By David M. Lampton
Just as there is economic interdependence in the world, so increasingly the electoral and selection processes in one society can affect political behavior in other societies. In March 2008 there will be a presidential election in Taiwan, and about eight months later the general election will be held in the United States. Each of these two elections has the potential to affect the other, perhaps significantly. As well, both elections could affect—and be affected by—the ongoing “selection” process in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a process composed of the already convened 17th Party Congress of October 2007 and the upcoming National People’s Congress of spring 2008.
Individually, these two elections and one “selection” are important. Taken together, this confluence of elections and “selection” has great potential bearing on peace and stability in the Pacific.
If certain developments occur in Taiwan’s elections, this could set off a coercive reaction from Beijing, a development that would reverberate in the U.S. general election campaign, in turn catalyzing an unpredictable and quite dangerous set of actions and reactions.
The Party and National People’s Congress “Selections” in China, 2007–08
In October, the Communist Party of China selected its new Politburo Standing Committee, constituting the supreme ruling group, along with the somewhat larger Politburo. General Secretary Hu Jintao emerged from this process with a second term and strengthened in two senses: His explications of “scientific development” and “harmonious society”—the former meaning balanced, equitable and sustainable development and the latter referring to reducing social frictions—have been adopted as the Communist Party’s guiding policy prescriptions and maxims. Moreover, persons who owe their political rise to Hu have moved into the top echelons of China’s national leadership, thereby giving him a more secure base from which to operate.
In this new leadership group there are strong hints as to who is being groomed as the leader(s) to succeed Hu Jintao as head of the Communist Party and Wen Jiabao as premier in 2012. Hence, this selection was not only about who will lead China for now but also who has a leg up for future leadership. This Party Congress adopted the main policy guidelines for the next five years and went some distance in selecting the government personnel who formally will be announced in Spring 2008 at the National People’s Congress (NPC) session.
The combination of the just-convened Party Congress and the soon-to-be-convened NPC is significant not only to 1.3 billion-plus Chinese citizens but also to two other societies holding elections in 2008: Taiwan and the United States. Taipei and Washington both have great stakes in the prospects for stability on the mainland, Beijing’s policies toward Taiwan and China’s economic, trade and development policies, including the prospects for further political system change.
Hu Jintao secured much of what he wanted at the 17th Party Congress. This selection has thus far produced a somewhat younger and fairly cohesive Chinese leadership; the numerical strength of people identified with former President Jiang Zemin has been reduced; the people selected continue to broaden out the elite in terms of educational experience; and those selected have considerable local, on-the-ground governing experience, particularly in China’s heartland as well as dynamic areas along the coast.
Moreover, in naming Xi Jinping (the party secretary from Shanghai who is in his mid-50s) as the ranking “fifth generation” leader on the Standing Committee of the Politburo and simultaneously naming Li Keqiang (the party secretary from Liaoning Province) as the next most senior “fifth generation” leader on the Standing Committee, the Communist Party has preliminarily indicated the identity of Hu Jintao’s and Wen Jiabao’s successors. And finally, as in the recent past, there are no uniformed military officers on the Standing Committee, suggesting that the military remains under firm civilian control.
The key word regarding policies is continuity: Trying to achieve a more equitable distribution of the benefits of modernization among regions and social groups; using the progressively stronger finances of the central government to put more emphasis on health and education; trying (thus far unsuccessfully) to stimulate growth through domestic consumption rather than industrial investment and export expansion; continuing to modernize the military; and exerting efforts to maintain stable and productive relations with Washington, while remaining absolutely committed to deterring the de jure independence of Taiwan. Regarding the island of Taiwan, the PRC will go to high levels of conflict to prevent Taipei’s de jure independence, even though Hu Jintao called for talks on a peace agreement (on the basis of the “one China principle”) with Taiwan at the 17th Party Congress. While the military is not directly represented in the top ruling group, the civilian leadership is particularly reluctant to confront the military on the Taiwan issue.
This brings us to Taiwan and its March 2008 election. This has both Washington and Beijing worried. Both capitals are making their own respective efforts to ensure that the conduct and outcomes of Taiwan’s elections do not inadvertently precipitate a conflict between the two nuclear powers.
