Chapter 6 China, Taiwan & Hong Kong

6 China Beyond the Heartland

Lynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer

As Stan Toops illustrated in Chapter 2, China is Zhongguo, a two-character phrase meaning "middle kingdom" or "central state." Ear- licr chapters have explored China's geography, history, politics, and econ- omy, and now we will look at noncentral edges of the country: overseas Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Tibet. These domains are all linked to Zhongguo but are not ordinary parts of it, even though they figure promi- nently in national policies for defense, foreign relations, growth, tolerance, and culture. The bonds that connect overseas Chinese with each other and with

China have usually been informal, but sometimes legal. Confucian imperial bureaucrats deemed overseas emigrants unfilial; sometimes the state made Icaving China a criminal act. Anthropologists write that these "edge dwellers" include "drinking buddies as well as chambers of commerce, or

Crested ghost worshippers as well as organized religiouscharities... SsOciations have survived the buffeting ofmodernity in both its

alist and capitalist forms [often revealingl the role of women insuc Suc ics,

OvC all the way these organizations can lay the groundwork 1or

Shaku DOltical change" (Weller, 2001:135-136; see also Wang and

).Relations of trust or conflict, not just formal legalities,

are

clf-

at the heart of this chapter.

of its state. Its meritocracy, rather than democracy, evolves from

rcople's Republic ofChina is avidly legalistic about the sovereignle

iprial beliet that legitimate rule depends on loyalty to auynus ademicevo uCrals who are credentialed because

they passed toughac

rectore minations. The Marxist doctrine that any state is the board or a

IOT'S of its ruling class meshes with this old Chinese legacy. The Chinese

179

180 Lynn T. White ll and RobertE. Gamer

Communist Party is not legitimized by popular votes, but by tha aTv merit of having led China's political and economic strengthening

China Beyond the Heartland 181

cCP implicitly claims to be "China." It also creates synergies he-volufion In eachperipheral Chinese area, the mainland's Leninist

small minority like itselt, on which it might depend to be imilarly

eause the mainland's "foreign'" direct investment comes mostly from ethnic

ese abroad. How did overseas Chinese become so wealthy? How doseeks a hine

they figure in China's affairs?

rial in extending PRC sovereignty. In Hong Kong, a city whosclato. essentialmerit the CCP officially defines as economic rather than political. tha

ignated leaders are a "chief executive" chosen by tycoons (althouehin future Beijing may shift to depend on leaders of a more proletarian

Iist party called the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hono(DAB) (So, 1999:118). In Taiwan, the CCP's potential ally has usually been the rather China-oriented Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, and Beijing re.gards the autonomist Democratic Progressive Party now in power as uselessfor its purpose of sovereign ultimate control (while it also disregards continuing hatred of communism within the KMT, and it seeks allies amongTaiwanese "Taishang" entrepreneurs who invest on the mainland; Mengin,2016). In Tibet, China in the 1950s depended on monks of the Gelukpa sectunder the Dalai Lama until he fled to India in 1959; since then the Chinesearmy has fostered a Tibetan elite that strains to counterbalance the continu-ing popular legitimacy of the Dalai (and thus ironically depends onordinary Tibetans' continued deep reverence for the exiled "living Buddha"). Inthese cases, the importance of the proxy to the CCP paradoxically dependson anti-CCP popular sentiments. Among overseas Chinese, in countrieswhere China is not sovereign, this paradigm is less applicable, but tnerstill tries to use it wherever possible, especially in Southeast Asia whereChinese economic elites are strong. The PRC encourages richoverseasnese to help their ancestral homeland. Premodern Chinesestatesalsouzed, ontheedges of the main domain, local proxy "lords ornusE), who collaborated gradually to expand the empire (Faure and Ho,2013).

Overseas Chinese Eor thousands of years, South Chinese merchants from Fujian and Guang. dong have been trading in Korea and Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia,

Siam

Thailand), Malaya (mainland Malaysia), and Java (the most populous is- land of Indonesia, see Map 2.1). Traditionally, these emigrants received no official permission to leave the fatherland, and sometimes they were prose-

cuted for doing so-or even for living too near China's southern coast, which pirates often controlled. Their overseas commercial families pros- pered during the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, and Republican periods (see Table 3.1). Most emigrated for work or business. Some settled in over- seas societies, often as the richest members. They came not from all parts of China, but from specific counties in south Fujian, north Fujian, or Guangdong. The main spoken languages of these three south coast areas are mutually incomprehensible with each other and with Mandarin, the tongue of the north China capital that is official, central, and now widely taught in schools both in China and overseas.

Lenin.

Kong

Southern traders had early leaders who were often rebels to the Chi- nese state. One of them (called Koxinga) is famous for having taken Taiwan from Dutch imperialists in 1661, supposedly liberating it for China; even though Koxinga was seen as an outlaw by the then current dynasty, his notner was Japanese, and he kept Taiwan independent of Qing China. An- other of these south Fujian subtropical vikings (Limahong) almost took Manila from Spain a century earlier. These were pirate kingS. South ni- eSe such as they ran trading networks all along the coast of East Asia from Java to Japan, but they were not homogenous or controlled by

anystac They fought and traded for themselves.

ayalready know that Hong Kong reverted to China in 1997,uare engaged in diplomatic and military competinowell as economic cooperation, and that many Tibetans resostraints on their religion. The outcomes of these issueS-ariect the central kingdom's future. We look at thehistoria cacn area and then examine its present and future trends

Duropeans, arriving in the sixteenth century, had settled at Macau,

T a local Chinese official allowed Portuguese to stay because their can

uoons pea tight pirates. Spanish settled at Manila in the Philippines, Por-

Se and then British at Melaka (Malacca) in Malaya, and Dutcn a d Jakarta) and other Java ports. Merchants from Fujian

andGuang

and d all these places. Portuguese and Spanish, then Dutch, Frenc,

Drosn n courts in colonial Southeast Asian capitals let Chinese traders mioas heads of their own local business communities. Many

eary

ingthlarried local women; later, some brought wives from China. Dur

issues-on-the-edges cou of

first topic, heast Asia and furtherStandhow their financial capital and trade connections

raordinary recent economic growth. Many threads a

mainland to Hong Kong and Taiwan. As Chapter 1 noteu 0millionHan Chinese

who have left, or whoseanc tmentm China. The richest among them control huge amounts

identitie

They canself-identify as Chineseare not just capitalist, but are alsoanticommunis.

road, will help you under ided China's

ex Chinese

at least

oney

Cmployed youths from specific ancestral places-not all localities in any

uneteenth century, as China's population burgeone

This creates proD

182 Lynn T. White Il and Robert E. Gamer China Beyond the Heartland 183

province-moved to cities such as Penang and pore in Malaya, vwhere

missionary schools in mainland China introduced their adents to English and

a modern Western curriculum; their best graduates

were welcomed into leading US,

British. and European colleges and univer-

they became majorities. They also filled borers, miners, plantation workers, teachers, journalists, tradi.PPets, |a Derformers, house servants, and retallers. Others went to the Amapeta Australia to construct rail links or South Pacific islands (Dye, 1997; T. L. Chang, 1988), Sydnev(A Calcutta, Europe, London (Pieke et al., 2004), San Francisca(TS 2001),

2000: E. Lee, 2003; V. Li, 2006; Yung, Chang, and Lai, 2006),Van(Chong, 1996), the West Indies, and Latin American cities such :Those working on plantations, railroads, and mines often experiencede treatment, harsh conditions, and tight restrictions against obtaining citiship in their new places (E. Lee, 2003; Phaelzer, 2007; Kwong and Misee.vic, 2007; Sandmeyer, 1991; McClain, 1996; K. S. Wong and Chan, 1998)2Those who did not perish or return home stayed to set up small shops suchas laundries, often working in "Chinatowns" that emerged in cities even beyond their original ports of entry (I. Chang, 2004; Chen and Omatsu, 2006;See, 1996; Yung, 1995, 1999; Zhao, 2002; S. Chan and Hsu, 2008; J. T. Y.Lee, 2007)3

inland jobs as rubb By contrast, US 1

eities. Japan, too, received students from China (Bieler 200

ondhalfof the nineteenth

work on farms. Some settled i ericas

and Tokyo century, prominent urban Chinese families often

their children international eaucations. Many graduates who returned China became prominent in gOvernment, commerce, and cultural life, t0lite's exposure to European and Japanese cultures was considerable. when mainland Chinese studying abroad later settled back in China, many

wanted to introduce tne tecnnlques and 1deas they had learned on their so-

er Lima!IS

journs abroad. Treaties imposed after the Opium Wars (Chapter 7) forced the emper-

ors to allow emigration. The western order made China a new participant in

European-created international law. For the first time, China sent perma-

nent ambassadors to foreign capitals. The Qing government began to sup-

port schools for Chinese in Southeast Asia and conferred citizenship on overseas Chinese and their children (a policy that is now generally aban- doned). Consular officials were available to assist Chinese when they en- countered problems in their adopted countries, and sometimes to intercede against abuses of laborers there, although many of the abusers were Chi- nese too. After centuries of being cut off from their homeland, under threat of death as illegal emigrants, overseas Chinese were treated as compatriots. The Qing government encouraged them to send money home to relatives.

