shui-bian’s campaign promise to promote major constitutional change and revision, which he initiated with a sudden announcement at the anniversary of the founding of the DPP in September 2003 that he planned to have major constitutional change finished by 2006.⁴⁷ On the one hand, DPP factions and members have long advocated the need for a new Constitution to achieve, in essence, Taiwan Independence by, for example, renaming the country the Republic of Taiwan; and Lee Teng-hui and the Taiwan Solidarity Union strongly advocated a new Constitution for a new nation. On the other hand, the need for constitutional change and reform in Taiwan is very widely acknowledged as well. Consequently, just as with the referendum issue, Chen’s advocacy of constitutional reform appealed both to the PanGreen base (while raising fears in Beijing and, to a lesser extent, Washington) and to the “moderate middle” of the citizenry as well, framing the issue in a way that probably benefited Chen at the polls.

The high point of the PanGreen campaign was the “2-2-8 Hand-in-Hand” rally, which was held “to protest China’s military threats and to give the world a clear message that the people of Taiwan want peace, not war.” The rally involved a human chain of an estimated two million people that stretched from the north to the south of Taiwan, with Chen Shui-bian and Lee Teng-hui clasping each other’s hands in Miaoli County in the middle. The huge turnout certainly proved the rally to be a tremendous success in igniting PanGreen supporters. It also was highly symbolic. It was held at 2:28 p.m. on February 28, thereby commemorating the tragedy of “2-2-8.” In addition, it was modeled on a 1989 human chain in what were then the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania of the Soviet Union, protesting the Soviet occupation of what are now three independent nations. The implicit calls for “ethnic justice” internally and Independence from China externally were far from subtle. This certainly reinforced perceptions that Chen was using Taiwanese nationalism as the driving force in his campaign and was willing to “push the envelope” on the Independence issue.⁴⁸

While there were some calls for moderation and reconciliation with the PRC after the election,⁵¹ the run-up to the elections for the Legislative Yuan in December again spurred Chen and the Green bloc to stress Taiwanese nationalism in their campaigns.⁵² In addition to replicating his strategy in the presidential campaign, Chen came under pressure because of competition that DPP candidates faced from TSU rivals in multimember districts who advocated Taiwan Independence.⁵³ The outcome of the election raised questions about this strategy. The PanGreen coalition was widely expected to gain a majority in the Legislative Yuan. However, the Blue bloc retained its narrow majority by winning 114 of the 225 seats. Domestically, the electoral defeat of the Greens was widely attributed to the radicalism of their campaign.⁵⁴ Thus, Chen appeared to fall victim to his own “base constituency.”

In response to this electoral setback, Chen took the polar opposite policy tack of appealing to his “base constituency” by, at least according to very public rumors, beginning to flirt with James Soong and the People’s First Party, who were detested by many Taiwanese nationalists for their allegedly pro-Unification and decidedly anti-Independence positions, in an attempt to take advantage of continuing personal strains between Soong and KMT chairman Lien Chan.⁵⁵ Moreover, the new DPP premier Frank Hsieh offered the vice premiership to KMT vice chairman Chiang Pin-kung in a move that at least started some cross-party discussions.⁵⁶ This stratagem proved to be extremely short-lived. The potential DPP-PFP coalition quickly foundered when the various PanBlue leaders sought to take advantage of an opening to China in the spring of 2005.⁵⁷ More fundamentally, Chen Shui-bian evidently concluded that the Green loss in the December 2005 elections was the result of the alienation of his base. Consequently, unlike in the previous elections, he became more aggressive toward China after the election (see the next part of this chapter on “Cross-Strait Relations”). One of his national policy advisors, Chin Heng-wei, explained President Chen’s new policy toward the PRC. Chin said that the DPP suffered a major setback in last December’s elections because it lost many of its “core supporters” by trying to court middle-of-the-road voters. “The core supporters ended up not voting because they thought that Chen was not being loyal to them and they wanted to teach the party a lesson,” Chin claimed.⁵⁸

Cross-Strait Relations: The Tension Between the Stability of an Unacceptable Status Quo and the Dangers of Pursuing the Desired National Status

As Table 17.4 demonstrates, these competing sovereignty claims have differed considerably over time in how much hostility they generated in cross-Strait relations. From the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 until about 1980, the relations between the ROC and PRC were marked by unremitting hostility. A significant change occurred within this period in the early 1960s. During the 1950s, both sides still seemingly hoped that their legitimacy claims could be exerted through the force of arms, as indicated by the 1954–55 and 1958 Taiwan Strait Crises. By the 1960s, both Mao and Chiang evidently realized the futility of such dreams and became willing to put off the final determination of their sovereignty claims for the indefinite future. By the early 1980s, a hesitant rapprochement emerged as the two regimes appeared to be at least tacitly willing to “live and let live.” Initially in this period, China pursued a “peace offensive” by trying to get Taiwan to agree to Deng Xiaoping’s idea of Unification through “one country, two systems,” while Taiwan adamantly rejected any negotiations because of its much weaker bargaining position. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Taiwan initiated its “pragmatic diplomacy,” which tried to balance a push to upgrade its international status with some contacts with China (e.g., the Koo-Wang talks of 1993) and especially with the tremendous growth of economic and social interactions across the Strait. For most of the first half of the 1990s, this policy appeared to be working.⁵⁹

However, increasing Chinese frustration over Taiwan’s “creeping officiality” in international affairs finally exploded after the United States gave President Lee Teng-hui permission to visit his alma mater, Cornell University, in the summer of 1995, setting off another period of growing tensions labeled the new battle over sovereignty, which, as noted in Table 17.4, has been renewed and intensified every few years since then. This last period can be conceptualized as a growing tension not only for Taiwan, but for China as well, between the benefits of the stable but far from desirable status quo and the dangers that pursuing the desired state of sovereignty would almost inevitably unleash. This part of the chapter analyzes this tension. The first section provides a theoretical overview explaining the political dynamics in cross-Strait relations; and two subsequent sections discuss Lee’s and Chen’s policies in this area.