Taiwan’s March 2008 Presidential Election
The current, lame-duck president, Chen Shui-bian, hopes to leave in place a successor who will carry on the fight for a Taiwan recognized internationally as a sovereign state. At a minimum, Chen hopes to have a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) successor who will protect him from prosecution on corruption charges after he departs office in May 2008. The two candidates vying to be Chen’s successor are former Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (Hsieh Chang-ting) of the DPP and former Taipei Mayor and former Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman, the Harvard-educated Ma Ying-jeou.
Following a meeting in which colleagues and I had an extended conversation with Chen Shui-bian in early June, I concluded that he is committed to an independent Taiwan recognized as such by the world community, as is the DPP. He is willing for his people to pay a high price in this pursuit and is not concerned about U.S. interests as he proceeds. When Frank Hsieh visited Washington, D.C., in summer 2007, he did not generally create confidence that he will be more able than Chen to deal productively with mainland China or that his long-term objectives are much different from Chen’s.
Ma Ying-jeou appears more willing and able to countenance the idea of a Taiwan and PRC political association of some meaningful sort in the indefinite future. At the same time, he is unwilling to stray far from the idea that the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) currently is a sovereign entity in charge of its own destiny. Ma can see no change in Taiwan’s current political status any time soon. Nonetheless, were Ma to be elected, he appears willing to be flexible enough to improve cross-Strait relations out of consideration for Taiwan’s economic prosperity and physical security. He also seems less compelled to do things that deeply rattle Beijing and bring out the worst impulses there. All in all, however, Beijing and Washington both are concerned that in a heated election either the campaign process or the election outcome could push Beijing into precipitous action, in turn forcing unwelcome choices on Washington in the midst of a fiercely contested electoral race at home.
Although presidential candidates Hsieh and Ma are different, in one respect they are alike: Each desperately wants to win the Taiwan election and will go to great lengths to do so by appealing to the yearning for a distinct, autonomous identity among their citizens. The DPP hit upon the strategy of having a presidential election-day referendum, asking the people of Taiwan to express their view on an issue that is popular on the island—membership of Taiwan (under the name of Taiwan) in the United Nations. Promoters of this referendum all know that it would not, in fact, lead to Taiwan’s membership in the world body—that clearly is impossible. Rather, the referendum’s purpose is to have an issue on the ballot close to the hearts of DPP activists and others, thereby getting them to the polls to vote.
Further, the bar is set high for adopting a referendum in Taiwan’s system. It is conceivable that the DPP candidate could be elected president without the referendum passing. Indeed, if the referendum was to go down to defeat, Beijing could well argue that Taiwan’s own citizens had rejected moving away from the “one China principle.”
But this doesn’t mean it isn’t a dangerous effort in the eyes of both Beijing and Washington. The wording of the referendum is important. The DPP chose to make the referendum about whether or not the people of Taiwan wish to have the island admitted to the United Nations under the name of “Taiwan.” In Beijing’s view, this comes dangerously close to a declaration of de jure independence, a cause for war, because it uses what would become a legal name for Taiwan that suggests no connection with China.
For their part, candidate Ma and the KMT also seek to get their supporters to the polls and have put forth their own referendum in response to the DPP’s. This referendum is only slightly less of a problem for Beijing because it asks voters to express their view on whether or not they wish to see the island admitted to U.N. membership. In Beijing’s view, this, too, is unacceptable because it suggests that Taiwan people can unilaterally choose their international future irrespective of what their brethren on the mainland think, but at least the name issue is not so front-and-center.
There are many dangers and uncertainties here: Beijing could simply declare that any referendum constitutes a declaration of independence and threaten or initiate a highly coercive strategy; Beijing could wait to see the outcome of the vote, hoping that both referenda fail, an eventuality that would strengthen Beijing’s hand; Beijing also could wait, willing to live with the Nationalist version, but unwilling to countenance the DPP version; or, most desirably from a U.S. perspective, Beijing could ignore the whole exercise, deriding it as a pointless symbolic domestic maneuver that the international community (as manifest by the United Nations) already has rejected. Indeed, Beijing probably could rally the other big powers to warn Taiwan that adopting either referendum will only increase its isolation.
At this point, we simply do not know what Beijing will do. But we can be sure of one thing. Because leaders in China are insecure in the face of popular nationalism regarding the Taiwan issue, in some sense every day is election day when it comes to this problem. This is a topic on which no PRC leader wants to be seen as weak.
