President Lee Teng-hui Research Articles

The Rehabilitation Movement over the 2.28 Incident under KMT Rule (1987-1997): Reexamining the transition from “confrontation” to “reconciliation”

ABSTRACT This article reexamines the turning point from “confrontation” to “reconciliation” in the rehabilitation movement over the 2.28 Incident which began in the late 1980s, with a special focus on the role and accomplishments of Christians without any party affiliation. The initial action to accuse the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and launch a redress campaign against the KMT government was driven by an anti-government movement. Following the establishment of the 228 Peace Day Association in 1987, the “2.28 Justice and Peace Movement” was carried out from 1989. However, the “2.28 Shalom Service” initiated by Su Nan-chou in 1990 opened the initial gate toward reconciliation. The first victims’ family association, the World Alliance for Concerned Citizens and Surviving Victims and Families, was set up by Su together with Lin Tsung-yi. Both played a significant role in transforming the rehabilitation movement from “confrontation” to “reconciliation.” Lastly, Lin’s five requests to President Lee Teng-hui (1. Publish an investigation report, 2. Issue a public apology and compensate families of victims, 3. Build a memorial monument and museum, 4. Establish February 28th as a national memorial day, 5. Establish a foundation) were achieved in the form of government-private sector joint task forces until 1997. As “practical idealists,” Lin and Su devoted their efforts to achieve maximum results. What they chose was dialogue, not confrontation, and they transformed the rehabilitation movement from “confrontation to reconciliation,” from their standpoint of being practical idealists.

The future of ‘Ghost Island’ and the enduring legacy of late President Lee Teng-hui

The future of ‘Ghost Island’ and the enduring legacy of late President Lee Teng-hui

Mackay's unburnt legacy: heroes-rescue-Aborigines organizing narratives in the exhibiting of Taiwan Aboriginal artefacts

This paper is a case study of this 2001 exhibition in Taipei entitled ‘Treasures Preserved Abroad: the Dr. Mackay Collection of Formosan Aboriginal Artefacts.’ These Royal Ontario Museum owned Taiwan Aboriginal artefacts were originally collected in the late 1800s by the Canadian Presbyterian missionary George Leslie Mackay (1844–1901). The exhibition honoured the centennial of Mackay's death, because Mackay has become something of a modernizing hero to Taiwanese nationalists. The exhibition opened on 2 June 2001 with a nationally televised opening ceremony featuring former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui and other VIPs. This rescue narrative was used despite Mackay's accounts of burning the non-Christian religious objects of converted Pingpu Aborigines, which he referred to as “paraphernalia of idol worship” and his ethnocentric denigration of Atayal Aboriginal culture in his 1896 book “From Far Formosa.” Utilizing theoretical approaches from organizational communications, the paper shows how organizing narratives about rescuing Aborigines involve modernizing heroes assisting Aborigines with various difficulties or threats. These rescue narratives allow coordination among disparate agents and personnel who as micro actors speak on behalf of macro actors such as the nation or Aboriginal peoples. The exhibition was translated into several other institutional narratives including Canada nation branding, Taiwan government informal diplomacy, and corporate public relations. The article concludes with an analysis of how York University Centre for Asian Research-affiliated academics used the Mackay hero-rescues-Aborigines narratives to organize the permanent display of the artefacts at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for Allies (review)