Foreign policy is often likened to a game of chess in which national leaders seek to pursue their country’s national interest as defined by fairly immutable and abstract criteria.⁶⁰ Other analysts argue that foreign policy is much more complex and subject to very substantial pushes and pulls from ongoing domestic politics that may be only indirectly tied to the foreign policy objectives that seem to be at stake in the “great game” of international diplomacy. In this vein, Robert Putnam conceptualizes foreign policy as a “two-level game” in the sense that events at both the domestic and international levels influence each other.⁶¹ For example, both the Lee and Chen governments in Taiwan and the communist regime in China have used nationalism to gain popular support and legitimacy.⁶² Domestic politics, therefore, forced both to be more confrontational in cross-Strait relations than they might otherwise be just to keep “face” before domestic audiences and constituencies. The potential for conflict was further multiplied by the highly emotional and symbolic nature of the issues involved.

From the early 1960s on, Taiwan and China channeled their conflict into competition for diplomatic recognition and international support. Initially, Taiwan with the support of the United States and most of the West held a substantial advantage. During the 1960s, though, the PRC gained more support, particularly from new ex-colonial nations. The tipping point was probably the PRC’s replacement of the ROC for the “China seat” in the United Nations in 1971; during the 1970s even most of Taiwan’s closest “friends,” such as the United States and Japan, switched their formal diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing as well. The United States was willing to save a membership for Taiwan in the United Nations, although China would have gained the coveted seat in the Security Council, and U.S. diplomats felt that such an effort would have been successful.⁶⁴

Yet, the Chiang Kai-shek government refused to entertain such a proposal, claiming that it violated its “One China” principle. This then put Taiwan at a very substantial disadvantage in its diplomatic competition with China, especially because membership in most international organizations is based on UN affiliation.⁶⁵ From this perspective, Chiang’s decision to leave the United Nations appears both momentous and quite unfortunate. One explanation, besides a gross miscalculation on Chiang’s part, reverses the normal linkage between domestic and foreign policy in which domestic groups pressure the government to adopt policies that they advocate. Here, rather, the government may have feared that the separate representation of Taiwan in the United Nations might undercut its own legitimacy and authority by raising the question of why the people of Taiwan themselves should not determine their own political course.

As described in much more detail in Murray Rubinstein’s chapter “Political Taiwanization and Pragmatic Diplomacy,” Lee Teng-hui sought to break out of Taiwan’s at least partially imposed diplomatic isolation in the late 1980s and early 1990s with his initiative in “pragmatic diplomacy,” which clearly responded to growing popular pressures in democratizing Taiwan or reduce the country’s humiliations on the international stage. Lee sought to upgrade Taiwan’s international status with an emphasis on expanding informal contacts and activities and gaining participation in international organizations. Moreover, Taiwan’s renunciation of its sovereignty claims over China could be viewed as setting the precedent for an analogous rejection of China’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan. Lee’s success was indicated by growing Chinese complaints about Taiwan’s “creeping officiality.” Yet, at least through the early 1990s, Lee and Taiwan maintained a “delicate balance” between pursuing enhanced international support and engaging Beijing by increased contacts across the Taiwan Strait and creating an institutional framework to negotiate Unification sometime in the indefinite future. David Lampton, for one, concluded that this constituted a conscious and sophisticated policy:

This growing economic integration reverberated back through the politics of both Taiwan and China. At first, it appeared to be a “win-win” situation. At the level of the two national governments (see the third column, bottom row of Table 17.5), Beijing was pleased that Taiwan was being pulled into China’s orbit, while Taipei was pleased that these growing economic interactions placated China in regard to Taiwan’s more activist foreign policy. At the level of domestic politics (see the second column of Table 17.5), constituencies were formed in both countries which reaped large gains from the growing economic integration (e.g., the political leaders in southern coastal China whose regions’ economies were stimulated by Taiwanese investment) and which would push their national governments to maintain harmony in cross-Strait relations. In particular, Islander businesspeople from Taiwan were very prominent in this migration of capital, thereby ameliorating the normal divide in Taiwan politics between pro-China Mainlanders and anti-China Islanders. Consequently, these growing social and cultural ties across the Taiwan Strait were seen as a force that could dampen the growing conflict between Taipei and Beijing that commenced in the mid-1990s.⁶⁸

Conversely, this growing economic integration ultimately began to constrain the policy options of both countries in ways that their governments considered much less of a “win-win” situation. For Taiwan, the Lee government became increasingly concerned about the asymmetric nature of the economic links between Taiwan and China that resulted from their involving a much larger share of the island’s economy than the Mainland’s. Such dependence, Lee feared, would give China the power to exercise undue economic and political leverage over Taiwan. Yet, this advantage came with some strings attached for China as well. China had clearly linked its development fate to its rapidly expanding participation in the global economy. Thus, its ability to harass Taiwan had become limited politically by the possibility that it could make itself a pariah to the international community with unilateral military action.

Lee Teng-hui: The Collapse of Pragmatic Diplomacy’s “Delicate Balance”

Matters came to a head when the objectives of the two governments directly clashed in 1995 and pulled the United States into their dispute. President Lee had become increasingly frustrated when his initiative to gain some type of association with the United Nations went nowhere in the mid-1990s because of Beijing’s strident opposition. The central objective of Taiwan’s pragmatic diplomacy then turned to arranging an “unofficial visit” for Lee to the United States; and this became even more important to Lee in 1995 as he began to consider his presidential campaign. In sharp contrast, the PRC strongly objected to any Lee visit to the United States, claiming that this could be construed as recognition of an independent Taiwan by America. Reportedly, Beijing was particularly worried that Lee would go to the United States after his direct election and claim a democratic mandate to govern a sovereign nation. Initially in early 1995, the Clinton administration assured Beijing that Lee would not be granted a visa. However, after Congress passed a nearly unanimous resolution supporting his visit, Clinton changed his mind and granted permission for Lee to attend a reunion at Cornell University in June 1995.

China evidently decided that Lee Teng-hui was a “splittist” who was trying to achieve Taiwan Independence gradually and cumulatively by stealth. Yet, Beijing seemed willing to wait for Lee’s presidential term to end in 2000 in the hope that a more amenable leadership would emerge in Taiwan. China renewed its emphasis on promoting economic integration, for example, by reassuring Taiwan businesspeople even during the 1995–96 crisis that “high politics” would not interfere with economic interactions. Most important, China continued to advocate the “three direct links” in trade, transportation, and communication, in contrast to the current situation in which Taiwan prohibited direct travel and trade, requiring indirect contacts through Hong Kong or another third country. Lee Teng-hui and the Taiwan government resisted establishing the “three links.” In economic terms, Lee argued that the surging economic ties across the Strait threatened to give the PRC undue leverage over Taiwan’s economy and to promote a dangerous de-industrialization or “hollowing out” of the island’s economy. In fact, Lee instituted more controls and limits on Taiwanese investment in China with his “Go Slow, Be Patient” policy in the summer of 1996.⁷¹ Political considerations were probably just as important. Because China had initiated the call for the three links, Taiwan’s agreement might have been construed as a “loss of face” in dealings with Beijing.