Anti-Qing Republican revolutionaries, notably Sun Yat-sen, also raised

The wealthiest families made fortunes by serving as intermediariesin trade between China and non-Chinese in Asia, Europe, or the Ameri-cas. Chinese in Manila traded silver brought by the annual galleon fromAcapulco, for instance (Fong and Luk, 2006). They became patrons toChinese-language schools, newspapers, temples, cultural festivals, cemeer1es, legal aid societies, and origin-specific welfare associations (Sun, 2004,2006; S. F. Chung and Wegars, 2005). Siam's court encouraged Cnmen to maTy indigenous women. A Thai-Chinese boy at age eighteencouchoose tobecomeThai by getting a bowl haircut and spending timeuddnist monk (most Thai politicians today are part Chinese)-Or, avely, he could grow a queue and join the local Chinesecommunydman prospered greatly as a noble of the royal court so long astawere paid and intercommunal peace lasted. In MuslimSoutheasChinese met with greater prejudice unless they converted toi Spanish Philippines

to Catholicism (Skinner, 1973). TneDte Tmmigrant and Singapore hired Chinese and Indians for bureaucraticpamilies set up shops, andmost sent money to poorer

money from overseas Chinese to modernize the homeland. This connection created precedents that affected China's foreign rela-

tions and the lives of many overseas Chinese. It reinforced a preference of China's pre-1949 governments to treat Chinese abroad as continuing sub- Jects of China-and nearby countries as implicitly linked to China's do- main. It encouraged overseas Chinese to isolate themselves from the social and political life of their adopted lands and to interest themselves n La's domestic politics and economy (Barabantseva, 2014). But this did

as a

erna

whose

sia, local

not always benefit the overseas Chinese, many of whose profitscameroBritish in Malaya

ng Concurrently with the places where they lived. Close links aiso: es hurt the Chinese government; in fact, they helped topple tne ynasty when Sun Yat-sen's revolution finally succeeded.HisKeviv

Cnina did not concern itself with the needs of Chinesewi abroad. To control piracy and rebels, the Ming and n55 forbade emigration

under penalty of death, but t obeyed. Except in the Philippines,

where the Spanishesta universities

for locals, few Chinese who were bornovo their local communities.

Most who attended schoolwe mmunitie

dialects then (now inMandarin). Many leaders ofovers

served southern Chinese

traditions in strong lineagesaandfamin

often

their edicts were not, generally

utside

in Chinese

OCiety, which started the Kuomintang, was born among Cninc

abroad. Sun lived in Japan,Brew up in Hawaii studying in an Anglican school, and

he later

States, Canada, Singapore, and Penang

With the Qing dynasty verthrown, political factions in China still

Europe, the Unitedablished schools an

Teturning to China by 1911, where he was brieflyelecicdoverseas studied president of the new republic.

coas unancial and moral support among overseas

Chinese. The govern-

184 Lynn . wnite il ana RODert E. Gamer China Beyond the Heartland 185

ment promoted equal treatment for Chinese in their cOuntri,helped them send children to China for study, and gaveo reside they established businesses back in the homeland. The Republi he

no March Abroad," 2016). Will they be latter-day Sun Yat-sens, ex

the mainland's ever-larger middle tnce,

anding democracy in Chi

pais Conservative? That road could be bumpy, but time will tell. and making

cused on founding sch0ols, training teachers, and setting eda.cationa statefodards for children of overseas Chinese. The KMT regimecritieial stan.ernments of emigrants' countries for "interfering" with thie gov.

conducted in Chinese (Fitzgerald, 1972:8).

The problems and benefits of divided loyalties among overseas Chi have continued. Both China and laiwan have tried to use the deep

class

Chinese abroad, in fforts to spread their influence in Asia. Atcation After 1921, the Communists and Nationalists cooperated in a patrint.

he same time, the PRC has urged overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia to

Loeofthemselves as citizens of their adopted countries-partly because of dangers always faced by rich minority ethnic groups. But we turn now to

pocketsof anti-imperialist "united front," but by 1927 they were bitter rivals

atriotic sought financial and moral support from overseas Chinese. In 1936. thau

Both again declared a united front against Japan's invasion of China, whichh1942 spread to Japan's four-year capture of Southeast Asia. Overseas Chi.nese gave resources variously to the Kuomintang and the Communists,

andthey led guerrilla war against Japan (which fostered some Muslim Malaypolitical hopes) rousing suspicions that Chinese were not loyal to theiradopted countries. Later, they found themselves caught up in battlesbe

a beautiful city where 95 percent of the people are ethnic Han Chinese.

Hong Kong The First Opium War and Unequal Treaties In 1839, the Qing emperor appointed Lin Zexu as special commissioner in Guangzhou, the only port open to foreign trade, ordering him to stamp out sales of addictive opium (Chapter 7; Maps 2.3 and 2.5). Guangzhou (Can- ton) is located on the Pearl River upstream from Macau, where local Chi- nese sheriffs had already for three centuries allowed Portuguese to settle on condition that these Westerners use their guns to help control nonstate piracy. Lin sent troops to the foreign wharves, where trading took place, and refused to let the merchants leave until they surrendered alltheiropium and promised not to import more. Among those in attendance was Captain Charles Elliot, Britain's trade representative. After six weeks of standoff, Elliot yielded 3 million pounds of opium to Lin, who had it flushed into the sea. Elliot retreated downstream to Macau, where the Portuguese did not WIsh to become involved. So he headed across the Pearl River to a sparsely nhabited large island called Hong Kong. It had an excellent protected har bor, where he and his companions stayed aboard ship. When some Chinese war junks tried to expel his crews from the harbor, Elliot's ships sank them. nus began China's humiliation by foreign powers.

tween communist and democratic states.Emigrant business people benefited most when they could balance theirlocal links to non-Chinese leaders with their global connections to Chinesenetworks, which created trust in external markets and among less wealthyChinese (Skinner, 1957,, 1958, 1968). Many Southeast Asian countries, andHong Kong, still have extensively oligopolized local markets, notwith-standing ardent official free-market rhetoric to the contrary. A few of tnerichest overseas Chinese were called "godfathers" because theirpronsupended on politics or coercion. In Thailand, where The Godfather moviewas a smash hit, such leaders are still normally called godfathersaopndhongpaichit and Baker, 1995). Money laundering in SingaporereTOr nich Indonesians, for example, or in gambling in Macau, hasbSIVC Trom colonial times up to the present. Most overseas Chinese,ever, are small traders or manufacturers. Theirmedium-si ns.Espe measurably higher productivity than do tycoociall

exten

ater the 1997 Asian financial crisis, fast growth in Asia's "tiger bigcorporations

economies reliedmore on small overseas Chineseenterprise ones (Studwell, 2007). large e 1ollowing summer, England sent a fleet commanded by Elliots

,Admiral George Elliot, to avenge Lin's ban on the profitable opu Cgnecers, academics,

accountants, and other professionals-and as,higher proportions of overseas Chinese havetors,

amics. His ship, the Nemesis, was an all-iron steam-powered gun-

doc Tinanced British purchases of Chinese products such as ted, silksan O0aa Ma

and aDroad from all parts of China, not just the sou

landChinese now get most of the fast-track visas Tor investors st. Main- outclassing wooden junks with sails (Hoe and