Reviewed by: Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for Allies Vincent Kelly Pollard (bio) Czeslaw Tubilewicz . Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for Allies. Routledge Contemporary Asia Series. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. xiv, 242 pp. Hardcover $170.00, ISBN 978-0-415-42252-9; E-book £90.00 ISBN 978-0-203-94697-8. By 1979 the number of countries extending full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan had fallen to twenty-two. After the televised events of spring 1989 in China, the downward trend leveled off. And by 1 May 2007, Taiwan enjoyed diplomatic recognition from twenty-five governments. Conflicting inferences emerge from those developments. For example, the tiny fraction of almost two hundred independent states recognizing Taiwan was not much more favorable in 2007. On the other hand, Taiwan began actively resisting the global trend toward increased diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China, reversing the downward slide. Through a variety of institutions and contractual instruments, Taiwan has trade and cultural agreements—unofficial but effective—with at least 150 countries. Czeslaw Tubilewicz's Taiwan and Post-Communist Europe: Shopping for Allies summarizes an important part of this story. Tubilewicz does not define foreign policy, preferring to focus on "diplomacy" and especially "economic diplomacy" (pp. 14–20). But his notion of foreign policy consists of "explicit or inferred public and private executive preferences for anticipating, shaping, controlling, managing or responding to an anticipated future state of affairs beyond a country's national borders."1 To set the stage for Tubilewicz's argument, one also should consider that, while self-governing Taiwan's sovereignty is divisible, it would have greater transnational and global leeway if it were receiving full diplomatic recognition from a larger number of powerful partners, regardless of whether or not they currently trade with Taipei—instead of having its sovereignty routinely challenged by China. Tubilewicz discerns five models of Taiwanese relations with post-Communist European countries: Hungarian ("substantive"), Latvian ("consular"), Czech ("ideological"), Russian ("geostrategic"), and Macedonian ("diplomatic") (pp. 177–179). The political, historical, and diplomatic variation here is obvious. More important, Taiwan's diplomatic objectives generally trumped economic ones in all five models for interacting with state and society in post-Communist Europe. Despite setbacks on other issues, Taiwan successfully established "substantive" trade links with Belarus and the Ukraine. Although a temporary consular agreement with Latvia ended in 1994, "Belarus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Russia, and Slovakia agreed to exchange representative offices with Taiwan, all of which performed consular functions. Of these states, all except Latvia and Belarus established de facto consulates in Taiwan" (p. 176). Despite some temporary [End Page 305] illusions, initiating and sustaining full diplomatic relations was probably always beyond reach in post-Communist Europe. And while post-Communist European statutes that were as supportive of Taiwan as the 1979 U.S. Taiwan Relations Act probably were never seriously attainable, devoting attention to creating institutions for substantive economic and cultural relations generated quasi-official, para-diplomatic space for Taiwan. Aside from trade fairs, this also included cultural exchanges and scholarships for students to earn academic degrees in Taiwanese universities. On 27 January 1999, Macedonia and Taiwan recognized one another. Civil war in Macedonia led to well-founded fears that the PRC would veto a UN proposal for peacekeeping troops. Those considerations resulted in Skopje's derecognition of Taipei on 18 June 2001. On the surface, Macedonia's about-face suggests total failure on the part of Taiwan's economic diplomacy in post-Communist Europe. Tubilewicz provides a more nuanced counter-interpretation to this setback and others experienced by Taipei. Aside from avoidable errors by Taiwanese diplomats, he argues that severe imbalances of power limited potential inroads by Taiwan. Yet during the administration of President Lee Teng-hui (1988–2000) and well into the second term of his successor Chen Shui-bian (2000–2008), Taiwan was surprisingly successful in initiating substantive engagement at the level of unofficial trade and cultural agreements, as well as in arousing interest and sympathy among individuals and organizations in post-Communist civil society. The role of Taiwanese businesspersons conducting diplomatic communication where Ministry of Foreign Affairs personnel might be shunned is noted by Tubilewicz.2 Since...

Breaking Authoritarian Bonds: The Political Origins of the Taiwan Administrative Procedure Act

Taiwan recently adopted a series of administrative reform laws designed to make the bureaucracy more transparent and allow public participation in regulatory policies. Because administrative reform limits the executive's power, it is clear why legislatures would favor strict administrative procedures. But it is less clear why presidents would support them. The passage of these laws begs the question why presidents support administrative procedural reforms designed to restrict their abilities to act freely. I argue that in Taiwan, President Lee Teng-hui's control of his party deteriorated as factional disputes within his own party increased over time. Lee ultimately concluded that the Kuomintang's political survival depended on major reforms. Consequently, the status quo-oriented bureaucracy—hitherto an important source of support for Lee and his key constituencies—became an impediment. Lee supported Taiwan's Administrative Procedure Act in order to reduce the bureaucracy's capacity to impede reform. More generally, I argue that administrative procedures designed to open up the bureaucracy to the public, including previously excluded groups, can serve politicians' goal of redirecting the bureaucracy. Archival data, secondary sources, and interviews with key presidential advisers, senior career bureaucrats, and politicians support my argument.