The United States then added to the pressure on Taiwan when President Clinton made a statement in Shanghai, which came to be known as the “Three No’s,” during his trip to China in June 1998 that many saw as constituting a major change in U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan:

That the U.S. president would state a position so consistent with Beijing’s claims about Taiwan’s international status (or, more accurately, its lack of status) on Chinese soil raised consternation in Taiwan and, to a lesser extent, among Taiwan’s supporters in America that a fundamental policy shift had occurred in the United States. This change, it was feared, would put Taiwan under substantial pressure from its superpower patron to make concessions to China that could well undermine its sovereignty and threaten its integrity.⁷⁵ Such a pessimistic interpretation was probably overdrawn. For example, the United States subsequently continued arms sales and visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan; and no evidence has emerged that the United States expected any substantive change in cross-Strait relations.⁷⁶ Still, perceptions are perhaps of the utmost importance in diplomacy, and both Beijing and Taipei perceived that Taiwan’s efforts for improving its international status were under serious challenge.

This feeling in Taipei, that Taiwan’s international “breathing space” was being increasingly constricted, may well have been the reason behind Lee Teng-hui’s last “roll of the dice” in cross-Strait relations. Cross-Strait tensions erupted again in July 1999 when Lee upset the seeming equilibrium of “cold peace” by announcing a theory that Taipei and Beijing were connected by “special state-to-state relations.” While he soon took pains to deny that he was asserting Taiwan Independence or that this formulation implied any change from the status quo in cross-Strait relations, the PRC responded very strongly to what it claimed to be Taiwan’s first direct and explicit challenge to the sovereignty of “one China.” The United States also reacted with considerable alarm. Initially, U.S. efforts (and ire) were directed toward Taipei, which was seen as potentially challenging China without giving America any forewarning. When the PRC began to make implicit threats about minor military retaliation (e.g., invading small islands controlled by Taiwan), U.S. efforts at deterrence turned toward Beijing. By September 1999, the immediate crisis appeared contained but not resolved. The PRC proclaimed its refusal to accept Lee’s theory with exclamation points, while Taiwan’s president refused to back down, although he reiterated that “special state-to-state relations” were not a declaration of Taiwan Independence.⁷⁷

Cross-Strait Relations During Chen Shui-bian ’s Presidency: Pressures for Instability from All Three Levels

Chen Shui-bian’s victory in the 2000 presidential election immediately made him the target of conflicting pressures on cross-Strait relations from all three levels of the foreign policy “game.” In terms of domestic politics, the DPP “base” expected major policy change from their victory, such as a more resolute movement toward Taiwan Independence. At the level of national governments, the PRC was clearly hostile to Chen, refusing to respond to his conciliatory policy at the beginning of his administration and harshly denouncing him when he took a harder line on cross-Strait relations midway through his first term. Finally, U.S. policy from “above” went through several gyrations too, changing from pressure not to provoke the PRC to support for giving Taiwan much more “face” in bilateral relations to admonishments that Chen was needlessly threatening stability in the Taiwan Strait by pushing for Taiwan Independence. The result of these conflicting forces was that cross-Strait relations in general and Chen’s policies in particular became less clear and more subject to disruption.

In his campaign for president, Chen initially appealed to Taiwanese nationalism with such statements as: “That Taiwan is an independent country is not only a fact but also a shared wish and desire of more than 90 percent of the Taiwan people” and “The Constitution does not quite do the job of spelling out Taiwan as an independent state.”⁷⁸

However, by early 2000, Chen moved back to the middle of the ideological spectrum on cross-Strait relations, both to appeal to the “moderate middle” of the electorate in Taiwan and to calm fears in Beijing and Washington that his victory would constitute a pro-Independence revolution. For example, he explicitly stated that he would not declare Taiwan Independence nor even include Lee Teng-hui’s concept of “special state-to-state relations” in the Constitution. Indeed, in the area of economic policy Chen was probably the most accommodating of the three major candidates as he advocated establishing the “three links” and relaxing the limitations on Taiwanese investments in China that Lee’s “Go Slow” policy had implemented.⁷⁹

Chen Shui-bian responded to fears that his election might set off a new crisis in the Taiwan Strait by taking a surprisingly conciliatory position toward China. He sought to reassure Beijing with the “5 No’s” in his inaugural speech that he would not do anything to change Taiwan’s status unless the PRC intervened militarily. Based on his earlier campaign promises, these were things that he would not do: (1) declare Independence, (2) change the ROC’s official name, (3) hold a referendum on Taiwan’s national status, (4) add “state-to-state relations” to the Constitution, (5) abolish the National Unification Council or the Guidelines for National Unification that Lee Teng-hui had created in the early 1990s. He also proposed the resumption of talks between the two sides, which Beijing had canceled after Lee’s diplomatic bombshell in 1999 and showed considerable interest in promoting more economic interactions across the Taiwan Strait and negotiating the establishment of the “three links.” For example, with a growing recession in 2001 placing more stress on Taiwan’s domestic economy, Chen (despite obviously sharing some of Lee’s concerns about economic dependence on the PRC) instituted the more liberal “Active Opening, Effective Management” policy on Mainland investment and economic ties.⁸¹

China responded with studied contempt to Chen’s conciliatory approach. It quickly switched its primary demand for resuming cross-Strait talks from Taiwan’s not declaring Independence to Taiwan’s accepting the “One China Principle,” a certain “deal-breaker.” More ominously, it continued a build-up of short-range missiles across the Strait from Taiwan, as a means of exerting military pressure on Taipei and perhaps Washington. China actually took a harder line than previously in the field of economic relations, indicating that it now saw long-term increased integration as less important than gaining concessions from Chen on short-term sovereignty issues. For example, Beijing indicated that it would only enter into talks on the “three links” if Chen knuckled under on the “One China Principle,” and Beijing would ignore Chen’s opening of three “mini links” through Quemoy and Matsu. Furthermore, instead of reassuring Taiwanese businesspeople that economics would be kept separate from politics as in the past, the PRC threatened retaliation against several Taiwanese entrepreneurs who had supported Chen, including Stan Shih of Acer and Chang Yung-fa of Evergreen.⁸²

