"Long-Lost Children": Taiwan's Future in Beijing's Vision of Unification
BEIJING — As tensions in the Taiwan Strait rise to their highest level in decades, China has captured the world’s attention with a show of military might to intimidate Taiwan and its supporters in the largest military exercise in the country’s history. But China wants to send a message that goes far beyond warships and fighter jets.
While unabashedly showing off its power, politically, economically, and culturally, China has been presenting its strongest vision for a future of reunification with Taiwan.
Under this vision, orchestrated by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, not only can the Chinese navy cross the Taiwan Strait at will, but mainland troops can also be stationed on the island, implementing a system of political subordination, akin to what is happening in Hong Kong. China and Taiwan will work together to repel covert foreign powers that seek to use the island to weaken Beijing. The people of Taiwan will also abandon the different identities that have emerged on the island, recognize their blood and cultural roots, and return to the embrace of the motherland.
That vision has been on display in recent weeks with a combination of military exercises, a new policy document, propaganda and a social media campaign. Taking advantage of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan earlier this month and another U.S. congressional delegation's follow-up visit on Monday, China has accused the United States of stepping up efforts to divide China and said it needed to reiterate its position.
"Taiwan is China's Taiwan, and the Taiwan issue tolerates no foreign interference," China's defense ministry said in a statement on Monday . At the same time, the military announced that more exercises would be carried out .
Many of the basic elements of this vision are not new. Nor is it likely to be achieved easily, especially against the backdrop of growing anti-mainland sentiment in self-governing Taiwan. But they provide a window into what the Chinese government talks about China's rise and renaissance. On the eve of the Communist Party's national congress this fall, when Xi Jinping is expected to break with a precedent set in recent decades for a third term as the country's leader, the Chinese government has increasingly emphasized The goal of rise and revival.
The first step in realizing this vision is unification, and China has used military exercises to demonstrate its growing ability to achieve this by force. Its military planes have crossed the unofficial centerline of the Taiwan Strait dozens of times this month, and have also fired missiles over Taiwan for the first time.
The exercises are the first major test of China's military modernization reforms in recent years, said Xu Ruilin , a researcher at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore .
The drills also provide an opportunity for China to conduct more provocative and frequent operations in the Taiwan Strait. The exercise was initially announced to end on Aug. 7, and China extended it last week. Even though the drills were officially concluded after a delay of several days, Taiwan continued to report Chinese warplanes flying over the median line in the Taiwan Strait.
Chinese officials have used these actions to signal that it will act according to new standards, declaring that no part of the Taiwan Strait can be considered international waters because Beijing claims Taiwan is its own.
“The middle line will no longer be respected,” said Xu Ruilin, an analyst in Singapore.
But the CCP’s calculations for Taiwan go beyond territory. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, the ideal of a great nation that the Chinese government has always emphasized is closely related to blood and cultural heritage. Under this concept, because Taiwanese and Chinese people mostly belong to the same ethnic group, Taiwan and China have an unalterable connection.
Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed exactly this notion when she tweeted how many Shanxi noodle restaurants there are in Taipei. "Taste doesn't lie," she declared, claiming it proved Taiwan was China's "long-lost child."
She was thoroughly ridiculed . But Twitter is blocked on the mainland, and on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform, users are triumphant that they have found local Chinese food restaurants on an online map of Taiwan. (The owner is said to have promised discounts for diners from the mainland.)
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also hinted at Taiwan's duty of filial piety to China when he called Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen an " unworthy descendant " this month.
Of course, trying to erase the differences between democratic Taiwan and communist China is also political. That's the heart of the nearly 9,000-word white paper published last week.
This is the first white paper issued by the Chinese government on the Taiwan issue since 2000, and it largely reiterates long-standing claims, including that China does not rule out the use of force. But compared with previous versions of the policy document, the white paper also offers a harsher version of what life will look like after reunification, reflecting the reality that
The CCP has long said that Taiwan will be governed according to the "one country, two systems" model, and like Hong Kong, it will retain some features and possible rights that the mainland does not have. The 2000 White Paper repeatedly mentioned that Taiwan and China would negotiate a governance model on an "equal" or "reciprocal" basis. But this promise appears only once in the new white paper.
But China has destroyed many of Hong Kong's freedoms , despite its promise to preserve them.
Not mentioned in the new white paper is a previous commitment not to station Chinese troops or administrative personnel in Taiwan. The white paper also hints at efforts to reshape the identity of Taiwanese, whose young people increasingly believe they have an identity different from those in mainland China. The white paper vowed to "deepen the understanding of the vast majority of Taiwan compatriots on the mainland" to reduce "misunderstandings and doubts".
Some Chinese officials have been more forthright. China's ambassador to France recently said that China will " re-educate " the people of Taiwan after reunifying Taiwan, a chilling reminder of China's claims ;
Despite the firmer stance in the new white paper, some experts say the overall message is restraint. Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said the white paper repeatedly stressed that China would prefer a peaceful solution to the Taiwan issue, which is an acknowledgment that open conflict is still a costly option.
It is also likely to be a way to guide the tone of public discussions among more nationalistic Chinese, Zhu Feng added. Many Chinese expressed indignation and disappointment that the government did not forcibly prevent Pelosi from visiting Taiwan .
" If the Taiwan issue is not handled properly, it will really only bring new comprehensive problems to China ," he said.
Still, the new white paper is unlikely to convince its most important audience, Taiwan. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council dismissed it as "wishful thinking"
Therefore, the audience most likely to listen to this unified vision is what the Chinese government has always been able to control: its own people.
China's state media has published a series of headlines about the quest for unification, a barrage of reports that have pushed back issues such as a slowing economy , banking scandals , women being beaten and the coronavirus lockdown that still keeps millions out of their homes to the side.
Xiao Qiang , who studies Chinese censorship at the University of California, Berkeley, said China's Internet regulators are likely to continue to distract attention from other issues through propaganda and censorship.
"There are many other things people worry about in their day-to-day lives. Now, these other issues are overwhelmed by the issue of nationalism."
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