From “Creeping Independence” to Reluctant Realism? China-Taiwan Relations under the DPP

The rise to power of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan was a landmark event in the history of cross-Strait relations. As the old but familiar competition between the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT) has shifted to a new but uncertain one between the CCP and the DPP, Beijing may well find that their divergent political stance, together with the apparent lack of previous contacts and mutual understanding, could make it harder to find a common ground between the two. At issue is a long list of major disputes that the DPP has inherited, such as the “one China” issue, the “one country, two systems” unification formula, and a possible use of force. Unlike former President Lee Teng-hui who in the eyes of Beijing has pursued “creeping independence, the Chen presidency—notwithstanding his party's political platform for Taiwan's independence—has reluctant realism as his modus operandi in the face of domestic political realities and China's reactions. This article throws some light on the changing contexts, major trends, and recent developments in PRC-Taiwan relations with an emphasis on what the DPP rule could bring to bear on the relationship. Section one offers a synopsis of the PRC-Taiwan ties in the 1990s, that is between the CCP and the KMT. Section two illuminates the DPP's positions on some salient issues in the cross-Strait relationship, while section three addresses major factors that affect the current and likely future courses of action on both sides. Finally, the concluding section analyzes the prospects and parameters of change in the cross-Strait relationship, with an eye on their policy implications.

The Little Dragon and the Bear: Russian‐Taiwanese Relations in the Post‐Cold War Period

Following its expulsion from the United Nations (UN) in 1971, the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC) commenced efforts to stem the tide of its allies' defection to the enemy camp, the People's Republic of China (PRC). This task, however, proved to be somewhat challenging. While in 1972, 42 states recognised the ROC against the PRC's 85, by 1988 the ratio of 22:136 was rather unfavorable to Taiwan. Addressing Taiwan's increasing diplomatic isolation, President Lee Teng-hui's (Li Denghui) flexible diplomacy emphasized substantive-rather than official-ties with the states which did not recognize the ROC, without abandoning its goal of winning new allies. The systemic changes in East Central Europe in 1989 raised hopes in Taipei that close ties could be established with former Communist states, which hitherto had shunned the ROC. These hopes proved justified when the Czech Republic emerged as Taipei's supporter in international forums and when Macedonia recognized the ROC (January 1999). It was, however, the break-up of the Soviet Union (USSR) in December 1991 that offered the greatest opportunity for the ROC's flexible diplomacy. Among fifteen states that emerged from the ruins of the USSR, Russia was the largest, most populous, richest in natural resources, and--due to its military power and permanent seat on the UN Security Council-enjoyed critical influence in global affairs in general and East Asia in particular. Russia's substantive ties with Taiwan could have frustrated Beijing's reunification goal by force if necessary, while aiding Taipei's efforts to reenter the international community. For the same reasons, Beijing was anxious to obstruct communicationofficial or substantive-between Moscow and Taipei. As a result, a triangular pattern of relationships emerged, with China and Taiwan locked in positions of enmity and both seeking Moscow's vital support.

Chen Shui‑bian and Cross‑Strait Relations

This article discusses Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's China policy and the impact this has on the cross-strait relationship. Chen is unlikely to deviate from the pro-independence stand of the Democratic and Progressive Party (DPP). For the short-term, Beijing has good reason not to use force, but resorts to both well-calculated pressure (on the DPP) and concessions (to the opposition), in the hope that this may eventually weaken the DPP. This neiwai jiaokun (internal trouble and external pressure) may emasculate Chen's will and ability to push for independence. Even a declaration of independence by Taiwan, if without U.S. support, will be manageable to Beijing, which has been psychologically, politically, and militarily prepared for such a contingency. The declaration can only pose a threat if it is used by a major foreign power for other objectives. Therefore, the Chinese reading of U.S. strategic intentions is crucial in deciding what action China will take on Taiwan. Introduction In Taiwan's 18 March 2000 presidential election, the Kuomintang (KMT) government was defeated, for the first time after 55 years in power, by the pro-independence Democratic and Progressive Party (DPP). Chen Shui-bian's election as President has shocked many people in Beijing into questioning the feasibility of its existing Taiwan policy. The following issues have been raised: * Whether China's peaceful reunification strategy still works. * Whether the United States merely wants to maintain cross-strait stability or promote Taiwan's independence; or use Taiwan not only to slow China's rise but also to eventually dismember China. * Whether China should continue to follow Deng Xiaoping's policy of keeping a low profile and avoiding conflict when this policy cannot stop the determined push from both Taiwan and the United States. * Whether China's modernization will be better served by solving the Taiwan problem now or later. * Whether force can be avoided in solving the Taiwan problem. If not, will it cost more to use it now or later? Beijing has thus been plunged into a process of policy discussion and reformulation. While Beijing is watching and pondering, Chen Shuibian's various gestures have so far not made things better. This article discusses Chen's election as well as his inauguration speech and China policy and the impact these will have on the cross-strait relationship. Taiwan's Presidential Election of 2000 There were five candidates for President in the 18 March 2000 elections: the KMT's Lien Chan; the DPP's Chen Shui-bian; independent candidate Soong Chu-yu; the New Party's Li Ao; and independent candidate Hsu Hsin-liang. Though not as dominant as it was in the 1996 presidential election, cross-strait policy remained a very prominent issue in the election. Debates on this issue had attracted greater attention after President Lee Teng-hui announced his two states theory in July 1999. [1] On Reunification/Independence The three presidential campaign front-runners, Lien, Soong, and Chen, had de-emphasized the unification/independence issue, as many voters were afraid of armed conflict with China. Though once a vocal advocate of Taiwanese independence, Chen Shui-bian was far less fervent in public about independence. He vowed that he would not declare Taiwan independent (assuming Beijing did not move to retake Taiwan by force) nor abandon the government's title of the Republic of China (ROC). But his Long live Taiwan independence! chant heard during the campaign made many suspect that his new stance stemmed merely from political expedience. His remarks often appeared ambiguous, evasive, and contradictory. While vowing not to promote a referendum on Taiwan's independence, he also supported the concept of having the Taiwanese people determine their own destiny. While promising not to write Lee's two states theory into the Constitution on one occasion, on other occasions he advocated amending the Constitution to give legal effect to the theory. …