The Bush administration took several other fairly high-profile actions that were clearly supportive of Taiwan’s quest for enhanced international status. First, the rules limiting visits of Taiwan officials to the United States were relaxed considerably. For example, President Chen Shui-bian made two well-publicized trips to America during his first term, including a barbeque with Tom DeLay, the second highest-ranking Republican leader in the House of Representatives, in May 2001. Second, the Bush administration agreed to substantially upgrade the weapons sold to Taiwan, although the value of this policy turned somewhat questionable when major arms deals became enmeshed in a strident debate in Taiwan about whether or not U.S. companies were charging inflated prices. Third, defense cooperation between the United States and Taiwan was upgraded (or at least made less covert). Taken together, these policy changes certainly gave Taiwan considerably more “face” on the international stage.⁸⁵

Chen, in a fairly dramatic policy shift, took a much sharper position on cross-Strait relations in the summer of 2002, advancing a theory that “one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait” existed, provoking significant unhappiness in both Beijing and Washington. This dramatic change in policy probably reflected several factors in Chen’s thinking: frustration in the face of Chinese intransigence, growing self-confidence because of support from the Bush administration, and a desire to appeal to the PanGreen “base constituency.”⁸⁶ Once the presidential campaign began to heat up in 2003, Chen’s increasing appeals to Taiwanese nationalism confirmed China’s belief that he was an evil splittist who was quite consciously moving Taiwan toward Independence. Chen’s more assertive policy at times also strained relations with the United States as the Bush administration evidently concluded that Chen really was moving toward Independence, thereby running the risk of creating a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.⁸⁷

Following his re-election in 2004, Chen Shui-bian turned more moderate and conciliatory toward China in his inaugural speech, similar to the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election. However, this time Beijing’s response was much harsher and threatened both formally and informally to attack Taiwan if Chen continued his path toward Independence.⁸⁸ During the summer of 2004, Chinese war games and charges by top Taiwan officials that China was preparing for war suggested heightened dangers in the Taiwan Strait.⁸⁹ Still, many observers saw the relations between Beijing and Taipei as returning to an uneasy equilibrium somewhere between “cold peace” and “cold war.”⁹⁰

As described in the previous discussion of domestic politics, Taiwan’s legislative elections in December 2004 repeated the pattern of escalating PanGreen appeals to Taiwanese nationalism followed by a Chen Shui-bian turn to moderation once the votes were counted. For its part, China, presumably reassured by the outcome of the legislative elections, seemed ready to take a less confrontational approach toward Taiwan.⁹¹ For example, meeting in Macau in mid-January 2005, representatives of Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration and China’s Civil Aviation Administration, agreed on a series of direct flights between China and Taiwan for Chinese New Year.⁹² This seemingly represented a breakthrough in the way the two sides have dealt with each other and indicated that, at least for the moment, both were willing to accept the uncertain status quo.

Yet, the movement toward normalization in cross-Strait relations was soon challenged by the domestic dynamics in both the PRC and ROC. China’s communist regime had turned to nationalism as its central legitimizing motif after the Tiananmen Square tragedy, which put it under increasing popular pressure to prevent Taiwan from asserting a sovereignty independent of the PRC.⁹³ China almost certainly felt that it had to respond to Chen’s growing assertiveness and especially to his somewhat unexpected re-election. The government formulated an Anti-Secession Act that created a legal foundation for its often-repeated threats of a military response to the declaration of Taiwan Independence. While the Blue victory in the 2005 Legislative Yuan elections and Chen’s subsequent more conciliatory policy removed some, if not much, of the rationale for this, the Act was too far into the process of adoption by the National People’s Congress to stop without a considerable loss of face. Its final adoption in March 2005 raised a storm, fueling strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Taiwan and hurting China’s image on the international stage by calling attention to its rapid military modernization and to its seemingly unprovoked threats against Taiwan.⁹⁴

China responded to the unwanted escalation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait with an inspired means both to de-escalate the implicit (if not explicit) threat to Taiwan and simultaneously to undercut President Chen Shui-bian politically. Beijing negotiated a series of visits by high-ranking Blue leaders (e.g., Lien Chan of the KMT, James Soong of the PFP, and Yu Mou-ming of the New Party) in the late spring and early summer of 2005. These visits, which indicated that the threat implied the Anti-Secession Law was not imminent, were quite popular in Taiwan and were widely seen as helping the Blue forces.⁹⁵ The Blue victory at the polls in December 2005 seemingly confirmed the trend toward moderation and stability in the Taiwan Strait.⁹⁶

Taiwan Navigates Troubled Waters

In the mid-1990s, Taiwan was seemingly basking in the success of both economic and political miracles. The second term of President Lee Teng-hui and the first term of President Chen Shui-bian turned out to be far more contentious and troublesome than one might have expected at the beginning of 1995 given what Table 17.1 called Lee’s “Three Triumphs.” Yet, even the corresponding “Three Threats” that Lee and Chen actually had to face did not really overcome Taiwan and their administrations. Domestic politics certainly became nasty; and political gridlock showed that democracy cannot necessarily solve all of the country’s political problems. Taiwan’s democracy clearly became consolidated in that election results were accepted and governments changed or continued without the threat of military coup or of a return to authoritarianism.¹⁰⁰ Taiwan’s economy did indeed suffer a recession in 2001–2, perhaps its first in the postwar era. Good growth returned within a couple of years, suggesting that it is still premature to toll the bell for the death of Taiwan’s economic miracle. Finally, cross-Strait relations are certainly considerably more strained than in the early 1990s. The dire predictions of crisis and war still appear to be quite premature. In short, Taiwan continues to chart her own course, albeit in troubled waters.

Notes

1. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991); Lucian W. Pye, Aspects of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966).

2. David C. Leege, Kenneth D. Wald, Brian S. Krueger, and Paul D. Mueller, The Politics of Cultural Differences: Social Change and Voter Mobilization in the Post-New Deal Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 254.

