20.10.2021
“The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland must be fulfilled and can definitely be fulfilled,” Xi Jinping said as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The 110th Anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution has forced the Chinese government to reconfigure the narrative over relations with Taiwan. After years of a “let George do it” attitude, based on the principle qiutong cunyi (“seek common ground leaving aside existing differences”), the Chinese government faces the dilemma of how to resolve this perennial issue and how to conduct relations with Taiwan in what Xi Jinping has named the “new era”? This problem is even more evident as China’s Xi Jinping is portrayed as a powerful, even omnipotent leader, which could ironically leave the Chinese president with less room to maneuver with regard to reunification.
Ever since the Chinese Communist Party took control of mainland China, it has proposed a set of foreign affairs principles based on noninterference and peaceful coexistence. However, these principles were not rooted in China’s peaceful nature, but were rather tactically introduced to allow China to navigate the turbulent waters of international politics. Since 1949, however, Beijing's biggest dilemma was how to conduct relations with Taiwan in such a way that it would lead to possible reunification in the future. In the 1950s, China under Mao twice attempted to solve the Cross Straits issue through military means but failed both times. In contrast, once Deng Xiaoping took power, the Communist Party of China established a peaceful reunification strategy based on the “one country, two systems” principle. The Taiwan problem, as the biggest issue in China’s domestic and international politics was “put on the backburner”: Mao in his conversation with Nixon said the Taiwan problem could wait for the next 100 years, while Deng suggested leaving the issue for the next generation who the then Chinese leader said were wiser and smarter than the old revolutionaries.
Apart from the well-known five principles of peaceful coexistence: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality as well as mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence qiutong cun yi could not be ignored. In general, it means “seeking common ground, leaving aside existing differences” and has since the very early years of the PRC served as one of the leading principles in China’s external affairs. What might be surprising is that these principles have also been applied to what China perceives as a domestic issue. This phrase was used by Deng Xiaoping in his letter to Taiwanese compatriots in January 1979, and in the 1992 Consensus. Then in 2008 and 2010, Hu Jintao, the then secretary general of the Communist Party of China during a meeting with the Honorary Chairman of the Kuomintang, Lien Chan, and Liu Boxiong, suggested the “Sixteen character guidelines” of “building mutual trust, setting aside disputes, seeking common ground while leaving aside existing differences, and creating a “win-win situation”. In this context, the economic and cultural interdependence serves as a priority vehicle for “leaving aside existing differences”. Once this channel fails to satisfy Taiwanese compatriots, as predicted by “Liaowang Magazine” in 2011, China would use any possible means to push for Taiwan's population to accept the concept of “both sides of the strait belong to one China”, and possible future reunification. In the current situation, with Taiwan’s growing awareness of its own identity as well as strained Sino-American relations, the ability to seek common ground while putting differences to one side, has been drastically reduced.
Xi's administration faces the dilemma of whether and to what extent the country’s military forces will be involved? As in the past, any military engagement on a larger scale would result in breaking previous principles and might affect the balance of power inside the party. As quoted by the Wall Street Journal: Defense and political analysts generally agree that the PLA could take control of Taiwan, especially if the U.S. and other powers don’t intervene, though there is debate about whether Chinese leader Xi Jinping is willing to pay the costs of an invasion.
In the case of China invading Taiwan, the cost for Xi Jinping as it was for Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, could be allowing the military to become an even more significant decision maker. During Mao’s time, Lin Biao, who supported Mao’s vision of social changes in the early 1960s and then during the Cultural Revolution, was then rewarded by being selected as Mao's successor. However, once his power crossed the “red line” by threatening the position of the “paramount leader”, Lin Biao was eliminated in September 1971. The second intra-party crisis led to military involvement in the Tiananmen protest in 1989. After this, the army was given extra economic incentives, and senior military personnel owning commercial businesses became the norm in Mainland China. The biggest influence of the military, however, was observed during the Third Taiwan Crisis in 1995-1996 when the island took the democratization path. However, at that time, negotiations with the WTO limited any deeper involvement of the military in China’s political system.
Today, the major role that the military plays in Cross-Strait relations might result in incentivizing the army by allowing it to be a more significant participant in the decision making process. This, however, might change the balance of power inside the Communist Party of China and may change the status quo. In this context, militarization of China’s political system might be a possibility, but whether Xi Jinping needs this before the next Party Congress in 2022 is open to debate.