Lessons from the taiwan relations act

Twenty years ago the United States severed its diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC). The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was then enacted in 1979 to preserve and promote commercial, cultural, and other relations between the United States and Taiwan, and has been instrumental in maintaining peace, security, and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former assistant secretary for international security affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense, observed that the rise and fall of great powers has historically been accompanied by severe instability in international state systems. The power structure in East Asia today is marked by just such a rise and fall of great powers. The Soviet Union has collapsed, North Korea is dangerously volatile, Japan’s role is evolving, and China’s power is rapidly rising. Moreover, the Taiwan Strait crises of 1995–96 demonstrate that peace and stability in the region can no longer be taken for granted. According to a Pentagon report, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) now has 150–200 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan, and the island has a dangerously limited capacity to defend against missile attacks and threats. On July 9, 1999, President Lee Teng-hui told a German radio interviewer that the cross-strait relationship is a “special state-to-state relationship,” in sharp contrast to Beijing’s long-standing position that Taiwan is a renegade province of China and its government merely a local one. Since July 9, the PRC has mounted a publicity barrage against President Lee and used the Hong Kong media to conduct psychological warfare against Taiwan. PRC fighter planes flew more than a hundred sorties over the Taiwan Strait in the month after President Lee’s remarks, on two occasions in July crossing the

Taiwan's Future National Identity: Attitudes and Geopolitical Constraints

ROBERT M. MARSH [*] ABSTRACT People in Taiwan who favor the establishment of an independent Republic of Taiwan face the reality constraint that mainland (the PRC) threatens to use force to prevent this. Those who hold the opposite view and favor the reunification of Taiwan with mainland face a different reality constraint: the non-democratic, economically underdeveloped and, therefore, unappealing character of the PRC. These reality constraints were included in the way questions were phrased in several Taiwan surveys during the 1990s. Respondents were asked: (1) after Taiwan announces its independence it could maintain peaceful relations with Communist China, should Taiwan become an independent country? (2) mainland and Taiwan were to become similar in economic, political, and social conditions, should the two sides of the Strait be unified into one country? Depending on how a person answered both of these questions, s/he was categorized as having one of the following four types of national identification: Taiwan nationalist, nationalist, Pragmatist, and Conservative. This paper first analyzes the distribution of these four types of respondents in surveys conducted before and after the 1996 PRC firing of missiles into the waters near Taiwan's two largest seaports. Next, I show the effect of objective ethnicity (pen-sheng jen vs. wai-sheng jen) and subjective ethnicity (self-identification as Taiwanese or or both) on national identification preferences. These survey findings are then examined within a geopolitical context. From Beijing's point of view, the Taiwan independence movement is a secessionist movement. A comparative analysis of the outcomes of secessionist movements around the world shows that attempts at secession are almost always unsuccessful, for the basic reason that states do not willingly give up what they consider their sovereign territory. And since even modem democratic states are unwilling to accept a loss of territory, even a future democratic PRC would be unlikely to accept Taiwan's independence. AMONG THE POPULATION of Taiwan, those who favor the establishment of an independent Republic of Taiwan face the reality constraint that mainland (the PRC) has not renounced the use of military force if Taiwan declares its independence. Supporters of the opposite type of national identity -- reunification of Taiwan with mainland -- also face a reality constraint: the non-democratic, economically less developed character of the PRC. Surveys of attitudes in Taiwan toward future national identity made a significant advance in 1992 when they began annually to use Wu Naiteh's new formulation (Wu 1993) and to ask respondents: (1) If after Taiwan announced its independence it could maintain peacful relations with the Chinese communist government, then Taiwan should become an independent country. Do you agree? (2) If mainland and Taiwan were to become similar in economic, social and political conditions, then the two sides of the Strait should be united into one country. Do you agree? The second view is basically the position of President Lee Teng-hui, who stated in an address to the National Unification Council on July 22, 1998, China must be reunified. However, this reunification must be under a system of democracy, freedom and equitable prosperity... The nation should by no means be unified under the proven failure of comunism or the so-called 'one country, two systems' formula (Taiwan Research Institute 1998b:5). Even the PRC regime is aware that China's present political institutions and economy are more alienating than appealing to Taiwan residents. From answers to these two questions, Wu (1993, 1997) and Shen and Wu (1998) classified respondents into four types of national identification preferences: Taiwan nationalists, nationalists, Pragmatists, and Conservatives (see Table 1). …