3. Mancur Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).

4. Cal Clark and Danny Lam, “The Competitiveness Debate: Recognizing and Refining the Institutional Context of National Economic Performance,” Business & the Contemporary World, 7, no. 2 (1995): 12–27.

5. Cal Clark, “Democracy, Bureaucracy, and State Capacity in Taiwan,” International Journal of Public Administration, 23, no. 10 (October 2000): 1833–1853; Thomas B. Gold, State and Society in the Taiwan Miracle (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1986); Samuel P.S. Ho, “Economics, Economic Bureaucracy, and Taiwan’s Development,” Pacific Affairs, 60, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 226–247; Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

6. Shelley Rigger, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (London: Routledge, 1999).

7. Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, eds., Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences (New York: Agathon Press, 1986); Douglas W. Rae and Michael Taylor, The Analysis of Political Cleavages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Framework for Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

8. Cal Clark, Asia Update: The 2000 Taiwan Presidential Elections (New York: The Asia Society, 2000); John F. Copper, Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election: Consolidating Democracy and Creating a New Era of Politics (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 2000).

9. Shu-ling Ko, “KMT Crushes DPP in Landslide Victory,” Taipei Times, December 4, 2005, p. 1.

10. John F. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election: Democracy’s Consolidation or Devolution? (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 2004); Wen-hui Tsai and George P. Chen, Building a Democratic State in Modernizing Taiwan: The 2001 Legislative Election and the Push for Pluralism (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 2001).

11. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election.

12. Tun-jen Cheng and Yung-ming Hsu, “Taiwan’s Party System, Coalition Politics, and Cross-Strait Relations,” paper presented at the Conference on the U.S., China, and Taiwan Relations in the Second Term of the Bush Administration, New York University, 2005; Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Rigger, Politics in Taiwan.

13. Shu-ling Ko, “National Assembly Approves Reforms,” Taipei Times, June 8, 2005, p. 1.

14. Ko, “Landslide Victory”; Ko, “National Assembly Approves Reforms”; “Wave of Defections Poses Crucial Test to PFP,” Taipei Times, February 2, 2006, p. 2.

15. Shu-ling Ko, “Hsieh Quits with Parting Shot,” Taipei Times, January 18, 2006, p. 1; Shu-ling Ko, “Ma Gallops to Victory Over Rival Wang,” Taipei Times, July 17, 2005, p. 1.

16. Linda Chao and Ramon H. Myers, The First Chinese Democracy: Political Life in the Republic of China (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Rigger, Politics in Taiwan; Hung-mao Tien, The Great Transition: Political and Social Change in the Republic of China (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1989).

17. Joseph Bosco, “Taiwan Factions: Guanxi, Patronage and the State in Local Politics,” in The Other Taiwan: 1945 to Present, ed. Murray A. Rubinstein (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 114–144; Ching-huei Chang, “The Limits of Statism in Taiwan: The Distortions of Policies Ignoring Small Enterprise Dynamism,” American Asian Review, 14, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 71–96; Cheng-tian Kuo, “Private Governance in Taiwan,” in Beyond the Developmental State: East Asia’s Political Economies Reconsidered, ed. Steve Chan, Cal Clark, and Danny Lam (London: Macmillan, 1998), pp. 84–95.

18. Cal Clark, The 2000 Presidential Elections; Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election.

19. Ko, “Landslide Victory.”

20. Yun-han Chu and Tse-min Lin, “The Process of Democratic Consolidation in Taiwan: Social Cleavage, Electoral Competition, and the Emerging Party System,” in Taiwan’s Electoral Politics and Democratic Transition: Riding the Third Wave, ed. Hung-mao Tien (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 79–104.

21. Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao, “The Changing State-Society Relations in the ROC: Economic Change, the Transformation of Class Structure, and the Rise of Social Movements,” in Two Societies in Opposition: The Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China After Forty Years, ed. Ramon H. Myers (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1991), pp. 127–140.

22. Joseph Wong, Healthy Democracies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).

23. For two collections that provide excellent discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of Lee’s leadership, see Bruce J. Dickson and Chien-min Chao, eds., Assessing Lee Teng-hui ’s Legacy in Taiwan’s Politics: Democratic Consolidation and External Relations (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002); Wei-chin Lee and T.Y. Wang, eds., Sayonara to the Lee Teng-hui Era: Politics in Taiwan, 1988–2000 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003).

24. Chao and Myers, First Chinese Democracy; Steven J. Hood, The Kuomintang and the Democratization of Taiwan (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997).

25. Shelley Rigger, From Opposition to Power: Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001); T.Y. Wang, “One China, One Taiwan: An Analysis of the Democratic Progressive Party’s China Policy,” in Taiwan in Perspective, ed. Wei-chin Lee (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 159–182.

26. Tun-jen Cheng, “Taiwan in 1996: From Euphoria to Melodrama,” Asian Survey, 37, no. 1 (January 1997): 43–51; James A. Robinson, “Taiwan’s 1996 National Assembly and Presidential Elections: Appraising Steps in Democratization,” American Asian Review, 16, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 1–34.

27. Shelley Rigger, “Is Taiwan Independence Passé? Public Opinion, Party Platforms, and National Identity in Taiwan,” in The ROC on the Threshold of the 21st Century: A Paradigm Reexamined, ed. Chien-min Chao and Cal Clark (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 1999), p. 48.

28. Melissa J. Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Rigger, “Is Taiwan Independence Passé?”

29. Chao and Myers, First Chinese Democracy; Robinson, “Appraising Steps in Democracy”; Rigger, From Opposition to Power.

30. Clark, The 2000 Presidential Elections.

31. Rigger, “Is Taiwan Independence Passé?”

32. Stanley B. Greenberg, The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004).

33. Rigger, From Opposition to Power; Rigger, “Is Taiwan Independence Passé?”

34. Copper, Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Rigger, From Opposition to Power.

35. Copper, Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Yu-shan Wu, “Taiwan in 2000: Managing the Aftershocks from Power Transfer,” Asian Survey, 41, no. 1 (January 2001): 40–48.

36. Shelley Rigger, “Taiwan in 2002: Another Year of Political Droughts and Typhoons,” Asian Survey, 43, no. 1 (January 2003): 41–48; Tsai and Chen, The 2001 Legislative Election.

