PRC needs to show flexibility on cross-strait ties: U.S. scholars

If the government in Beijing wants to stand any chance of winning the hearts and minds of the island’s people, “China is eventually going to have to reach out to Taiwan,” Bonnie Glaser, a senior associate at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a consultant to the U.S. government, told an audience at the Heritage Foundation.

“China needs to look again at ‘one country, two systems,” said Richard Bush, director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, and former chairman and managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). “We’re not going to make any progress as long as that obstacle is there,” he said.

Beijing, however, sees the main obstacle to cross-strait progress as President Chen Shui-bian and his policies, and would be more willing to compromise if the Kuomintang-People First Party (KMT-PFP) alliance under Lien Chan and James Soong were to win the election, noted Glaser.

A growing number of mainland academics believe that Beijing ought to adopt a greater level of “flexibility and creativity” with regard to Taiwan, for instance, finding a way for the island to participate at the World Health Organization (WHO), explained Glaser, recently back from visits to the mainland and Taiwan.

On the security front, Beijing needs to “reduce the profound sense of insecurity” that people in Taiwan feel due to the 500 or so missiles that are aimed at the island, according to Bush, and “find ways to reassure Taiwan that it is not meddling in Taiwan politics.”

Another “very logical ... very significant” gesture that Beijing could make would be to suggest Taipei hosts several events during the 2008 Olympic Games, according to Glaser.

“It would be very natural for Taipei to hold, for example, baseball, soccer, Taikwondo,” plus, this would help foster greater economic and cultural cooperation. “This is clearly something that China should do,” she said.

Such a suggestion was made by the Beijing Olympic Committee in November 2000, well before the city was awarded the Games, though Taipei is yet to receive its invitation.

The mainland government may be holding out for a “pan-blue” win, for the sake of cross-strait stability, but even if their wish comes true, Beijing holds “no illusions ... about the possibility of any near-term breakthroughs in cross-strait relations,” she said.

As in 2000, a victory in the election for President Chen would be the worst possible outcome for the mainland government.

Though one can always hope that Beijing may offer an olive branch to Taiwan, “its probably not going to happen,” cautioned professor Robert Sutter of Georgetown University and a former CIA analyst with the National Intelligence Council.

As long as President Chen remains in power, Beijing is extremely unlikely to make any concessions. This would be to “reward assertiveness,” he said.

Beijing has been unable to show flexibility even with Japan, so “how are they going to do it with Taiwan?” questioned Sutter.

While there is no trust between the Chen administration and Beijing, a “crisis of trust” also exists between Taipei and Washington, largely brought on by Chen’s “confrontational approach,” he said.

“I anticipate a protracted period of difficult relations that will require U.S. skill to keep balance and avoid confrontation and conflict,” Sutter warned.

Still, so far the U.S. administration “has done a pretty good job” at “dampening (Chen’s) assertiveness,” according to Sutter, most recently when Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, in Beijing last week, restated U.S. opposition to any unilateral actions by either Taiwan or China that would alter the status quo.

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