Page 26 - Rethinking China Policy

Rethinking China Policy

meant the PRC would be a full member with their regime circa 1995 without any concessions being made —
a disaster scenario to world trade.

To sum up, “One China” Policy must be a core interest of the PRC because the regime have no illusions
on how perilous and weak their grip on power is within China.

For now, there is only one competitor (ROC) that officially competes with Beijing as the government of “all
China”.
But there are many others waiting in the wings, awaiting the moment when the Beijing regime’s grip weakens
that will emerge.

CHANGING THE TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR TAIWAN: EXPANDING THE
STRATEGIC OPTIONS

By Danny Lam

When Chiang Kai Shek’s Republic of China (ROC) retreated to Taiwan in 1949, few Kuomintang (KMT)
officials could have foresaw the extended stay in Taiwan, whose people they regarded as traitors and
Japanese collaborators --- Taiwanese having lived mostly peacefully under Japanese rule for close to a half
century.

Taiwan as a former Japanese colony retained features to this day that are distinctly Japanese in origin,
including the system of real property: measured and administered in Japanese derived units. Many
administrative systems at the local level are traceably Japanese. Taiwan under Japanese rule was by no
means an entirely negative experience, with many public works projects completed by the colonial
administration and by Chinese standards, good public administration.

Opposition to the Japanese by Taiwanese nationalists was far less than that faced by the KMT. Nationalist
had no formal presence on Taiwan prior to the Japanese surrender of 1945. When the KMT remnants
flooded the island in 1949, came as ruthless occupiers.

Not surprisingly, the incoming ROC-KMT was regarded as oppressors by Taiwanese: replacing one set of
oppressors (however benign), with another group of defeated KMT officials, soldiers, etc.

Thus, it is not surprising that when the KMT successor generation under President Chiang Ching-kuo relaxed
controls and democratized, that the opposition coalesced around the pro-Taiwan Independence Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) despite the KMT’s iron grip on the instruments of power.
Taiwanese have now seen several changes and iterations of government through free elections, with the
Presidency and Legislative Branches of government regularly changing hands between the KMT and DPP.

And surprise, things have largely stayed the same.

The ROC remains the formal name and organization for Taiwan, and there has been no serious effort at
formal secession to become the Republic of Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the world has changed.

While the ROC is no longer explicitly competing with the PRC for formal international recognition as the
government of “all China” as they did under Chiang Kai Shek, the institutional mechanisms and structures
supporting that competition remains fully operative.
Second Line of Defense

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