As we know, the Beijing government has long been waging a multi-pronged campaign to reabsorb Taiwan.
Taiwan is a former dictatorship that reformed itself. It now has a relatively open society, human rights, and free elections. Mainland China does not.
My question is: does the Taiwanese government ever try to put Beijing on the defensive about this? Does it stress that Chinese communist policies are an obstacle to reunification?
Do the Taiwanese ever say, “Reunification would be so much more appealing if there were a more representative government on the mainland”? Do they say, “We’ve seen how ‘one country, two systems’ worked out for Hong Kong – restore rights for Hong Kong as a trust-building measure, and then maybe we can talk”?
(I see online that there is a huge sign on a Taiwanese island facing the mainland that says “Unify China under the Three Principles of the People.” [One of the principles is “democracy.”] So this might be evidence of the kind of ideological campaign I’m wondering about. But this sign went up in the 1980s, when anti-communism was much more of a guiding principle. I don’t know if the thinking behind it is still an active part of Taiwan’s cross-Strait policy.)
I hear a lot about Beijing’s campaign for reunification but hardly anything about Taiwan’s response, which… is not a promising sign. Thus I wonder to what extent Taiwan does go on the offensive against Beijing, rhetorically speaking, and to what extent it uses its democratic credentials to score rhetorical points.
Does the little dog challenge the big dog to a fight? And if it were to, would the big dog care?
The Peoples Republic of China (PRC or “Mainland China”) considers the Republic of China (Taiwan) to be a “breakaway province” run by an illegitimate regime. And frankly, from a realpolitik point of view, so does most of the rest of the world. Notwithstanding, of course, that the PRC is an autocratic regime currently run by a cult of personality around Xi Jinping who has exactly zero interest in democracy or the merits of ‘representative government’ as it would the an anathema to his whole philosophy on how China (all of it, including the “Special Administrative Regions”of Macau and Hong Kong) should be run, and there is zero evidence of any consideration of giving a unified Taiwan even that much autonomy.
Every now and then, some Taiwanese politicians will murmur something along the lines of “If China were democratic and had human rights, maybe we could unify” - especially Ma Ying Jeou, the previous president of Taiwan from 2008-2016 - but this sort of talk is meaningless of course and usually just said for public consumption, since one side can’t expect the other side that’s 60 times bigger to accommodate any demands. Plus, one sees what happened to Hong Kong despite any or all promises.
Never anything official along these lines because that would be an opening in negotiations. The vast majority of Taiwanese don’t want to be re-unified at the barrel of a gun. Most don’t think of themselves as part of “China” anymore, and this group gets larger every day that has passed since 1 October 1949.
Don’t forget that Taiwan’s official position is that they are the sole, legitimate rulers of China. The official capital is Nanjing, on the mainland. So it’s not about, “hey, we’ll join you if you lighten up,” but more like, “hey, you’ve got to re-join us.”
Maybe technically, but I don’t think any Taiwanese politician or governing body has made an even slightly-serious statement to that effect since…the 1970s or so. Everyone knows an anteater eats an ant, not the other way around.
This is absurd and has absolutely not basis in any of the actual, current political situation at all. There are zero, zero politicians who believe that.