37. Wei-chin Lee, ‘Taiwan’s ‘Cultural Revolution’ : Identity Politics and Collective Action Since 2000,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 2004.

38. Daniel C. Lynch, “Taiwan’s Self-Conscious Nation-Building Project,” Asian Survey, 44, no. 4 (July–August 2004): 513–533.

39. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Rigger, “Taiwan in 2002”; Tsai and Chen, The 2001 Legislative Election.

40. Jacques deLisle, “The Aftermath of Taiwan’s Presidential Election: A Symposium Report,” Philadelphia Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes, 2005, www.fpri.org.

41. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; deLisle, “The Aftermath of Taiwan’s Presidential Election”; Shelley Rigger, “Taiwan in 2003: Plenty of Clouds, Few Silver Linings,” Asian Survey, 44, no. 1 (January 2004): 182–187.

42. Issues in Taiwan and the reasons why all except the national identity one faded are discussed in much more detail in Cal Clark, “Democratization and the Evolving Nature of Parties, Issues, and Constituencies in the ROC,” in Taiwan’s Modernization in Global Perspective, ed. Peter C.Y. Chow (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), pp. 135–159; Dafydd Fell, “Measurement of Party Position and Party Competition in Taiwan,” Issues & Studies, 40, nos. 3/4 (September/December 2004): 101–136.

43. Mikael Mattlin, “Referendum as a Form of Zaoshi: The Instrumental Domestic Political Functions of Taiwan’s Referendum Ploy,” Issues & Studies, 40, no. 2 (June 2004): 155–185.

44. Rigger, “Taiwan in 2003,” p. 186.

45. Mattlin, “Referendum as a Form of Zaoshi.”

46. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Mattlin, “Referendum as a Form of Zaoshi”; Shelley Rigger, “New Crisis in the Taiwan Strait,” Philadelphia Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes, 2005, www.fpri.org; Rigger, “Taiwan in 2003.”

47. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Rigger, “Taiwan in 2003.”

48. Yun-ping Chang, “Two Million Rally for Peace,” Taipei Times, February 29, 2004, p. 1; Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election.

49. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; John Fuh-sheng Hsieh, “The March Surprise: Taiwan’s Presidential Election of 2004,” paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Chinese Studies, College of William and Mary, 2004.

50. Tai-lin Huang, “Saturday’s Massive March Fills PanBlue Sails,” Taipei Times, March 15, 2004, p. 1; Gary Rawnsley, “The Day After the Night Before: Thoughts on the 2004 Presidential Election,” Institute for National Policy Research, University of Nottingham (UK), Taiwan Perspective e-Paper, April 2004, www.tp.org.tw.

51. Yun-ping Chang, “New Tide Members Push for Mainlander Inclusion,” Taipei Times, August 1, 2004, p. 3.

52. Keith Bradsher, “In Taiwan Ballot, Ties with Beijing Seem to Be a Winner,” New York Times, December 12, 2004, www.nytimes.com; John F. Copper, “Taiwan’s Coming Legislative Election,” International Assessment and Strategy Center, Publications, November 29, 2004, www.strategycenter.net.

53. Bradsher, “Taiwan Ballot.”

54. Bradsher, “Taiwan Ballot”; Shu-ling Ko and Caroline Hong, “PanBlue Status Quo Entrenched by Poll Success,” Taipei Times, December 12, 2004, p. 2.

55. Caroline Hong and Debbie Wu, “DPP-PFP Coalition Seems Inevitable,” Taipei Times, January 10, 2005, p. 3; Jewel Huang and Caroline Hong, “DPP Courting Soong to Take up SEF Helm,” Taipei Times, January 4, 2005, p. 3; Tai-lin Huang, “Chen Claims Soong Will Back Arms Bill,” Taipei Times, January 18, 2005, p. 1.

56. Shu-ling Ko, “Hsieh Says Chiang Offer ‘Unconditional,’” Taipei Times, February 4, 2005, p. 3.

57. Cheng and Hsu, “Cross-Strait Relations.”

58. “Adviser Predicts a Su-Tsai DPP Ticket for 2008,” Taipei Times, February 6, 2006, p. 3.

59. John F. Copper, China Diplomacy: The Washington-Taipei-Beijing Triangle (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992); Harry Harding, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China Since 1972 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1992); Martin L. Lasater, The Taiwan Conundrum in U.S.-China Policy (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000); Robert G. Sutter and William R. Johnson, eds., Taiwan in World Affairs (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994).

60. For the major texts advancing this approach, see Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978); Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).

61. Robert D. Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization, 42, no. 3 (Summer 1988): 427–460.

62. Yun-han Chu, “Taiwan’s National Identity Politics and the Prospect of Cross-Strait Relations,” Asian Survey, 44, no. 4 (July–August 2004): 484–512; Yongnian Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China: Modernization, Identity, and International Relations (Hong Kong: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

63. Ralph N. Clough, Island China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978); Dennis Van Vranken Hickey, “American, the Offshore Island Crisis of 1954–55, and Calculated Ambiguity,” Issues & Studies, 24, no. 8 (August 1988): 120–152; J.H. Kalicki, The Pattern of Sino-American Crises: Political-Military Interactions in the 1950s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Thomas E. Stolper, China, Taiwan, and the Offshore Islands (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1985).

64. Personal comment from Stanton Jue, a U.S. diplomat who was involved in the fight to save the ROC’s UN membership in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

65. Hungdah Chiu, ed., China and the Taiwan Issue (New York: Praeger, 1979); Clough, Island China.

66. David Lampton, “Commentary,” in Taiwan in World Affairs, ed. Robert G. Sutter and William R. Johnson (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 266–267.

67. This analysis is developed in much more detail in Cal Clark, “Growing Cross-Strait Economic Integration,” Orbis, 46, no. 4 (Fall 2002): 753–766.

68. Chu, “National Identity Politics”; Clark, “Economic Integration.”

69. Peter Hayes Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism; Suisheng Zhao, A Nation-State by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

70. Suisheng Zhao, ed., Across the Taiwan Strait: Mainland China, Taiwan, and the 1995–1996 Crisis (New York: Routledge, 1999).

71. Peter C.Y. Chow, “Complementarity and Competitiveness in Economic Relations Across the Taiwan Strait,” in The Republic of China on Taiwan in the 1990s, ed. Winston L. Yang and Deborah A. Brown (New York: Center for Asian Studies, St. John’s University, 1997), pp. 173–189.