The outcome of the 17th Party Congress’s “selection process”—producing two possible successors waiting in the wings for 2012—may be important to the outcome. It is critical that these two not compete to win political support for succession to Hu Jintao by “getting tough on Taiwan.” Fortunately, Xi and Li, the young “fifth generation” leaders, have backgrounds that suggest they fully appreciate what is at stake in maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait. But if Taiwan pushes too hard, any PRC leaders, vying for the support of elders and the military, will find resisting muscularity difficult.
Both of these referendum efforts are deeply worrying to Washington as well, not because the United States is opposed to popular sovereignty but because these efforts could lead China to initiate conflict that—particularly in a U.S. general election campaign—could create additional pressures for U.S. intervention. Though nothing in U.S. law requires U.S. intervention, particularly if sparked by provocative Taiwan actions, a U.S. presidential candidate (or president) would need considerable political courage to explain why he or she did not side with an old, democratic friend.
The June 2007 conversation with Chen leads me to think he rates the odds of Beijing’s using force as low and that if Beijing did employ force this would almost compel Washington to come to his rescue—and he can see some advantages in that. Chen may be wrong! (A 2006 poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs reported that when a sample of Americans were asked whether they would favor U.S. intervention “if China invaded Taiwan,” 61 percent said they were opposed to such a move.)
For his part, President George W. Bush has seen this dynamic slowly unfold; as his concerns have mounted, he and his administration have placed increasing pressure on Chen to back off. This pressure was recently and publicly manifested in an important September 2007 address by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Christensen arguing that Taiwan presidential contenders and the Chen administration should reassess their risky course. The following month, the White House decided not to sell F-16s to Taiwan as Taipei wished, at least for the time being. Thus far, this pressure has had little discernible effect. This brings us to the upcoming U.S. general election.
The November 2008 U.S. General Election
Given the negatively interacting political and electoral dynamics on the mainland and in Taiwan, maintaining stability requires Washington to reassure Beijing that it is not turning a blind eye as America’s longstanding policy of “maintaining the status quo” in the Taiwan Strait is compromised by Taipei’s actions; take appropriate steps to deter Beijing from using force while at the same time reassuring Beijing that Taipei’s actions will leave the island even more isolated internationally should it pursue a reckless course; and try to convince President Chen and candidates Hsieh and Ma that, if they choose to provoke conflict across the Taiwan Strait, they might well find themselves on their own. Concisely, Washington has to restrain Taipei without emboldening Beijing and simultaneously restrain Beijing without emboldening Taipei.
All this requires consistent, clear and potent messages to both Beijing and Taipei from Washington and from the many candidates running for U.S. president and Congress. These are exactly the qualities of policy, diplomacy and rhetoric one cannot take for granted when numerous candidates are running for president and hundreds are running for Congress, and when the Republican and Democratic parties both see enormous stakes in the electoral outcome. The pressure to identify with Taiwan’s aspirations, at least in campaign rhetoric, will be high. Loose talk on the campaign trail could embolden Taipei to act on the assumption that backing from Washington is assured no matter what destabilizing course it takes.
The one aspect of the U.S. electoral dynamic that may foster a certain restraint, as it pertains to campaign rhetoric and this triangular relationship, is that the war in Iraq—along with the conflict in Afghanistan and worries about Iran—and the health of the U.S. economy are likely to be the overwhelming electoral issues. U.S. problems elsewhere in the security realm may induce the two final presidential contenders to adopt prudent policies in the Pacific because of greater necessities in other regions.
On the other hand, China policy and cross-Strait ties often are viewed by competing U.S. politicians as low-cost targets of opportunity for incendiary and mobilizational rhetoric, rhetoric that may help one get elected but which makes subsequent governance all the harder.
Just as global economic interdependence has meant that economic developments in one part of the world can reverberate throughout much of the rest of the international economic system, so we have come to see that a kind of cross-national political interdependence exists as well.
Consequently, while aspirants to power in the United States and elsewhere are driven to place primacy on the domestic consequences of their rhetoric and activities, they also increasingly must consider the impacts of their domestic political strategies for their own society’s relations with others and for war and peace far from their own shores.
David M. Lampton is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, director of the China Studies Program and dean of faculty. His forthcoming book, The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds, will be published in February 2008. |