RoebuckK, 1Y that governments

of rich countries gra FHarvard, and less famousmainland parents actlikewistheirchildren

werewilling to

depart from thePRC eventually get legalreS1ac

T0401:116-117). Because Elliot's captains refused to sign picuge

Ot to trade opium, Lin had their ships expelled from Macau.

bay, where Captain Elliot had establish a village

Og. Though the British had declared an embargo on trade wim

his daughter 10

rant. Xi Jinping sends They headed across thepercent of parents who could affordovers e. A Shanghai

survey

, the United States acted as intermediary for English traders whopay for that. Half the univ

students ho

d bonds promising to obey Chinese lawsS.in Western counno

Lynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer186 China Beyond the Heartland 187

etiesof Chinese mandarins. Soon after Hong Kong was established, the

fast-growing city became a ral place where traders, pirates, bankers,

Admiral Elliot then blockaded Guangzhou's harbor. hea blockade the mouth of the Yangtze River, and was able to sennorth to the city ofTianjin (see Map 2.3). This was the first Opium WOpsinto gotiation that followed, China ceded the island of Hong Ko fficials met to do

business. The community included Britons (espe- other Indians, Bohra Muslims, Bagh-

cialy and many kinds of Chinese. Tycoons in all these groups sold which was by far the most profitable commodity. Crowded streets

emerged on steep hillsides riSing Irom the harbor. Further wars, skir. mishes, and unequal treaties staDilized diplomatic and trade relations with China, and ships sailed in and out of Hong Kong even when these con- flicts were most intense. British traders imported 6.5 million pounds of

and offered to pay a war indemnity and reopen Guangzhou's trade wil Britan Scots),Americans, Parsis and

Britain. When word ofthe agreement reached Britain, foreiensLord Palmerston was furious about these terms, he said the only realcession of the Chinese was "a barren island with hardly a house onithough actually, a centuries-old fishing community was on another Dartthe island (Ingham, 2007). Palmerston dismissed Elliot, refused to sign thetreaty, and sent another naval expedition that reopened hostilities, deci.sively defeating Qing forces and forcing the 1842 Sino-British Treaty ofNanjing (Hibbert, 1970:73-182; Tsang, 2007:3-28).

Secretary

Con

opium into China each year (Marks, 2015:127).

Hong Kong's Expansion and Rising StatureThis treaty became the basis for China's relations with all foreienpowers. It opened the ports of Guangzhou in Guangdong, Fuzhou and Xi.amen in Fujian, Ningbo in Zhejiang, and Shanghai for residence by Britishsubjects. It allowed British consulates in all these cities and let merchantstrade with whomever they chose, not just with the mandarin-supervisedtrading organizations (cohongs; see Chapter 7). It let Chinese subjectswork for the British and promised to protect Britons living in China, alongwith their property. It limited taxation on imported goods to "a fair andregular tariff" at customs halls in the five "treaty ports" and stipulated thatforeigners no longer needed to use terms such as "I beg you" in correspondence with Chinese officials (Spence, 1999:160-163). Deviating from hisinstructions, the British negotiator also forced the Chinese to cede HongKong lsland to Britain "in perpetuity." Further treaties later increased tnenumder of treaty ports, extended these privileges to other nations, andaowed missionaries to come to China. Foreign countries establishedcbassies in Beijing. These treaties expanded the principle ofextratety-that any foreigner accused of a crime should be overOtficialsofhis or her own government for punishment. Chaptc '* furtherexplains these developments.

In 1860, after the Second Opium War, the British got a lease on Kowloon,

a peninsula on the mainland just across from Hong Kong Island (Tsang, 2007:29-44). There, they had room for more military barracks. By 1896, the Qing regime (smarting from the Treaty of Shimonoseki after defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War) signed a secret treaty with Russia, agree- ing to take common action against Japan in case of attack and allowing Russian ships to visit any Chinese port. The Germans then used the murder of two missionaries as an excuse to send in warships, forcing China to lease for ninety-nine years the port of Qingdao on the Shandong peninsula (Map 2.3). The Russians seized Lushun in Manchuria and negotiated a treaty ced- ing it to them for twenty-five years (they renamed it Port Arthur). In China's extreme south, the French obtained a lease ceding a harbor on Hainan Island for ninety-nine years. The British, feeling the need for more land to defend Hong Kong harbor from Russian and French warships plying Chinese waters by 1898, obtained a ninety-nine-year lease for the New Ter- Ftories north of Kowloon-365 square miles of land and 235 surrounding 5lands(Hayes, 2006). The Kowloon-Canton railway, completed in 1912, nked Kowloon with the New Territories and China. By that time, Hong AOng's population surpassed a quarter million, including many icn andowning families that fled Taiping, Small Swords, and Nationalist revo-

Ons, which had seized or threatened their estates in China. Hong Kong

Among the treaty ports, one would prosper at the mouangize watershed: Shanghai was then a fishing village, Du

the

now

Kong

of China's largest city. Its chief rival was that "barrenislan amlies keep memories; most are still antileitist.i ne pearl of the south. Immediately after Elliotst'sarrival,

lot Dent,

from the reach

Pping company owners such as Alexander Matheson, Laiere they Nawllam Jardine began to build warehouses in Hong Kong StOred opium and other goods that they could trade, away of Chinese officials (Brook andWakabayashi, 2000). >O community grew in and around Hong Kong. Thejage Coast,withmany islands and peninsulas, offeredsai and smugglers

who had plied these waters for centuriesu

ne90,000 inhabitants of the New Territories had a history of practcd rom China--there is scant record ofthem being under Chi

erore the eleventh century. Since many engaged in Smuggi CDelled fiercely against the Manchu Qing dynasty, tnc

and

edto force their migration inland from the sea in 1662. Ethnic minorty

tneend of the nineteenth century, new rebels gravitated to the arca.

Soon afrontier

0at people" settled there as well as Chaozhou people from

ng.Fishermen and farmers from farthernorthjoined them.Castern

efuges for pirates

China Beyond the Heartland 189 LynnT.White lland Robert E.

Gamer 188

Variegated Chinese and foreigners met in Hong Kono D. 1997; Hibbert, 1970; Caroll,

2007; L. O.-f. Lee, 2008 OWn and Ounding several, and this precipitated strikes against the ies. During one of these in Hong Kong, British soldiers inese and wounded a hundred. For sixteen months, Kong ships and goods, crippling the port's economy.

China's Nationalist-Communist united front split apart and, as

years, Chiang sought aid from the United

Foo,

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation

(now calle HSBC), was founded in 1865 and

grew into the biggest hanl

by the end of the century. (By 2016, it still had moreassete

oftheFar than ina

boycottedHong East

se aggression grew in later

Crates and Britain. Hong Kong's trade resumed.

soon PRC state banks.) Hong Kong and Macau facilitated

contac acts,

ny excer remittances,ceas

Chinese worldwide. Hong Kong's non.investments, and trade with over

Staen Japan occupied Hong Kong in 1941 after a short battle, the city

16 million inhabitants (dnoW, z003). Britain returned to the colony in

o4and quickly restored order, a stabie currency, public utilities, ade-

Chinese populace in 1865 did not exceed 20,000, and fewerthan1,500were British. Chinese in Hong Kong could study and discuss new ideaswithout much worry about political consequences; some learned about government and spoke English. The Red House, located in the New1

liamentary

quatefood supplies, and a predictable climate for businesses. This con-

Fasted sharply with the situation in other Chinese cities. Britain's policy ofries, became a center where several coups against the Qing dun0

planned (see Stephanie Chung. 1997; J.-f. Tsai, 1995; Tsang, 2007:73-1 Hundreds of individuals involved in aborted attempts against the lanchu Qing government sought refuge in Hong Kong. Sun Yat-sen studiedmedi- cine at the city's College of Medicine for Chinese. A generous gift byaPani opium tycoon motivated the British govermor and other donors to expand the medical college into Hong Kong University by 1911. In the next year, Sun founded the Republic of China (see Chapter 4).

nfinuing good relations with the Kuomintang, while establishing early

dinlomatic relations with the new Communist regime in 1950, contrasted

with that of the United States. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from

China's civil war poured across Hong Kong's border, until both sides tried

to shut off the flow in 1950. Many of these refugees, fleeing Shanghai and

other former commercial centers, were experienced in business manage-

ment. Immigration created a huge housing problem and spurred Hong

Kong's government, despite its distaste for using tax money, into a mas-

sive housing construction program. Thousands of small industries em-

ployed new workers.