72. Yun-han Chu, Crafting Democracy in Taiwan (Taipei: Institute for International Policy Research, 1992); Cheng-tian Kuo, Global Competitiveness and Industrial Growth in Taiwan and the Philippines (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995).

73. Julian Baum, “Strait Talking,” Far Eastern Economic Review (November 6, 1997): 22–26; Paul Bolt, “Taiwan-China Economic Cooperation: Ties That Bind,” in The United States and Cross-Strait Relations: China, Taiwan, and the US Entering a New Century, ed. Kenneth Klinker (Urbana, IL: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 2001), pp. 194–219; Yun-han Chu, “The Political Economy of Taiwan’s Mainland Policy,” in Across the Taiwan Strait: Mainland China, Taiwan, and the 1995–1996 Crisis, ed. Suisheng Zhao (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 163–195; Tse-kang Leng, The Taiwan-China Connection: Democracy and Development Across the Taiwan Strait (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996).

74. As quoted in Ching-chih Chen, “President Clinton’s “Three No’s’ and Its Impact on Taiwan,” in The ROC on the Threshold of the 21st Century: A Paradigm Reexamined, ed. Chien-min Chao and Cal Clark (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 1999), p. 123.

75. Chen, “Three No’s”; Vincent Wei-cheng Wang, “Bill Clinton’s “Three Noes’ and Taiwan’s Future,” in Across the Taiwan Strait: Exchanges, Conflicts, and Negotiations, ed. Winston L. Yang and Deborah A. Brown (New York: Center for Asian Studies, St. John’s University, 1999), pp. 253–303.

76. Dennis Van Vranken Hickey, “US-Taiwan Security Ties: Toward the Next Millennium,” in The ROC on the Threshold of the 21st Century: A Paradigm Reexamined, ed. Chien-min Chao and Cal Clark (Baltimore: University of Maryland School of Law, 1999), pp. 151–170.

77. Clark, The 2000 Taiwan Presidential Elections; Copper, Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election.

78. Clark, The 2000 Taiwan Presidential Elections, p. 16.

79. Clark, The 2000 Taiwan Presidential Elections; Copper, Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election.

80. Deborah A. Brown, “Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential Election and Cross-Strait Relations,” American Asian Review, 19, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 55–107.

81. Brown, “Cross-Strait Relations”; Clark, “Economic Integration”; Ming-chi Chen, “Sinicization and Its Discontents: Cross-Strait Economic Integration and Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential Election,” Issues & Studies, 40, nos. 3/4 (September/December 2004): 334–341; T.Y. Wang, “Lifting the ‘No Haste, Be Patient’ Policy: Implications for Cross-Strait Relations,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 15, no. 1 (April 2002): 131–139.

82. Bolt, “Ties That Bind?”; Brown, “Cross-Strait Relations”; Philip Y.M. Yang, “The US East Asian Security and Taiwan Security” in The United States and Cross-Strait Relations: China, Taiwan, and the US Entering a New Century, ed. Kenneth Klinker (Urbana, IL: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 2001), pp. 89–115.

83. Brown, “Cross-Strait Relations.”

84. Robert Sutter, “Evaluating the George W. Bush Administration’s Policy Toward Beijing and Taipei,” paper presented at the Conference on Taiwan and the World, University of South Carolina, 2002.

85. Copper, Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Dennis Van Vranken Hickey, ‘Taiwan’s Foreign Policy During President Chen’s Second Term: Policies, Problems, and Prospects,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 2004; Sutter, “Bush Administration’s Policy.”

86. Copper, Taiwan’s 2000 Presidential and Vice Presidential Election; Rigger, “Taiwan in 2003”; T.Y. Wang, “Assessing Chen Shui-bian’s Cross-Strait Policy,” paper presented at the University of South Carolina’s Conference on Taiwan Issues, Charleston, 2003.

87. Robert Sutter, “In the Wake of Taiwan’s 2004 Elections/Referenda: Rethinking U.S. Policy Options,” Issues & Studies, 40, nos. 3/4 (September/December 2004): 371–380.

88. Richard Baum, “Washington Hopes for Best, Beijing Prepares for Worst,” Yale Global Online, 2004, www.yaleglobal.yale.edu; Joseph Kahn and Chris Buckley, “Sharp Words from China for Leader of Taiwan,” New York Times, May 20, 2004, www.nytimes.com.

89. Shu-ling Ko, “Yu Shyi-kun Says China Wants War,” Taipei Times, August 23, 2004, p. 1.

90. deLisle, “The Aftermath of Taiwan’s Presidential Election”; Chen-yuan Tung, “Cross-Strait Relations After Taiwan’s 2004 Presidential Election,” Institute for National Policy Research, University of Nottingham (UK), Taiwan Perspective e-Paper, April 2004, www.tp.org.tw.

91. Eric Teo Chu Cheow, “Taiwan as a Determinant in Japan’s Troubled Relations with China,” Institute for National Policy Research, University of Nottingham (UK), Taiwan Perspective e-Paper, January 2005, www.tp.org.tw.

92. Hsiao-wen Wang, “Agreement Reached on Direct Flights,” Taipei Times, January 16, 2005, p. 1.

93. Gries, China’s New Nationalism; Zheng, Discovering Chinese Nationalism; Zhao, Modern Chinese Nationalism.

94. Edward Cody, “China’s Law on Taiwan Backfires,” Washington Post, March 24, 2005, p. A13.

95. Cheng and Hsu, “Cross-Strait Relations.”

96. deLisle, “Taiwan’s Democracy and Lessons from Yet Another Election,” Philadelphia Foreign Policy Research Institute, E-Notes, 2005, www.fpri.org.

97. Shu-ling Ko, “Scrap Unification Guidelines, Chen Says,” Taipei Times, January 30, 2006, p. 1.

98. Keith Bradsher, “Taiwan Chief Seeks More Arms, Not Better Ties to China,” New York Times, January 2, 2006, www.nytimes.com.

99. Yun-ping Chang, “‘Four Noes’ Will Not Change, Says MOFA,” Taipei Times, February 3, 2006, p. 1; Charles Snyder, “US Warns Chen to Stick to ‘Status Quo,’” Taipei Times, February 1, 2006, p. 1.

100. For a discussion of democratic consolidation and political development, see Huntington, The Third Wave.

Area	Triumphs	Threats
Political	Fairly easy democratic transition; Lee’s success in promoting ethnic justice and reconciliation; victory of DPP’s Chen Shui-bian in the 2000 presidential election suggests “democratic consolidation”	Growing gridlock and inflamed conflict over highly “symbolic issues,” such as national identity during Chen’s first term
Economic	Rapid growth and several structural transformations from 1950s through 1990s	Hollowing out of industrial economy; 2001 recession threatens even high-tech economy
International status	Ability of “pragmatic diplomacy” to gain more “face” for Taiwan in international community beginning in late 1980s	Growing threat from PRC, exacerbated by rising nationalism in both China and Taiwan after the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crisis

	Late 1980s	1990s	Early 2000s
Democracy	KMT old guard trying to hold back reforms pushed by DPP and KMT reformers	Largely achieved	Moot
Black and gold politics	Fairly marginal on political agenda	KMT seen as most tainted, issue clearly helps DPP	DPP Administration undercuts its ability to use this issue
Social welfare policy	Specific issues (e.g., environment and women’s rights) pushed by social movements	DPP takes lead in pushing for expansion of welfare state; yet, KMT also co-opts popular DPP policies	Fairly secondary at present
National identity and ethnic justice	Growing DPP challenge to KMT’s “one China” policy and to considering Taiwanese as Chinese	Polarization between pro-Independence DPP and pro-Unification KMT evolves when first KMT under Lee Teng-hui and then DPP take more moderate and nuanced stances	Growing polarization over PanGreen’s appeals to Taiwanese nationalism and PanBlue’s rage after 2004 vote

	Era	Approximate Time	Policies
I.	Unremitting Hostility		Both Beijing & Taipei claim to be sole government for all China
	A. Potentially Hot War	1949–1962	Significant threat of war until early 1960s
	B. Cold War	1963–1980
II.	Hesitant Reapprochement		Both seemingly willing to accept the other for indefinite future
	A. China’s “Peace Offensive”	1980–1988	Taiwan’s “3 Nos” in face of China’s much stronger position
	B. Mutual Accommodation	1989–1995	Taiwan’s “pragmatic diplomacy” balances reasserting diplomatic status with greater contacts with China
III.	The New Battle Over Sovereignty
	A. China’s Failed Intimidation	1995–1996	Retaliation against President Lee’s visit to US fails to affect 1995 presidential election in Taiwan
	B. Cold Peace	1996–1999	Return to normalcy, but greater hostility between top leaders
	C. Challenge & Counter-Challenge	1999–2004	Both sides more assertive about conflicting sovereignty claims
	1. Lee’s “Special State-to-State Relations”	1999
	2. Beijing’s demand Taiwan accept “One China”	2000
	3. Chen’s “One Country on Each Side of Strait”	2002
	4. PRC Anti-Secession Law	2005
	5. Chen’s New Year speeches	2006

Event	Domestic politics from “below”	National governments	Pressures from “above” in international system
Taiwan Strait crises of 1950s	Little, if any, in authoritarian Taiwan and China	Both ROC and PRC try to establish sovereignty claims by force of arms	Both the United States and USSR seek to restrain client states, leading them to accept status quo of divided China
PRC replaces ROC at UN in 1971	KMT may have feared implications of the ‘Two Chinas” compromise for domestic legitimacy	Both ROC and PRC seek to be sole UN representative	The United States is willing to save a UN membership for ROC, but Chiang Kai-shek rejects this effort
Taiwan’s pragmatic diplomacy and renunciation of sovereignty over Mainland China	Democratization shows strong support for upgrading Taiwan’s international status	Taiwan seeks more protection for its sovereignty; PRC fears precedent being set for Taiwan Independence	Little, if any, involvement by the United States or other nations
Growing economic integration between Taiwan and China during the 1990s	Domestic constituencies created in both countries who favor peaceful cross-Strait relations; in particular, Islander business people in Taiwan benefit from economic ties	Beijing welcomes Taiwan being drawn into China’s orbit, but also constrained by its own dependence on global markets; Taipei becomes concerned about growing dependence on China	Changing national roles in global economy stimulate large movement of industry from Taiwan to China

17

Taiwan Enters Troubled Waters

Domestic Politics: The Tension Between Political Institutionalization and Cultural Symbolic Politics

The Party System in Taiwan: From “Catch-All” Competition to the Growing Polarization of Symbolic Politics

Lee Teng-hui: From Unifying Statesmanship to Polarizing Partisanship

The Presidency of Chen Shui-bian: Advocate or Prisoner of the DPP’s “Base Constituency”?

Cross-Strait Relations: The Tension Between the Stability of an Unacceptable Status Quo and the Dangers of Pursuing the Desired National Status

The Competing Sovereignty Claims in Cross-Strait Relations: The Dynamics of a “Two-Level Game”

Lee Teng-hui: The Collapse of Pragmatic Diplomacy’s “Delicate Balance”

Cross-Strait Relations During Chen Shui-bian ’s Presidency: Pressures for Instability from All Three Levels

Taiwan Navigates Troubled Waters

Notes

I. Original Party System: Primarily KMT vs. DPP
	KMT (%)	DPP (%)	New Party (%)
1986 National Assembly	64	24	—
1986 Legislative Yuan	67	25	—
1989 Legislative Yuan	59	29	—
1989 Magistrates/Mayors	56	30	—
1991 National Assembly	71	24	—
1992 Legislative Yuan	53	31	—
1993 Magistrates/Mayors	47	41	3
1994 Provincial Governor	56	39	4
1995 Legislative Yuan	36	33	13
1996 President	54	21	15
1996 National Assembly	50	30	14
1997 Magistrates/Mayors	42	43	2
1998 Legislative Yuan	46	30	7
II. The Old Party System Fractures Chen Soong Lien
	DPP (%)	IND (%)	KMT (%)
2000 Presidential	39	37	23
III. The Revised Party System: The PanGreen (DPP and TSU) vs PanBlue (KMT, PFP, and NP) Blocs
	PanGreen (%)	PanBlue (%)
2001 Legislative Yuan	41	50
2001 Magistrates/Mayors	45	37
2004 President	50	50
2004 Legislative Yuan	46	50
2005 National Assembly	50	45
2005 Magistrates/Mayors	43	52