Cross-Taiwan Strait Relations in an Era of Technological Change

Security, Economic and Cultural Dimensions

Kenneth A. Loparo, J. Knoerich, Kenneth A. Loparo, J. Knoerich, Paul Irwin Crookes

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137391414
• eBook ISBN: 9781137391421
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores how technological change is influencing the dynamics of relations between mainland China and Taiwan. Using the latest research, it examines the acceleration of technology-led and how it shapes three key dimensions of the cross-Strait relationship: the overarching security context; the economic context; and the cultural context.

1

Cross-Taiwan Strait Relations in an Era of Technological Change: Introduction¹

Elisabeth Forster and Jan Knoerich

In the spring of 2014, Taiwanese students occupied the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament. They were protesting against a trade-in-services agreement with mainland China, which the Kuomintang (KMT)-led Taiwanese government was trying to conclude more speedily and secretly than the demonstrators would have liked. These protests came to be known as the Sunflower Student Movement (Taiyanghua xueyun). This Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) of 2014 was by no means the first economic agreement between mainland China and Taiwan. Over the previous years, however, scepticism about the implications of concluding more and more intrusive agreements with the mainland had been building up in Taiwan and found expression in the Sunflower protests. Among these fears was the worry that with increasing economic cooperation might come growing political influence by mainland China.² For many Taiwanese this is a disconcerting prospect, since the mainland regards Taiwan as an apostate province and threatens to eventually use force should Taiwan not return to the mainland voluntarily. The mainland’s growing military prowess makes these threats increasingly convincing. Add to that an increasing cultural alienation between the two sides of the Strait. Not only are they governed by different political systems – Taiwan is a multi-party democracy and the mainland an authoritarian state under one-party rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the last three decades, many Taiwanese have gradually come to develop a distinct Taiwanese identity.³

Nevertheless, in many areas mainland China and Taiwan are becoming ever more closely tied in with each other. Historically, such ties have been forged through business relations, especially as Taiwanese businesses outsourced parts of their production lines to the mainland in an attempt to lower costs.⁴ More recently, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between mainland China and Taiwan, signed by both sides on 29 June 2010, set the stage for further economic integration and created expectations about further intensification of cross-Strait relations in future years. In this context, mutual visits by politicians from both sides of the Strait have become more common, as have exchanges among people and civil society. Mainland companies have also started investing in Taiwan.⁵

Beyond the warming-up in formal relations between mainland China and Taiwan that has characterized cross-Strait policy under the Ma Ying-jeou administration (Taiwanese President from 2008 to the present), technological change has played a salient role in shifting the nature of the relationship to a different level. As this book illustrates, this shift manifests itself in at least three distinct dimensions of the relationship – the security, economic and cultural spheres. Examining the cross-Strait relationship through the prism of technology and technological change, the authors of this volume analyse each of these three dimensions to find answers on a number of commonly raised questions. These include: How have the rapid technological advancements of our time changed cross-Strait relations politically, militarily, economically and culturally? How has the mainland’s progress and investment in military technologies changed the power dynamics surrounding cross-Strait relations? Does mainland China’s enhanced abilities to innovate present a threat or an opportunity for Taiwan’s industry? Is internet technology a medium through which Taiwan can project its democratic soft power and make its voice heard in the world? Does it help to bridge cultural gaps across the Strait or does it reinforce opinions developed ‘offline’? This book emerges from a conference with the title ‘Cross-Strait Relations in an Era of Technological Change: Security, Economic and Cultural Dimensions’, held at the University of Oxford on 5 March 2013.

Technology is at the core of contemporary developments in cross-Strait relations. In terms of security, it is a game changer. In the form of missiles, warships or cyberwarfare, it presents a threat to Taiwan, as the mainland rapidly modernizes its military. Economically, it is a double-edged sword for Taiwan. In view of the mainland’s technological catching-up, Taiwanese businessmen – having in the past made considerable profits on the basis of their relative technological leadership – are now forced to speedily transform and innovate, in order to stay ahead. In the cultural sphere, technology and especially the internet provide spaces of expression through which a cross-Strait community can be established, but also through which unconciliatory opinions can be exacerbated. As security, economic and cultural positions feed into popular perceptions of the societies across the Strait and affect the positions of political leaders, technology also shapes cross-Strait politics, which has, according to Steven M. Goldstein, now stagnated and reached a difficult ‘equilibrium’ with unpredictable outcomes.⁶

This is an exciting time to re-examine cross-Strait relations. Technology has by now permeated every reach of life, opening up a new focus of enquiry that interweaves all the aspects contributing to the cross-Strait dilemma: culture, security and the economy. While technological aspects have been addressed in previous research on cross-Strait relations, relevant studies have often focused on military modernization and its impact on cross-Strait security,⁷ or have paid particular attention to the technological leadership role of Taiwanese businesses on the mainland.⁸ This book’s particular contribution is to examine the broader role of technological change and the way it affects many less explored facets of cross-Strait relations.

The recent political developments in cross-Strait relations also inspire fascinating new questions for research. In the 1990s, scholars frequently examined the Taiwanese ‘miracle’⁹ – Taiwan’s economic rise and its democratization since the late 1980s.¹⁰ In the mid-2000s, after the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) with its pro-independence stance came into power, academics probed further into the danger of conflict between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan, and into the possibility that tensions could lead to outright war with Taiwan’s ally, the United States.¹¹ More recently, the improvements in cross-Strait relations since the election of Ma Ying-jeou as President in 2008 call for a revisiting of the cross-Strait question. Finally, uncertainties remain on how the change in the PRC leadership in 2012 may affect the mainland’s Taiwan policy. Policy initiatives from Beijing to limit democratic freedom in Hong Kong, which triggered the ‘Occupy Central’ or ‘Umbrella’ movement in 2014, indicate that a discussion of official cross-Strait formulas (‘one country, two systems’, ‘one China’ and so forth) is less important than one of political realities.¹² In the economic and military realm, China’s catching-up is beginning to show an impact on the international order, and the tide appears ready to change. The chapters of this book provide an updated reassessment of cross-Strait relations in light of recent political developments. They explore possible future directions and formulate policy suggestions.

Part I: Cross-Strait security in an era of technologically-induced change

The first two contributions to this book explore recent developments in cross-Strait relations in the spheres of politics and security. The cross-Strait tensions started with the Chinese civil war (1945–49). The KMT under Chiang Kai-shek lost this war against the CCP, led by Mao Zedong, and had to retreat to Taiwan. Just like the CCP planned to eventually conquer Taiwan, the KMT officially held that it would in the end retake the mainland.¹³ This was also why Taiwan, the KMT claimed, had to remain under martial law. Soon global politics worked in Taiwan’s favour. With the Korean War (1950–53) and the rise of the Cold War, the United States felt obliged, if reluctantly and as cautiously as possible, to promise Taiwan help in case of a conflict with the Communist mainland.¹⁴ But the dynamics of this ‘triangle’ were changed when around two decades later, in the 1970s, relations between mainland China and the United States began to thaw. Soon mainland China displaced Taiwan from the international political stage. Taiwan was edged out of several international organizations, most notably from the United Nations in 1971.¹⁵

While there had hardly been any contact between mainland China and Taiwan in these Cold War years, the relations between the two now became ever more complex. In 1987, martial law was lifted in Taiwan, and Taiwan gradually turned into a democratic, multi-party system. Opposition parties were founded, most famously the DPP, and in 1996 the Taiwanese for the first time chose their President in free elections.¹⁶ Meanwhile on the mainland, Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reforms, which opened up the mainland for investments from Taiwan. But contrary to the significant political changes that occurred in Taiwan during that time, Beijing refused to embrace political reforms, and all hopes for this possibility were crushed when the student protests on Tian’anmen Square were violently suppressed in 1989.

Nevertheless, cultural and economic exchange across the Taiwan Strait intensified, forcing politics to adjust its stance.¹⁷ In 1988, the mainland founded the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council to deal with cross-Strait questions, and in 1991 Taiwan established the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) as its counterpart.¹⁸ Over the years, politicians created various formulas to describe cross-Strait relations. The most famous one of these, which greatly facilitated political exchanges between both sides, was the ‘1992 Consensus’. In it, both sides agreed that there was only ‘one China’, but they left it open to each side to define the meaning of this ‘one China’, whether it was the PRC or the Republic of China (ROC). According to Richard C. Bush, Beijing upheld the view that its definition ‘need not be addressed in routine consultations’. The view in Taipei was that the two sides could not agree on a definition.¹⁹

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Cross-Taiwan Strait Relations in an Era of Technological Change: Introduction
• 2 Post-Election Cross-Strait Relations: High Hopes and Low Expectations
• 3 Technological Change and China’s Naval Modernization: Security Implications for Taiwan
• 4 Taiwanese Business in Mainland China: From Domination to Marginalization?
• 5 Do Mainland Chinese Firms Transform towards ‘Indigenous Innovation’? The Paradox of Increasing Economic Integration across the Taiwan Straits
• 6 The Role of High Technology in Mainland China’s Outward Investment into Taiwan: Economic, Security and Cultural Dimensions
• 7 Cross-Strait Cyberspace: Between Public Sphere and Nationalist Battleground
• 8 From Politics to Culture: Taiwanization Discourses and the Techno Nazha Performance
• 9 Bridging the Cultural Gap across the Taiwan Strait – Lung Ying-tai and the Case of the Magazine
• 10 Technological Change and Cross-Strait Dynamics in the 21st Century
• Index