Hong Kong's governors were surprisingly independent of London. The Suez Canal did not open until 1869, almost two decades after the city's founding. The canal made the voyage from Europe to India and the Far East much shorter. The first telegraph cable connecting Hong Kong to Singapore and London was not laid until 1871-1872. Between 1880 and 1890, Britain's foreign investment rose to three-quarters of its domestic invest- ment. Its foreign trade was greater than that of France, Germany, and the United States combined. Still, by the end of the century, Britain's exports to China constituted only 1.5 percent of its total exports; Britain and all i1scolonies exported less to China than to Holland (Welsh, 1993:282, 318).This situation did not change markedly before the end of World War l.HOng Kong's trade in opium and other goods was profitable, but it was notamong Bitain's greatest sources of colonial income. Britain decided toconcentrate military forces in Singapore rather than Hong Kong,aShanghai's volume of trade rose to match that of HongKong

Hong Kong-Mainland Relations in Administrative and Economic Terms The situation in Hong Kong was the result of treaties imposed on China, whose government regarded it as part of the country temporarily under for- eign occupation. There was tension for Beijing between its anti-imperialism and its practical relations with Britain (Jain, 1976:158-183; M. K. Chan and Young, 1994). Although Beijing was slow to create unencumbered diplomatic links with Britain due to the UK's refusal to break off relations with Taiwan, the PRC never broke the relations it had established with the UK in January 1950. Britain sent troops to fight Chinese "volunteers" in Area, and it reluctantly went along with the US call for an embargo of China, although trade actually continued through Hong Kong (Boardman, 1976; Schenk, 2001; Tsang, 2007:161-206). The Bank of China building in Hfong Kong housed the New China News Agency, Beijing's representative office in the city. Because China never recognized British sovereignty in Ong Kong, an invalid result of unequal treaties, formally nonstate journa epresented China in relations with the city's government.

Many Chinese resented Britain's imperialism and social segregabetween Chinese and white inhabitants of itsary Academy, near Guangzhou, became the launching ground in colonies. The Whampoa Mil-

925 for 1ang Kai-shek's attempt to take China back from the warlords the SovietUnion, and in alliance with Chinese Communist peasantus

had hvdecentralized power from Beijing. Using weapons and advisC upplied

tions, Chiang swept northward from GuangzhoHis Nationalist movement also included urban strikes andsuStrations.On May 30, 1925, British troops fired ondemonstrao

ia-

to take warlord territory. tudent demon

Ne US consulate in Hong Kong became the largest in the world, gatn- on China and seeking to keep communist

goods from

Kong. Businesspeople fromachine

the United States through Hong

Lynn T.White ll and Robert E. Gamer190 China Beyond the Heartland 191

Shanghai and Guangzhou opened light industrial factoriesimake clothing and small consumer goods. The US dollars (to which Hong K.ong currency has been peg.

HongKongncould purchase in stableggedsince1983

at 7.8 HK dollars for one US dollar). The British colony's textile induspractically extinguished Britain's (Goodstadt, 2009). Taxes Hong Kong, because the government raised revenue from land col private tycoons could practically veto public budgets. The Hono Kadernment provided basic medicine and housing that allowed local enta to pay lower wages, but it kept taxes low. Profits could be sent outcolony freely. Civil disturbances during the Cultural Revolution (see Che ters 4 and 7) spread into Hong Kong by 1967, but they disrupted the

e

omy only briefly. The colony increased its exports to the outside world andremained the easiest point of entry for visitors to China. Hong Kongmanufacturers, seeking labor that was even cheaper, began to establish factoriesnearby in Guangdong.

were

PHILIPS

of the Chap-

econ

When China's opening to the world began in the 1970s, Hong Kongwas positioned to become the manager and biggest financier of reforms inthe less restricted markets of the PRC's new special economic zones(Meyer, 2006). Two of the first four zones-Shenzhen and Zhuhai (adjoin-ing Macau)-are near Hong Kong. Local businesses were extremelycompetitive. A construction billionaire, Gordon Wu, put his own money intobuilding a six-lane turnpike to link Guangzhou and Hong Kong. He sad hewould jump into the harbor if the road was not finished on schedule, butthen he mused knowingly on Hong Kong's culture of cut-throat capitalismamong tycoons. He said there would be no danger in the dive because"Hong Kong has more sharks on land" (White, 2016:30).

Hong Kong harbor, 2011.

largest foreign investor in the Philippines, second-largest in Vietnam, and third-largest in Indonesia, Thailand, and Taiwan. Between 1970 and 2010, Hong Kong's economy more than quadrupled in size. Promoting Hong Kong's roles as China's financier, marketer, raw ma-

terials transfer port, quality controller, packager, and shipper, the city's gov- ernment invested heavily in developing harbor and airport facilities, office and convention space, and higher education. Between 1963 and2011,the portion of government expenditures devoted to health, education, housing

Shenzhen, on the mainland near Hong Kong, exploded from a farmingge to a forest of skyscrapers. Shenzhen is now filled with factories, ntels,amusement parks, and office buildings. Hong Kong's populatiolmillion, but Shenzhen's now exceeds 10 million. Hong KongitSnew UsS7 billion airport, along with new highways, bridges, tu rS andtOwns. Guangdong's

government is constructing roads, briage kedd vast swamp reclamation projects. Hong Kong and Kowloona andwtnnew luxury office complexes, hotels, conventioncenteld shopping malls.

and social welfare grew from 21 percent to over 50 percent (Shek, 2002,. s 7.3

uilt a Wong, White, and Gui, 2004; Hong Kong Yearbook 2010). Health care at family planning and maternity centers, social hygiene

nics, tuberculosis clinics, mental health clinics, and emergency waras is KOVIded free of charge or for low fees, and other health services are subsl

by the government. Hong Kong's infant mortality rateof l0 per Dirths, and its life expectancy ofeighty for men andeighty-S1nePearl River Delta, along with the Yangtze River Delta arou en are among the best in the world (Hong Kong Yearbook 2010). 1nShanghai,

for two or three decades becanomic regions in the world. They often surț gross domestic product a year. By the time Hong KonE va China in 1997, it had become the world's eighth-largest accounting for about a sixth of China's total GDP(Pat capita income was higher than Britain's, although thiswo uted less equally than in any other polity on earth.n

ad ment spends 23 percent of its recurrent budget on education workforce that can adapt to new demands of technology

co- the fastest-growing

Surpassed 20 percentincreases in rmy. Students with inadequate means receive grants to paynded over to ravel, and textbooks from primary school throughuniversiu

additiona ad just one university at the end of World War II, but twelve

ce-granting institutions of higher education have been

ffa1ong with nine junior and technical colleges. Secondary

1997). ItsP

Ools offer technical, industrial, and business courses, with apprentuce

wealth was distriuhewas

192 Lynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer

ships and training forthedisabled. Buildings and equipment

and Chung, 2005; Hong Kong Yearbook 2010).

