China's Failed Taiwan Strategy

Dong Feng!

Money, persuasion and coercion have all failed.

Simply put Collectivist China has nothing left to force the Reunification of Taiwan with the Motherland. Nothing left of course other than raw force.

For all the talk about the inevitability of the eventual “reunification” of Taiwan and China and bluster about China’s determination to accomplish the “China dream,” ongoing trends in the Taiwan Strait have made it clear that Beijing’s approach to Taiwan is failing. Short of military conquest, there is very little in the current set of options available to Beijing suggesting that “peaceful unification” is even remotely possible.

After years of sticks and a misguided military show of force in the mid-1990s, Beijing’s carrots suddenly appeared to be working, winning hearts and minds and creating dependencies that, it hoped, would draw Taiwan closely enough to China’s center of gravity that it would become impossible for the democratic island nation to escape.

All that détente, however, was illusory. Although a pragmatic Taiwanese polity was amenable to liberalized ties with China, desire for a political union with the People’s Republic of China—especially among Taiwan’s youth—was next to nil.

Paradoxically, closer relations with China only exacerbated the sense of a distinct identity in Taiwan, resulting in the complete rejection of what from the very beginning had always been China’s strategy: eventual unification.

Beijing’s hopes of a resolution on its terms came crashing down during the Sunflower Movement in March and April 2014, whose actions neutralized the Ma administration and opened the doors for a transition of power two years later, with the election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Taiwan-centric Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The forces unleashed by the Sunflower Movement continue to reverberate today, deepening the desire across society to maintain the liberal democratic way of life that defines Taiwan today regardless of their voting preferences.

The reaction in China was one of confusion and, in certain circles, a sense of betrayal. The strategy had failed. Not only was Taiwan not returning China’s “goodwill,” years of ostensible rapprochement had in fact propelled the two in opposite directions. Officials in charge of cross-Strait affairs under presidents Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping were accused of bungling the strategy, and some were targeted by Xi’s anti-corruption drive. But many knew that the problem was much more fundamental than a few incompetent officials failing to properly distribute China’s economic largesse across Taiwan.

Money had failed. Persuasion, often through propaganda and political warfare operations that intensified even as ties seemed to be improving, has failed. And now it is becoming clear that coercion—seemingly Beijing’s only strategy since Ms. Tsai’s election in January—is also failing. Isolating Taiwan by blocking its participation at international forums, kidnapping its nationals in third countries, publicly attacking “pro-independence” artists and punishing it economically pretty much sums up what is left of Beijing’s Taiwan strategy. Rather than break Taiwan’s will, however, all of this has only fueled the will of the Taiwanese to resist by rallying around the flag, as is typical whenever a nation faces an external threat.

The ensuing frustration has resulted in a marked hardening in the rhetoric. Analysts such as Gen. Wang Hongguang, a former deputy commander of the Nanjing military area command, now often appear in the pages of the hawkish Global Times calling for PLA exercises targeting Taiwan and outright preparation for war. Meanwhile, the more moderate commentators across China, those who know that more of the same will only continue to fail, have fallen silent.

While nuclear-armed China could undoubtedly annihilate Taiwan by force if it chooses to do so, as General Wang himself argued a few years ago in an indignant response to an article in this publication, and notwithstanding the fact that on a quantitative basis the PLA has a clear advantage over its much smaller opponent, the power ratio only tells part of the story.

It might make sense as an intellectual exercise for war strategists, but in reality, here too Beijing’s coercive options targeting Taiwan are limited.