Show of Force: Chinese Soldiers, Statesmen, and the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis

For much of the 1990s, the world was warned of a looming China threat spearheaded by hawkish soldiers.' More recently, however, experts contend that China's strategic intentions and military capabilities have been overhyped: Beijing does not have ambitious expansionist goals and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has limited capabilities that are unlikely to improve dramatically anytime soon.2 While this recent scholarly wisdom does provide a more accurate picture of China's capabilities and the scope of its intentions, it risks minimizing the real hazards this vast country presents to the world. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, China does pose a threat to the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region. Perhaps at no time was this threat more evident than in the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. A visit to the United States by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui in June 1995 triggered the crisis, which marked a dramatic-escalation in the confrontation between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China on Taiwan. From August 1995 until March 1996 the PLA conducted a series of war games, live fire exercises, and missile tests in the vicinity of Taiwan. Beijing's rhetoric and activities raised the specter of a military conflict over a dispute that had seemed to be at a four-decade low.

Taiwan's presidential elections

Taiwan’s presidential elections in March 2000 could mark the end of more than 50 years of Kuomintang rule. The elections will have a significant impact on Taiwan’s relations with China. These deteriorated sharply in 1999 after Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui declared that the two countries should conduct their relations on a ‘special state-to-state basis’ – a move away from the previous formula that they constitute one temporarily divided state. China responded with a threat in February 2000 that it may launch military operations not only if Taiwan declares independence, but also if it delays too long in opening reunification talks. All three Taiwanese election candidates have stressed their desire for good relations with China. But Beijing risks becoming trapped by its own rhetoric into launching an offensive.

Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization (review)

??8 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 John W. Garver. Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization. Seattle: University ofWashington Press, 1997. xii, 193 pp. Paperback $18.95, isbn 0-295-97617-9. From March 8 to March 25, 1996, the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched missiles directed toward the vicinity of Kaohsiung and Keelung, the two major seaport cities on Taiwan, and conducted a series of extensive live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. These PRC military actions occurred as Taiwan was engaged in its first-ever direct, popular presidential election. The United States responded to this PRC military intimidation by deploying two aircraft-carrier battle groups in the waters near Taiwan—the largest concentration ofAmerican naval power in East Asia since the Vietnam War. This was the first Sino-U.S. military confrontation since the one involving Vietnam in the late 1960s; faced with superior U.S. forces, the PRC backed down and an international crisis was averted. What led to this PRC saber-rattling? What objectives was the PRC trying to achieve by these threats of force? Why did the United States decide to intervene against these acts of military intimidation? What is the significance of the 1996 crisis and the consequence ofAmerican intervention? How has democratization in Taiwan affected Taiwan-China and Taiwan-U.S. relations? These are among the many issues that John Garver painstakingly examines in Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization. According to Garver's analysis, two major sets of grievances prompted Beijing to commence large-scale military exercises to intimidate Taiwan (p. 13 ). One was concerned with recent shifts in U.S. policy toward Taiwan: President Bill Clinton's decision in May 1995 to issue a visa permitting Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui to visit his alma mater, Cornell University, was seen by Beijing as a clear and major violation of "explicit commitments" by the United States on the Taiwan question—such as the "One China" policy. The other was concerned with Taiwan's domestic developments and external behavior. The steady process of democratization and the transformation of Taiwan's ruling elite and polity on the one hand and its "pragmatic diplomacy" and growing international status on the other indicated to Beijing that Taiwan was moving closer to independence and further away from unification with the PRC. According to Garber, "The drastic measures of 1996 were, in large part, an© 1999 by University effort to abort this process" (p. 14). ofHawai'i PressRightly or wrongly, PRC leaders at first believed that they could strike a deal with Taiwan's autocratic KMT rulers, Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo, on the matter ofTaiwan's unification with China. Democratic change Reviews 119 in Taiwan thus created a major problem for the PRC—for Beijing could no longer expect to reach a setdement that might totally ignore the wishes of the people ofTaiwan. The death of Chiang Ching-kuo and the political ascendancy of Lee Teng-hui presented new worries for Beijing: although a member of the KMT, Lee is an ethnic Taiwanese and seems to have weaker ties to the mainland than the Chiangs. The PRC leaders were especially incensed by an interview Lee gave in 1994 to a Japanese writer, Ryotaro Shiba, in which Lee (1) stated that Taiwan must belong to the people ofTaiwan, (2) called the KMT regime in Taiwan "an alien regime," and (3) castigated the post-1945 KMT rule in Taiwan as "a period of oppression and darkness for the people ofTaiwan" (p. 24). When Lee used the Old Testament story of Moses leading the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt to imply his self-conceived mission for Taiwan, PRC analysts equated Egypt with China and concluded that Lee intended to lead the people ofTaiwan out ofChina (p. 24). Under Lee, Taiwan has also endeavored to reverse its diplomatic isolation by taking a series ofinitiatives to seek greater international recognition. Under the term "pragmatic diplomacy," Taiwan established diplomatic ties with several states that had already recognized the PRC, compelling Beijing to sever relations with them. From 1993 on, Taiwan began knocking on the...

Document 4: President Lee Teng-Hui, “Six-Point Reply,” 8 April 1995

Document 4: President Lee Teng-Hui, “Six-Point Reply,” 8 April 1995

Japan's China Policy: Implications for U.S.-Japan Relations

Developments in U.S.-China relations provide frequent fodder for the American media. Sino-Japanese relations, however, though rarely any warmer and certainly no less fragile, attract its attention only occasionally. Given America's tendency to view the world in Washington-centered terms, this oversight is hardly surprising-but it is nonetheless unfortunate. Ties between East Asia's two major powers-one a staunch U.S. ally, the other an uncertain partner not easily termed friend or foe-will do much to define America's future relationship with East Asia. As China emerges on the world stage, the ability of Tokyo and Beijing to manage bilateral ties peacefully will become a challenge of central geopolitical importance. Events over the past few years suggest that the consequences of failing to meet this challenge could be severe. Sino-Japanese relations began a downward spiral in August 1995, when China ignored Japanese protests in conducting its second nuclear test of the year. Tokyo responded to the underground blast by suspending a portion of its development assistance to Beijing. Although the frozen funds represented only a small percentage of Japan's overall aid to China-and were restored less than two years laterthe move represented a striking departure from Tokyo's normally nonconfrontational diplomacy. Officials in Beijing denounced the action, counseling Tokyo to recall the wartime suffering Japan inflicted on the Chinese people. The situation thereafter appeared to go from bad to worse. China's military exercises off the coast of Taiwan shortly before the island's first free presidential elections in March 1996 shocked the Japanese people. The provocative actions generated sympathy in Japan for President Lee Teng-hui of

Taiwanese Democracy Under Threat: Impact and Limit of Chinese Military Coercion

S INCE 1994, China has launched a series of military exercises to demonOstrate its resolve to safeguard territorial integrity and to intimidate into abandoning any attempts to create either Chinas or China and one Taiwan through its pragmatic diplomacy. After Taiwanese president Lee Tenghui visited his alma mater, Cornell University, in June last year, China took more drastic military actions to indicate to that its toleration of any attempts to split national territory was wearing thin. Failure of military exercises to generate the desired intimidating effect only galvanized China to resort to more reckless military actions, culminating in launching missiles at targets dangerously close to Taiwan's two main key harbors in the north and in the south one week before the Taiwanese voters directly elected a president for the first time in the country's history. Chinese military brinkmanship instantly heightened tensions in the Strait of Taiwan, which caused many countries in the region, including Singapore, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia, to worry about its war propensity. The military action also prompted the U.S. to deploy two aircraft carrier battle groups in the vicinity of as a precaution against a potential military conflict between and China. What prompted China to resort to military coercion? What objectives did it seek to achieve? To what extent has it achieved its goals? To measure China's success or failure in achieving its goals, one has to ask the following question: To what extent has Chinese military coercion succeeded in influencing Taiwanese public opinion, political parties, and political processes to force that government to abandon or modify its diplomatic efforts to carve out a separate national identity in the international community and to accelerate national unification? Literature on coercive diplomacy has identified the following factors as conducive to a successful application of coercion to achieve political goals: motivation of the disputants, quality of leadership, articulation of precise terms for settlement, generation of a strong sense of urgency in the adversary to comply, international support, and confrontation with the adversary with the specter of unacceptable consequences that will result from further escalation of

Democracy for the Long Haul

Democracy For The Long Haul Samuel P. Huntington (bio) I was last in Taipei in January 1989, participating in a conference on political change in Taiwan co-sponsored by the Institute of International Relations of National Chengchi University and the Harvard Center for International Affairs. At that time, as a result of the leadership of President Lee Teng-hui, the process of political change was well under way and was becoming a process of democratization. Martial law had been lifted; the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had been formed; electoral competition was expanding; legislative debates had become vigorous; press censorship was on the way out; social movements and social groups were organizing, demanding, and protesting. The conference itself was also a small part of this process, as the first public meeting in which both Kuomintang (KMT) and DPP officials took part. The changes taking place here in 1989 were, of course, part of the vast third wave of democratization that had begun 15 years earlier in Southern Europe, and then moved on to Latin America and Asia. By 1989 this wave was in full flood, reaching its crest at the end of the year with the collapse of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, which was soon followed by the disintegration of the USSR. These events generated a swelling tide of euphoria. Many believed that a global democratic revolution was under way, that liberal democracy was soon destined to triumph everywhere, that history was [End Page 3] at an end, and that, as Francis Fukuyama put it, we might be approaching “the end point of man’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” 1 Similar euphoric expectations had appeared at the end of this century’s other major conflicts. The First World War was thought to be the “war to end all wars” and the war to make the world safe for democracy. The Second World War, Franklin Roosevelt said, would lead to a new security system that would “end the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries—and have always failed.” Instead, we would have “a universal organization” of “peace-loving Nations” and the beginnings of a “permanent structure of peace.” 2 The First World War, however, generated communism, fascism, and the reversal of the century-old first wave of democratization. The Second World War produced a Cold War that was truly global. Now, six years after the collapse of European communism, our euphoric moment has passed, and we too have become sadder but wiser. A single dominating ideological conflict has given way to a multiplicity of ethnic conflicts, the stability of a bipolar world to the confusion and instability of a multipolar and multicivilizational world, and the potential horror of global nuclear war to the daily horror of ethnic cleansing. The word “genocide” has been heard far more often in the past five years than it was in any half-decade during the Cold War. In this sobering world, we need to have a sober view of the prospects for democracy and to recognize the possibility that this great third wave of democratization, having brought democracy to some 40 countries, may be losing its outward dynamic and moving from a phase of expansion to one of consolidation. Among scholars of democratization, a major debate goes on concerning the issue of crafting versus preconditions. Some argue that movement toward democracy depends on the existence within society of particular social, economic, or cultural preconditions, although there is much disagreement over what those preconditions are. A different school of thought sees democratization as primarily the product of political leaders who have the will and the skill to bring it about. Clearly, however, both preconditions and crafting have roles to play, and certain preconditions can facilitate democratic crafting. These include a relatively high level of economic development and the prevalence of what can be termed Western culture and values, including Western Christianity. At present, virtually all of the non-oil-producing high-income or upper-middle-income countries, with the exception of Singapore, are demo-cratic...

Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea

1994 witnessed interesting developments in cooperation and confidence building dialogue amongst the States of the Asia Pacific region, and in the South China Sea region in particular. On 25 November 1994 in Bogor, Indonesia, the leaders of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Council's (APEC) member States committed to link their economies together through the future creation of the largest free trade zone in the world. Previously, 18 foreign ministers met in July, at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Bangkok, to discuss the post Cold War situation in Southeast Asia. Much of the discussion focused on the role that confidence building activities could play in facilitating transparency in the face of the increasing armaments build up in the region. One of the longest standing confidence building activities in the region are the informal meetings of the project on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (MPC). 1 Since 1990 this project has continued to develop avenues for cooperative activities and to foster dialogue amongst the littoral States of the South China Sea region. New challenges were presented in 1995 for the MPC project. China's announcement that she would endeavour to settle disputes in the South China Sea through accepted norms of international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was welcomed by Southeast Asia's leaders. In orde to take advantage of this favourable climate, the MPC convened the First Meeting of the Technical Working Group on legal Matters in the South China Sea in Jakarta, in July. The meeting represents a significant step for the project as previously it was felt a legal debate may degenerate into participants merely restating rhetorical and entrenched positions. The large, and increasing, volume of naval traffic in and around Spratly Islands coupled with the concern that misinterpretation of another's actions could lead to conflict, resulted in the signing of multiple ‘code of conduct’ agreements between claimants. Vietnam and the Philippines as well as China and the Philippines agreed to cooperate in this regard. During 1995 China continued to be the main source of concern for the countries of the region. Her occupation of Mischief Reef at the end of 1994 and rising tensions between the mainland and Taiwan over President Lee Teng-Hui's visit to the US in June, culminating in missile tests off Taiwan, renewed questions over China's intentions in the region.

Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea

1994 witnessed interesting developments in cooperation and confidence building dialogue amongst the States of the Asia Pacific region, and in the South China Sea region in particular. On 25 November 1994 in Bogor, Indonesia, the leaders of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Council's (APEC) member States committed to link their economies together through the future creation of the largest free trade zone in the world. Previously, 18 foreign ministers met in July, at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Bangkok, to discuss the post Cold War situation in Southeast Asia. Much of the discussion focused on the role that confidence building activities could play in facilitating transparency in the face of the increasing armaments build up in the region. One of the longest standing confidence building activities in the region are the informal meetings of the project on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (MPC).1 Since 1990 this project has continued to develop avenues for cooperative activities and to foster dialogue amongst the littoral States of the South China Sea region. New challenges were presented in 1995 for the MPC project. China's announcement that she would endeavour to settle disputes in the South China Sea through accepted norms of international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was welcomed by Southeast Asia's leaders. In orde to take advantage of this favourable climate, the MPC convened the First Meeting of the Technical Working Group on legal Matters in the South China Sea in Jakarta, in July. The meeting represents a significant step for the project as previously it was felt a legal debate may degenerate into participants merely restating rhetorical and entrenched positions. The large, and increasing, volume of naval traffic in and around Spratly Islands coupled with the concern that misinterpretation of another's actions could lead to conflict, resulted in the signing of multiple ‘code of conduct’ agreements between claimants. Vietnam and the Philippines as well as China and the Philippines agreed to cooperate in this regard. During 1995 China continued to be the main source of concern for the countries of the region. Her occupation of Mischief Reef at the end of 1994 and rising tensions between the mainland and Taiwan over President Lee Teng-Hui's visit to the US in June, culminating in missile tests off Taiwan, renewed questions over China's intentions in the region.

Taiwan in 1995: Electoral Politics and Cross-Strait Relations

Taiwan went through a year of political turbulence in 1995. Across the Taiwan Strait, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) GeneralSecretary Jiang Zemin's eight-point policy proposal in January for peaceful reunification generated a sense of optimism for improved Taiwan-mainland relations. But this had subsided in July when the Beijing authorities launched the first of four military exercises aimed at intimidating Taiwan after President Lee Teng-hui visited the United States. By year's end, the cross-strait relationship had suffered serious political setbacks, as Beijing's bellicose rumblings damaged the atmosphere of reconciliation that had developed since 1987 through trade, investment, tourism, and semi-official contacts. Not since the early 1960s has the People's Republic of China (PRC) displayed such military belligerence toward its Taiwanese compatriots. As Beijing authorities poise themselves for continued military intimidation, at least through Taiwan's first popular presidential election in March 1996, security in the Taiwan Strait could get worse before it gets better. On the domestic front, partisan politics perforated this young democracy; the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) was saddled with internal dissension over the nomination of candidates for president and vice-president. Three leading figures left the KMT to run against the party ticket of incumbent President Lee Teng-hui and Premier Lien Chan. The departures of KMT Vice-Chairman Lin Yang-kang and former Premier Hau Pei-ts'un further split the party. This political dissension had the immediate effect of diluting the KMT vote in the December election for the Legislative Yuan and benefiting the New Party, whose leaders had left the KMT in 1993. The outcome of the parliamentary election, as well as the political dynamics of the upcoming presiden-