China Beyond the Heartland 193

arby Macau also experienced economic good fortune. This has com

fote Xi Jinping's anticorruption drive (M. K. Chan and1Lo, 2006; S.-h. Lo,

Are modemand advanced. In 1987, only one young person inthirty-three spurs mbling casinos, especially in years be-of its secondary higher education; today over 60 percent do (L d pog. mainly from the

profitab

an07: Gunn, 1996; McGivering, 1999). Las Vegas owners opened large new

The 1997 Asian economic crisis nonetheless brought asharn Hong Kong's real estate prices, exports, and

gambling revenues into the world's highest. So far, aca is the only place in China with legalized gaming. After 2007, it

wel-

med over 25 million tourists a year, half from China and another third from Hong Kong. New high-speed rail and superhighway openings in

2012

made Macau increasingly accesSible. The VIP rooms in more than thirty easinos offered opportunities t0 launder money outside the strict confines

of China's laws, which forbid a free currency market (although much of China's illegal foreign exchange takes place in nearby Shenzhen). Macau

still has a liberal monetary exchange policy, and it is a popular tax haven. Macau has also preserved its historic built environment more faithfully than Hong Kong has; so some tourists come to see the sights. Macau is a unique small part of China's periphery (Coates, 2009). China did not press for its reunification sooner than 1999, so as not to discomfit Hong Kong tycoons

dropin os,turning Macau

tourism, whichreco briefly in 2000 only to confront the SARS outbreak in 2003. Thenred

theworld banking crisis of 2008. Shanghai's economy continued togrow10 percent annual rate. The setbacks were temporary. Hong Kong's econ omy for some years grew in tandem with China's booming economy.

at a

By 2010, 4.3 million international tourists and businesspeople camethrough Hong Kong on the way to the mainland, and China mainlanders made 23 million trips into Hong Kong. As China's fourth-largest trading partner (after the European Union, the United States, and Japan), HongKong's own economy accounted for 8 percent of China's total trade value.But fully 42 percent of China's foreign investment came from or throughHong Kong by the end of 2010 (US$456 billion). The total amount of suchinvestment coming into Hong Kong amounted to almost five times (488percent) the city's total GDP at the end of 2010, and 36 percent (USS341billion) came from rather than to the mainland. Hong Kong's airport is the World's busiest in terms of cargo tons carried, and it is third-busiest interms of international passengers. Hong Kong harbor is one of the worldsbusiest container ports. This city is the tenth-largest trading entity in tneworld; mainland China is second-largest. Between 1990 and 2010, HOngOngs real GDP grew by an average of 4 percent a year, surpassingworld average of 3.4 percent (Hong Kong Yearbook 2010).

or scare capital from that larger city. Hong Kong's government arguably overbalances its budget; it usually

runs a surplus, so that tycoons are assured that future emergencies will not spur tax hikes. Nearly half the public budget has depended on high and in- creasing land prices that real estate magnates want. Almost all of Hong Kong's land belongs to the government. Nearly half of revenue comes from auctioning long-term leases, changing zoning designations, and collecting low corporate taxes from land development companies. Rents from public

uSing and other government-owned buildings also add to revenue. Main- aiing very low taxes on land that is not generating income encourages

stors to buy property or flats for speculation until prices rise-as Aey have done because of an influx of money from mainland citizens

In 2015, the city's per capita GDP of US$56,720 (in terms orCupurchasing power j urity) was higher than that of the United stal,85), Germany (US$47,268), Australia (US$45,514), CUSS44,310), the United Kingdom (US$41.325), Japan (US»°. 7,322), eSOurces are uncertain and in some cases surely corrupt.

pore (US$85,209), Norway (US$61,472), and Switzerland (US$60,

,0/8), and China (US$14,239). It was below that of and tycoons, to whom the Basic Law gives much power in choosing

ief executive, benefit from rising prices. So do bureaucrats andcontyno 0 build public works projects that raise the value of land. Tnis (World Bank, 2016; see also"Table 5.1). The source of Hong

Kong'swealth was services. The percentage of its GDP fromaTOpped from 31 percent in 1970 to less than 2 percentaand less since then. All growth was in services: tn ance sectors (which rose to 15 percent of GDP) and Tetail trade. Hong Kong does extensivere-exporutured elsewhere.

Ninety-one permainland China, which accounted for 49 percent

Value in 2009. The portion of Hong Kong employ was 41 percent in 1981 but three decades later,a cent (Lui,2013:31).

nufacturing 2010-

government finance increases housing costs for Hong KongSdle class, especially young professionals trying to set up families. Thirty

ial and insur nd oL Of the population lives in public housing, but fewnewun

D ng built for low-income workers (most ofwhosejoos povert line. Corporate

ufac from the mainland). There are 1.2 million

people below tne

profits taxes and income taxes are apped at about

Capital oaid o0 percent of the workforce pay nothing. There 1S no tax ou

on income earned outside Hong Kong, or (Since

e the main sources of wealth for the city's

ofgo0u percent of the re-exports were or

"ade

of Hong Kong yees in gains, on dividends,

on inheritances. These i

acturing 2006)

St people (White, 2016; Hong Kong Yearbook 2010).

China Beyond the Heatland 195LynnT.WhiteIllandRobert E. Gamer194

d still restrain democracy (Lam, 2004; Pepper, 2007: White furious, especially after the 1995 Legco elec-The Politics of Transition to Chinese Rule

From 1841 to 1997, Hong Kong was ruled by a British governor

he was advised by a Legislative Counci (Legco) whose membe

very slowly to three (out of eighteen) in 1929. In 1984, Prime Minister

Initially, 2016). SoCCP leaders

by democrats. Beijing announced that Patten's liberal reforms

would tion was

be invalid after the handover in 1997, and the CCP in effect ap-

pointed. By 1884, just one Chinese was on the Legco; the nnm

aProvisional Legco to pass a far more restrictive elector

Ta choose the post-1997 gOvernOr (Whose post was renamed chiefex-

Margaret Thatcher commissioned a military analysis showing that Hong Kong would be indefensible against a mainland attack, and sherealized that British governance and trade there could not outlast expiry of the New Ter- ritories lease. So, in 1984 she agreed with Chinese leaders that the city would revert to China in 1997. At that point, all members of Hong Kono's Legislative Council were still appointed (though since 1883 a restricted electorate had voted for some members of a sanitation board, later broad. ened into an urban council and then into eighteen district boards). The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration was a product of the two countries' diplo- mats; Hong Kong people had no role at all in drafting it.

ive as if Hong Kong were a company rather than a polity), China an-

ointed a preparatory Commitree composed largely of tycoons. They picked

chief executive officer of a major shipping company, Tung Chee-hwa.

They also chose the members of a Provisional Legco that passed laws lim-

ing workers' collective bargaining rights (this was, after all, a "capitalist"

sVStem)-and an electoral law designed to prevent the Hong Kong Demo-

cratic Party from gaining as many seats as it had in 1995. But a mass elec-

tion in 1998 brought a record turnout of 53 percent in geographical con-

stituencies, choosing twenty of Legco's sixty members. Thirty more were indirectly elected by just 100,000 corporate and professional voters (in a

city then with a population of 6.5 million people) in twenty-eight "func- tional constituencies" representing insurance, health care, transport, educa-

he

The Declaration planned to return Hong Kong to China on July 1, 1997. Hong Kong would be part of the PRC, but was supposed to maintain a sepa- rate capitalist system-"one country, two systems." Beijing retained control over defense and foreign affairs, but Chinese leaders said that Hong Kong people would run Hong Kong, and the Basic Law gave practical veto powers to just one kind of people: local tycoons who traded with China. A joint Chinese-British liaison group conducted consultations to prepare for tne tumover.(OnDecember 20, 1999, Portugal returned Macau to China in asim ilar manner.) Never in modern history has a handover of territory been agree so far in advance. Hong Kong was to be a special "administrative regio, guaranteed an "open and free plural society" with its own laws, institutions,

tion, real estate, social welfare, labor, and other sectors (Loh, 2006).

Parties that were critical of the new government in 1998 won more than two-thirds of the mass votes (and a third of the legislature's seats, de-

spite vote-counting rules designed to prevent a democratic landslide). Some

analysts claim that, because the spectacle of electoral struggles has created a party system and courts have applied laws predictably in economic cases, FHong Kong has its own "indigenous" form of liberal democracy (S.-h. Lo,

015). But democrats have called, without success, for the Provisional Lagco's radically minoritarian electoral law to be replaced.andfreedoms of speech and assembly for fifty years (Jeffries, 2010:134-160 when legislative elections were held again in 2000 (this time for

-our seats), 43 percent of the electorate participated, and support for mocraticparties declined somewhat. In the 2004 legislative elections,

D. Chang and Chuang, 1998; S.-y. Chung, 2001; P.-k. Li, 2000; Lam,z00 sang, 2007:211-277; P-t. Lee, 2006; Ma, 2007). It could maintain i1scu TCcy peg to the US doilar, join international trade and cultural organizau collect and use its own taxes, and determine its own policies onincair travel, residency and land rights, passports, and shippirng.

tional diswere directly elected; eighteen of these (and seven more from

f nalconstituencies) went to democratic parties that garnered60per

cent a more liberal governor, Christopher Patten, who unliken amedia

adiplo mat. China's 1989 killings ofTiananmen demonstrators, which Ho

primeministerJohn Major, succeeding Thatcher, aPpo geographical votes. In 2008, nineteen ofthe thirty directuy

ledseats (and four functional ones) went to democratic partiesntpredecessors had been an elected member of Rcent of the votes. Forty-five percent of registered citizens parpated in both of those elections. ference Onenause communism is very unpopular in Hong Kong. Burev

rliament rather than

China'sCommunist Party tries to avoid an appearance of direct inter

ng Kong politics.

and

people had seen on their television sets,Without consulting the joint liaison group, PattenpersuauCouncil to hold open democratic elections in 1995 forsSOm knows that, through local proxies, the CCP controls

more than halfof greatly affected local

theLegislat

to expand the electorates for Legco "functionalconstituency se a well as the chief executive selection committee. Beijing has given1at

one had

earlier beencontrolledby rich businesses. Beijing'searieCOuntry, two systems" (like a similar 1995 offer to Taiwan, :hoped would remain under the KMT) had assumed that tnc

Support to parties mpathetic to its preferences, yet

they control less than

offer of thetwo-thirds C Onlysuhe egco that the Basic Law requires for

amendment.Iu ihe PRC is a oLantive law of China that applies in Hong

Kong.

China Beyond the Heartland 197196 Lynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer

enty, with ten new seats to be directly elected. Five of these were divided among the five large multimember Legco districts, and five "superlegisla- tors" were directly elected by voters who could not cast ballots in func- tional constituencies. The size of the election committee for choosing the chief executive was increased from 800 to 1,200 members. But Beijing's plan to hold a 2017 universal suffrage-limited nomination election for chief executive was finally vetoed in Legco, where all the democrats (more than one-third of the council) opposed it.

unitary state, not a federal one, but its sovereignty asserted in Hong Kone or Taiwan (or Tibet) is nuanced by rhetoric about separate "systems" (minorities' "autonomy"). These nuances vanish when China's leaders gain

from stoking nationalist fears that they may lose ultimate control. Thecen

ter's behavior suggests sharp borders; "Westfalian" sovereignty is "a mere façade to mask Beijing's quest to establish political orthodoxy" even at its edges (Tok, 2013:149). In 2002, the 800-member election committee composed mostly of busi.

ness and professional people, including Hong Kong members of Legco and Chinese national bodies, chose Tung Chee-hwa to serve a second five-year term as chief executive. At that time, only 16 percent of the respondents in an independent poll wanted him to seek another term. Under the Basic Law, the city could have held direct elections for most legislative seats and for chief executive after 2007-if Beijing, the current executive, and two-thirds of Legco all agreed. Soon the National People's Congress of China declared

Democrats also disbelieved Beijing's undertaking that, if they ap- proved the official plan to limit nominations for the executive, functional Legco constituencies might later be abolished-because that would require functional legislators to vote for axing their own seats. This was a personal and tax-related matter, not abstract political philosophy. The richest seventy members of the Legislative Council in the year 2011 alone increased their wealth by US$90 billion (more than the total combined net worth of the US Congress, Cabinet, and Supreme Court members). Tycoons represented the CCP when they controlled their city's executive through the selection com- mittee, and they kept a veto against tax hikes in Legco by holding more than one-third of the seats (De Golyer, 2011; Martin, 2011; Hong Kong Yearbook 2010; White, 2016). Many deemed this situation legitimate so long as Hong Kong families remained antileftist, and it was legal in a city where plutocrats passed the laws.

this would not happen. On July 1, 2003, the sixth anniversary of handover day, half a million

Hong Kong protesters marched against a broadly worded antisubversion bill that Beijing insisted Legco should pass. This bill threatened free speech and the civil liberties of journalists to write freely as well as assemblies by anti-CCP groups that demonstrated in front of the Legco building every weekend (Currie, Petersen, and Mok, 2006). Tung had not expected that conservative business legislators would fear that the bill's threat to free speech might cause them to lose seats even in functional constituencies, but he had to withdraw the bill because it lacked enough votes to pass in Legco. In response to this massive street demonstration in Hong Kong, Tung

eventually resigned and was replaced by civil servant Donald Tsang Yam- kuen, who was reelected by the 800-member selection committee in 2007. Sir Donald had been the first Chinese to hold the position of financialsec retary under colonial British rule, and (with CCP permission) he had ac- cepted a knighthood from the queen on the night before the 1997 handover. He was opposed in the 2007 election by a candidate backed by the demo- cratic parties, but he easily won most votes in the Beijing-vetted committee

A new Court of Final Appeals had been created in Hong Kong to re- place, after 1997, the British High Court in London that had formerly been the court of last resort. China's National People's Congress (NPC) retains a right, on the chief executive's request, to interpret the implemen- tation of local laws; and, theoretically, it could amend Hong Kong's Basic Law. A Committee of Twelve, half from the mainland, half from Hong Kong, but all approved by Beijing, can also review the constitutionality of aws passed in Legco if the executive asks their opinion. In 1999, an NPC committee overruled a decision by Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeals On a case regarding who is entitled to reside in the city, thus setting a precedent for potential cases in the future on more sensitive issues (Tsang, 2001).of Hong Kong elites. At the 1997 handover, Hong Kong's professional civil servants, who had

en running the government, retained their jobs so long as they declared aity tothe new regime (Burns, 2005). In 2001, the head of the civil serv ee, Anson Chan, resigned because she felt Beijing was exerting too much pessure on their operations. In 2002, top civil servants were put on five-year racis. This raised concerns about the independence of these technocrats, no previously had influenced or made many official policies. The Hong NOng government is "disarticulated"; its main parts-the executive, bureau- rats, legislature, courts-are not well coordinated (Scott, 2000).

On the last day of 2007, Beijing announced that direct mass elections for the chief executive could not begin until 2017, and then only if each candidate was approved by the committee Beijing controlled. Then, accord ing to this PRC plan, direct elections for all legislative seats mightconceiv ably begin in 2020-but only after Legco agreed to Beijing's premise that each candidate for the most powerful branch of government (the executive) be approved by a majority in the committee that the CCP in practice ap pointed. Limited democratic reforms were scheduled for the 2012 elections, as Legco passed a law raising the number of its members from sixty tosev

199China Beyond the Heartland198 1ynn T. White ll and Robert E. Gamer

cerns over policies supported by those parties meant that he got little sup-

port in the polls. Hong Kong's heavy investment in education and its established rule of

law, financial networks, convertible currency, transport andcommunica tions, and low tax rate, along with its reputation of being friendly to busi. ness, leave its economic position competitive even though mainland cites starting from lower baselines have grown faster. Hong Kong and the Peanl

River Delta had ten times the number of Asian headquarters for multina tional corporations as either Shanghai or Beijing in the early 2000s. Bu soaring real estate prices and job losses, except in financial services, have

So the 2012 executive election presented Beijing with a public rela-

tions debacle. Premier Wen Jiabao asserted that the election committee should choose the most popular candidate-and he sent a Politburo member

to lobby for Leung, who then won a majority of votes on the election com- mittee and succeeded Tsang. Amid massive street demonstrations protesting his selection and the heavy-handed interference by the CCP, Leung was summoned to Beijing to receive an "instrument of appointment" fromPre mier Wen. After Leung's election and after news reports that he, like Tang, had violated house construction laws, his poll approval ratings fell from two-thirds to one-third.

taken a toll on the government's popularity. A third of Hong Kong seniors over age sixty-five live below the

poverty line. While the tycoons hold back government spending on social problems and new low-cost housing, they have allowed expensive airport and highway projects. The government has let mainland mothers use public hospital maternity wards. Half the babies born in Hong Kong had Chinese parents who were not Hong Kong residents, already by 2010, although local taxpayers support the hospitals. Children born in the city have a right

The autumn of 2015 saw further mass demonstrations of unprecedented intensity. The Occupy Central movement closed crucial parts of the island's financial district and of Kowloon. Student activists proved to be more radi- cal than the academics and clerics who had started this campaign, and their platform became not just democratic but also sharply antimainland. Leung's regime proposed a Legco bill that future executives should be elected by universal suffrage, but with a majority of the Beijing-controlled committee largely Hong Kong tycoons) needing to approve all candidates on the bal- lot. Democrats consider this "fake democracy"-and the government bill in June 2015 failed to get the necessary two-thirds approval in Legco (White, 2016).

to permanent residence, so this was controversial. In 2011, large crowds took to the streets to stop a proposed change in

by-election laws, demanding more democracy and access to affordable housing. Only a third of citizens told pollsters they were satisfied with Donald Tsang (De Golyer, 2011:77). His support took further beatings after reports of his lavish 6,500-square-foot retirement penthouse and rides on yachts and private planes furnished by wealthy business leaders. During his last month in office, satisfaction with the government dropped to 19 percent of respondents, and a committee of the Legislative Council was considering

Localists, wanting more independence for Hong Kong's "system," dom- inated news in early 1916. The September Legco elections saw a high 58 percent turnout. A few localist candidates who would not sign a form that Hong Kong is an "inalienable" part of China were banned from running. A few old-school democrats were ousted. But the minoritarian system of counting votes (introduced by Beijing in 1997) gave surprise wins to several young umbrella soldiers" who had made their names during Occupy Cen- ral. Two "Youngspiration" legislators swore allegiance to "the Hong Kong nation" and mispronounced China's name in oaths before the Council; Bei- Jjng preempted Hong Kong courts in disqualifying them from Legco, and police used tear gas against major renewed street protests. More than one- third of the council still remains against the official policy that future chief executives should be elected by mass franchise, but only after Beijing's committee vets the candidates (J. Lo, 2016; Cheung and Cheung, 2016).

whether to impeach him. In March 2012, the election committee selected a successor to Tsang,

choosing between two top civil servants, each of whom had close ties to Beijing: Henry Tang, the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer, and C. Y. Leung, the son of a police officer. Both were wealthy top-level civil ser- vants. Leung was a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He had high approval ratings in polls, promising to build more public housing, alleviate poverty, and preserve Hong Kong autonomy. This displeased the richest real estate ty- coons, who endorsed Tang. Media charges flew. Leung was accused of using his public office to benefit his private company, being a secret member of the Communist Party, and having advocated that police fire tear gas on protesters against the 2003 treason law. The press also carried sensational reports of Tang's extramarital affair, his illegitimate child, and his failure to get permits for his palatial home improvement project. In one poll, he had just l6 percent approval. A third candidate, Albert Ho Chun-yan, head of the Democratic Party (who could not get a visa to the mainland) represented the pro-democratic parties, but conservative con-

Legco elections, like chief executive selections, are held at regular TIve-year intervals. Protests are predictable on each such future occasion. NOt all CCP leaders may agree on the best way to handle Hong Kong's an- communists; but they could realize by now that their usual policy of try- ng to rule this wealthy, educated Chinese city through a proxy (the super rich) is not working.

200 Lynn T. White l and Robert E. Gamer 201China Beyond the Heartland

several months, in 1662 they surrendered. The Qing tried to move Fujian and Guangdong coastal Chinese inland, to cut off piracy and independent ading: so tens of thousands fled to Zeelandia. Only much later, in 1683 afterKoxinga's death, did a Qing fleet induce the immigrants' leaders toac cede

to China. In Xiamen harbor, a colossal statue honors Koxinga as the Chinese" liberator of Taiwan from Western Dutch imperialism-and, among some Taiwanese, he is oppositely honored as their ancestor who kept the island independent from the central Chinese Qing state.

Nobody yet has found a means to balance the interests of Beijing, tv. coons, and Hong Kong's public while satisfying all three, Many in Hono Kong criticize the government's management of surging apartment prices the long-term dilapidationofpublic housing, stagnant wages, risingunen ployment, mainlanders' immigration, and declining social services for the poor and elderly. Air pollution is a salient and surprisingly expensivepub lic issue (Hedleylndex). The Basic Law still gives tycoons a veto against raising taxes to solve such problems. Tension over these issues remains high, and it is often expressed in public discontent over Beijing's insistence on vetting candidates to run for chief executive. Hong Kong's population remains overwhelmingly Chinese, but also anticommunist. The CCP admis no practical distinction between the nation and the party. Many call for an open nominations election of the chief executive and for abolition offunc tional sector legislators, but Beijing may not allow such democratization anytime s0on.

The Qing largely left Taiwan alone, at first restricting further Chinese immigration and decreeing that the lands of aboriginal Formosans should be kept by them-a mandate that the Fujianese ignored, by making local frontier wars and reshaping Taiwanese terrain for rice paddies. After a Hokkien revolt during the eighteenth century, the emperors in Beijing hoped to make Taiwan less like a "wild East" frontier society; wives and children could then join Chinese men there. In 1858, the unequal Treaty of Tianjin (see Chapter 7) opened additional ports to Westerners, including two on Formosa. By that time, more south Fujianese were crossing the strait to create new cities and farms, and today seven-eighths of Taiwan's people have blood and linguistic ties to those immigrants (M. Brown, 2004; Constable, 2005; Harrison, 2007; Hsieh, 2006).

Taiwan People on Taiwan debate whether their island is part of China or a separate nation, but a well-polled majority of them do not like that stark binary choice. They are 100 miles of water farther from the mainland than is Hong Kong, but Taiwan is as heavily linked to China's economy. This creates a political problem because PRC mainlanders overwhelmingly see the "pre cious island" as a lost province. Taiwanese are of many minds but have in practice formed a mixed identity, wary of the source of their recent prosper- ity, which is economic interdependence with the same mainland China that creates threats for them (S. S. Lin, 2016). Their history shows influences from many directions.

Japan Takes Control In 1871, Formosan aborigines killed fifty-four shipwrecked Ryukyu sailors (the Ryukyu archipelago is located between Taiwan and Japan; see Map 2.1). Japan asserted its right to seek justice for the Ryukyuans, who spoke a language related to Japanese. The Ryukyu kingdom had been pay- ing tribute to China since 1372-but it had also been paying tribute to Japan since 1609 (without China's knowledge; see Chapter 7 on the cus- tom of tribute). Japan sent a fleet to Formosa in 1874. The cannons on the Chinese ships defending the island could fire only salutes-they burst if real shells were shot from them--so China had no defense. The treaty that followed gave Japan the right to build barracks on Taiwan, paid for by China. Japanese then occupied the island, temporarily retreating after protests from the British. By 1879, Japan annexed Okinawa and the other Ryukyus. Only in 1885 did China declare Taiwan a province but, within a decade, the Japanese defeated the Chinese navy in the Sino-Japanese War. By the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, Japan forced China to cede Tai- wan, the Pescadores islands in the Taiwan Strait, and the Liaodong penin- Sula of Manchuria (the southern tip of Liaoning; see Map 2.3; Gordon,2007; Paine, 2005).

Hokkien Emigration to Zeelandia Chinese and Japanese pirates, as well as Spanish, British, and Americans by the seventeenth century, occasionally sought refuge in the island's harbors. In 1624, the Dutch East Indies Company established the fort of Zeelandia on Taiwan's west coast. The most powerful Hokkien pirate king had a trad- ing empire extending from Siam to Nagasaki, and he had a son named Koxinga by a Japanese wife. Fujian settlers came to buy deer hides and horns from hunters on the island (Andrade, 2005). They brought the Hokkien (south Fujianese or Taiwanese) and Hakka languages, which are still widely spoken on the island along with Mandarin. During the next two decades, the Ming dynasty fell to Manchu invasion. Koxinga turned his fa- ther's home of Xiamen (see Map 2.3) into a major port, but, as the Qing The inhabitantsof Taiwan were then schooled in Japanese language

and customs (Ching, 2001; Liao and Yang, 2006). Japan used the island to pply food, wood, minerals, and chemicals; its economy grew as Japan's

armies moved toward Xiamen, he wanted freedom from them and set his eyes and guns on Zeelandia. Although the Dutch resisted his assault for

202 Lynn T. White Ill and Robert E. Gamer China Beyond the Heartland 203

Co-Prosperity Sphere took over Asia during World War II (R. Edmonds and Goldstein, 2002; S. Ho, 1978).

The United States then financed a massive program of military and

civilian aid to Taiwan (Tucker, 1994). Chiang Kai-shek's mainlander gov. emment faced a legitimacy problem on Taiwan because about 85 percent of

Chiang Kai-shek's Government-in-Exile At the Allies' Cairo Conference in 1943, anticipating Japan's defeat Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill agreed to the demand of Chiang Kai-shek that his Kuomintang Nationalists would accept Japanese surren-

ders on the island. KMT troops arrived in 1945, but their corruption and in- efficiency soon eroded the island's stability and economy. When riots erupted in February 1947, the KMT suppressed them brutally, executing thousands of intellectuals and prominent citizens and creating long-term Taiwanese resentment of mainlanders. By 1949, the Communists were overwhelming Nationalist troops on the mainland (see Chapter 4). Two mil- lion mainlanders fled to Taiwan's capital, Taipei, where Chiang Kai-shek set up his government-in-exile.

thepeople there were (and are) not mainlanders. Their memories of egre eious KMT maladministration and violence in thelate 1940s had sharply alienated most islanders. So, in the early 1950s, Chiang's government took acreage

from landlords (who were practically all Taiwanese) and gave it to tillers (poorer Taiwanese), compensating the previous owners with stock from nationalized companies that had been Japanese. This land reform, to- gether with industrial laws of the mid-1950s that let ambitious Taiwanese freely establish small and medium enterprises, unleashed quick economic development for the next quarter century with low inflation and a decrease of asset inequality. Other KMT laws restricted imports and helped foreign industries obtain credit and avoid taxes in "export processing zones" (such zones on Taiwan became models for mainland China's "speci zones" after 1978). With exports of manufactured goods surging, Taiwan's gross national product (GNP) quadrupled between 1950 and 1980 (Shich, 1992; Marsh, 1996; Gold, 1986; White, 2009:287-340; Clark and Tan, 2011; Rigger, 2011:41-58).

nonmiceco

Having cleared Chiang and his armies from the mainland, the Commu- nists vowed to seize Taiwan and complete their victory. The Nationalist base closest to mainland was on Quemoy (Jinmen), part of a group of four teen islands outside Amoy (Xiamen) Bay, in Fujian province. The Commu nists began shelling Quemoy in October 1949, but did not have the naval capability to mount an immediate invasion of Taiwan across the hundred miles of the strait. For some months, both the Communist and Nationalist forces ceased hostilities while they assessed their options. US secretary of state, Dean Acheson, gave a speech outlining US strategic interests in the area-without mentioning South Korea or Taiwan.

One Country, Two Systems US president Richard Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, visited Beijing in 1971, and a few months later Taipei lost the Chinese seat at the United Nations. When Nixon himself visited Beijing in 1972, he agreed to let Taiwan and the mainland work out any integration between them while asserting a US interest that it be done peacefully. When the United States resumed full diplomatic relations with China in 1979, Wash- ington broke off its defense treaty and formal relations with Taiwan. US troops left the island, though Congress insisted on continuing sales of "de- Iensive" weapons. Taiwan also lost its seats on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Since Taiwan continued to claim that itrepre Scnted all of China (it is still officially the Republic of China [ROC], not a Separate Republic of Taiwan), and mainland China claimed Taiwan as one

North Korea attacked South Korea on June 25, 1950. Two days later, the United States extended protection to Taiwan. It gave the island military assistance and sent warships to patrol the Taiwan Strait (Accinelli, 1997; Tucker, 1994; Bush, 2004; Cole, 2006; Huang and Li, 2010:11-87). In 1954, China again shelled Quemoy. The United States signed a treaty with Taiwan guaranteeing to defend it and the Pescadores from invasion-inex change for a pledge that Taiwan not attack the mainland without approval by the United States. Six months later, China announced it intended to use peaceful means to liberate the island and declared that KMT members (whose leaders were Chinese Nationalists in all senses) were welcome to visit China. Until the Cultural Revolution began, China gave official recep tions for all visiting groups of overseas Chinese, but this did not entirely stop further hostilities. When China again bombarded the offshore Fu- jianese islands of Quemoy and Matsu in 1958, the United States sent more troops to East Asia. In 1962 Chiang Kai-shek threatened to invade the mainland, but the United States restrained him, and the Soviet Union threat ened to support China against an invasion.

0sprovinces, international bodies had to choose which regime repre-Sented China. Recognizing the People's Republic of China as the govern ment of China required breaking off formal relations with the ROC. This was a dramatic switch. By 1979, Taiwan's per capita GNP was still six times that of mainland ina, even in purchasing power parity terms, it was over four times that of China (US$35,700 vs. US$7,600) in 2009. But discontent grew on the is-land, as this prosperity depended increasingly on trade and investment with C mainland. Riots in 1971 and 1972 protested Taiwan's loss of its UN seat

China Beyond the Heartland 205 LynnT.White Ill and Robert E. Gamer204

Bx the mid-1980s they could form opposition parties, object to rulers, and

hold offices. Many backed the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which wAS more Taiwan oriented than the KMT. The DPP's "New Tide" faction favored independence; its "Formosa" faction was more wary of mainland

threats, espousing policies for a sure continuance of island autonomy. But both the DPP and KMT hold that Taiwan is a sovereign state, both loathe communists, and both are catchall parties trying to recruit support from all income and social groups (Wu, 1995).

and special relationship with the United States, as the United States and PRC warmed their relations. In 1975, Chiang Kai-shek died and was suc. ceeded by his son, Chiang Ching-kuo (Huang and Li, 2010:88-122). Just before his death, Chiang Ching-kuo in 1987 had lifted the ban on travel to the mainland, opening a flood of Taiwan investment and tourism there. He also lifted the strict martial law that had tightly restricted civil liberties for years (Rigger, 2011:59-94). Many islanders continued to be angry over corTuption and lack of free-

dom under Ch

resentment that their island had been ruled until the 1990s by mainlanders. The KMT claimed a right to put down demonstrations under martial law because its Republic of China (on Taiwan) was still officially engaged in a civil war to regain the mainland. Many islanders wanted Taiwan to declare itself independent, with no aspiration to become part of China much less take over that big nation. These people hoped against hope that Taiwan might gain diplomatic recognition and join international bodies like any other nation. But the PRC prevented that, and most Taiwanese, like main- landers on the island, know they are at least culturally Chinese. The prob- lem is not culture, but diplomatic and military weakness combined with economic dependence on outside globalized actors-of which mainland China is just one. The Communist Party remains anathema to the vast ma- jority of islanders, no matter whether they self-identify as Taiwanese or Chinese or both.

Chiang Ching-kuo died in 1988. Vice President Lee Teng-hui, a Hakka- Taiwanese, succeeded to the presidency and KMT chairmanship-even though conservative mainlander generals in the ROC army distrusted him. As the first nonmainlander to hold Taiwan's top posts, many islanders wel- comed him. He held the first open elections for the island's legislature in 1991, which left his KMT with a slim majority of seats. The CCP's stan- dard operating procedure in any peripheral area was to seek a nonstate party (tycoons in Hong Kong, even the Dalai Lama in 1950s Tibet) with which it might collude to control the edges of China. Its hope in Taiwan had long been that the Chinese KMT would perform this role, but Lee's KMT became localist. Beijing's response by 1995 was to shoot missiles into the ocean near Taiwan ports-a policy that aided Lee's 1996 reelection in the first direct vote for the island's presidency.

ese KMT rule, and Taiwanese could increasingly express

Successful Democracy: An Opposition Party Comes to Power By 2000, the DPP's Chen Shui-bian, also a native Taiwanese, won the presi- dency. For the first time in Chinese history, an opposition party came to power bydirect popular vote. A year later, the legislative election left the KMT with Only 30 percent of the seats while the DPP got 39 percent (S. Goldstein and Chang. 2008; W.-c. Lee, 2010:41-68; Clark and Tan, 2011; Fell, 201).

Trying Out Democracy Taiwan investment and trade rose markedly, along with cross-strait eco nomic ties. Two of mainland China's first four special economic zones,cre ated in 1980, are on the coast opposite Taiwan (Shantou in Guangdong and Xiamen in Fujian; D. Lee, 2000; T. Tsai and Cheng, 2006). Most invest- ment in them was from Taiwan or Hong Kong-and Beijing's impetus to form them was largely based on the successes of Taiwan's earlier export processing zones. By the end of the 1990s Taiwan's economy was doing well despite the Asian financial crisis, and by 2000 its GNP ranked eigh- teenth in the world, 22 percent greater than Russia's and 22 percent of mainland China's (even though Taiwan's population was fifty-six times smaller, IMF, 2015). