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How Money Threatens to Reunite China and Taiwan
Written by Robert Vance on July 4, 2008 – 2:01 pm“We know that reunification with China is inevitable,” a Taiwanese friend told me recently. “The economy in Taiwan is not so good and many of our jobs are being transferred to China,” he explained. “Taiwan will have to cooperate with the mainland in order to maintain a healthy economy.” My friend told me these things with little conviction in his voice. While the Chinese government has consistently claimed that most Taiwanese people are in favor of reunification with the Mainland, my friend, like many other Taiwanese people I have talked to around the world, has stated that the vast majority of Taiwanese people want to maintain their independence from China.
“It simply isn’t true,” said a middle aged Taiwanese man who I met in Thailand when I asked him about the notion that most people in Taiwan support reunification. “We enjoy our life and our freedoms. This is our country.” He explained to me that there were many polls that had been conducted in Taiwan that clearly showed people’s resistance to any change in relations between Taiwan and the Mainland. We love China, his wife told me, but we do not want to go back.
On Friday, 100 Chinese tourists arrived in Taipei on the first regularly scheduled flight to Taiwan from the Mainland in nearly sixty years. In the past, passengers traveling between Taiwan and China had to make an inconvenient transit through another location such as Hong Kong or Japan; direct commercial flights were prohibited. Now, with regular charter flights scheduled, it will be less of a hassle for people to fly between Taiwan and China.
“It is great news for us!” one of my Chinese students said in class today, “but it doesn’t really have any effect on us because most of us don’t need to go to Taiwan.” For them, the excitement of these new flights are found in their political implications. My students see the flight as evidence of stronger ties between the two sides that will hopefully lead to reunification.
The Taiwanese government, however, seems to have a different view on the significance of these new flights. According to an article posted on BusinessWeek.com, Taiwan’s Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said that “weekend charter flights between Taiwan and China are not a step toward political integration between the two longtime rivals and only involve better transportation and economic links.” Liu also said that the recent discussions between China and Taiwan were not political in nature; he said that the agenda centered around economic issues. Thus, as my Taiwanese friend suggested, economic issues are bringing China and Taiwan closer together.
While it appears that for the moment, political reunification is not on the agenda, even the economic nature of these talks between Taiwan and the Mainland have many Taiwanese people worried. As my Taiwanese friend stated to me, many are afraid that in the end, it will be money not politics that bring the two sides together again. Taiwan, like other countries has relocated many of its ”labor-intensive industries” to China in order to take advantage of cheaper wages. Such moves have helped to boost Taiwan’s economy which has struggled in throughout the last 6-7 years.
“Taiwan needs China,” a Chinese friend told me this week. In reality, the remarkable growth in China’s economy dictates that in the future every country may “need” China. It is no wonder then, that Taiwan’s newly elected government is seeking to establish friendlier sides with the Mainland. Is reunification inevitable between the two sides as my Taiwanese friend suggested? Only time will tell but as Taiwan deepens its economic ties with China, one can only expect that the political ties will follow. Right now each side appears to be ‘daintily‘ avoiding the numerous political issues that confront this renewed friendship but the topic of reunification cannot be avoided forever. And what will happen when the topic is eventually revived? Many fear that China seeks to establish strong economic ties with Taiwan so that when the topic of reunification is seriously discussed again, Taiwan will have two options; reunite with the motherland or face a serious economic crisis. Thus, many Taiwanese fear that their country’s independence is being ’purchased’ by China through the strengthening of these economic ties.
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Taiwanese are curiously compartmentalized on the China issue. First, there is a vast misconception, thanks to incessant KMT propaganda and other factors, that the economy is bad in Taiwan. Last year we had 5.7% growth and this year, 6% through May. But the KMT-dominated legislature brutalized local incomes by bringing public construction to a halt, giving everyone the feeling that they were taking a hit under the DPP. The result was what the KMT wanted — they got their man into power with an apparent mandate to move closer to China.
But the move to China was only for economic purposes, as no one wants to become part of that state. It is not “economics” that is bringing Taiwan closer to China but the deliberate policy of the KMT to annex the island to China.
Also, “return” is incorrect. Taiwan was never part of China; the idea that Taiwan is China’s “sacred national territory” is a post-WWII myth.
Michael
@Michael,
Thank you for your comments. I checked out your blog, http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/ and you seem to be very well informed on the current situation between Taiwan and China. I appreciate your input.
I still stand by my words regarding the economic reasons that have brought China and Taiwan closer together. You stated that the relocation of Taiwanese industries to China has been “only for economic purposes.” I would submit to you that this outsourcing started bringing China and Taiwan closer together long before these direct flights were established. The Chinese government knows well that the more economic ties that are established with Taiwan, the harder it is going to be for Taiwan to refuse reunification in the future. The Taiwanese government recognizes the importance of maintaining ties for exporting goods as well as taking advantage of a cheap labor force.
Yes, the statistics that you provide are accurate in terms of Taiwan’s economic growth in the past few years but let’s not forget about the recession that occurred in 2001. That was not invented. While the economy has recovered, it is important to remember that close to 40% of Taiwanese exports (counting Hong Kong) go to China. What would the economy be like without that 40%? We also know that China is receives more direct foreign investment from Taiwan than any other country. Where would the Taiwanese economy be without this destination for investment?
No matter how much the KMT (better known as the Pan-Blue Coalition these days) has ‘manipulated’ the economy to push forward their agenda on closer ties to China, the reasons behind the closer ties are still related to economics. The money is just too good. It’s the same situation between the US and China. We have ignored the issue of human rights in China for many years now because the trade is just ‘too good to pass up.’ Thus, Taiwan does need China in the sense that its economy has greatly benefited from its relationship with the Mainland.
But the stakes are high for Taiwan; it might as well be a fish eagerly swimming for the worm bait. Of course China wants to strengthen economic ties with the Taiwan but at what cost to Taiwan? The ultimate goal for China is unification. In the end, what is going to be more important to Taiwan? Securing the future of their economy or maintaining this quasi independent state? Based on how the rest of the world seems to operate, I predict that in the end, the love of money will triumph over political idealism.
@Robert
—The Chinese government knows well that the more economic ties that are established with Taiwan, the harder it is going to be for Taiwan to refuse reunification in the future.–
Well that is a point of Mainland goverment and KMT. From other side Taiwanese are failed to instal economical indepence by forcing of economical ties with other countries around Taiwan. I am woundering all time when i read that taiwanese are going to enslave their economy with China instead to instal links with India, Australia, Japan and other rivals of China in Asian-pacific area. (i will bet that Vietnam and combodia will praise taiwanese firms for investming there. aside a fact that those countires have deeper wages than China)
I would like to note that economics go both ways, and that stronger economic ties between Taiwan and China, does not necessarily mean that Taiwan then has to rely on China exclusively making it harder for Taiwan to refuse joining with China.
Stronger economic ties makes it more likely to keep to status quo and not push either sides/parties to do anything rash,lest all the investment that Taiwan has put in the nearby coastal economies (Fujian, Shanghai, Jiangsu, etc) suddenly collapses as well, potentially leading to disruptions up and down the rest of China’s economy.
Go to many of the suburbs of Shanghai (Xinzang) for instance. Large amounts of traditional characters and Taiwanese people helping to really build up the area with an infusion of Taiwanese businesses.