Abstract

When Mao Zedong shouted loudly, “The central people’s government of the People's Republic of China is established today” at the Tiananmen tower on October 1 of 1949, that very moment not only symbolized the emergence of the Chinese Communist Party as the victor in the Chinese civil war, but also signaled the beginning of the geographical and political separation across the Strait. “The Republic of China” and “the People’s Republic of China” have taken their respective controls across the Taiwan Strait for more than 60 years and the cross-strait relations experienced “military standoff and hostile confrontation.” When Taiwan lifted the ban on visiting relatives in Mainland China in the 1980s, the stance of “mutual confrontation and zero contact” was transformed into the phase of “open and exchange; cold government and enthusiastic citizens” with military conflicts largely reduced. However, the two consecutive Taiwanese presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian proposed the highly contentious “special state-to-state relationship” and “one country on each side” respectively. This led to the complete lack of trust from both sides and the People’s Republic of China unilaterally shutting down the official communication channel. When Ma Ying-jeou took the presidency in 2008, the governments of both sides began to resume their roles as promoters of the normalization of the cross-strait relations under the principle of the “1992 Consensus.” Nevertheless, the “two political entities” have been established for more than 60 years which have developed their own politics, economics and cultures.Although the current cross-strait relations are having great future prospect, they are only limited to “economic” exchanges. The “political” aspect is still confined to the “One China” and “Taiwan independence” policies firmly held by the governments across the strait. In addition, the potential “party alteration” in Taiwan every four years creates more uncertainty to the cross-strait stability. Although the cross-strait relations have witnessed a U-turn, the subjective and objective factors surrounding the person in power inevitably affect the cross-strait relations. Taiwan witnessed its first party alteration in 2000 when the KMT ended its rule for more than 50 years. Chen Shui-bian’s successful bid to the presidency was then confronted with issues such as how to break the cross-strait deadlock and the direction of Taiwan’s economic development in view of China’s emerging economic power. As a result, it is worth examining in details how the China policy was formulated and the effects thereof under Chen Shui-bian’s government amid pressures from both the United States and China internationally and the resistance from the opposition party domestically. Finally, the research conclusion is drawn from the evaluation on how the Democratic Progress Party responses to China as China constantly pushes on the economic front without sacrificing Taiwan’s sovereignty at the Post- Chen Shui-bian era as the summary of this thesis.

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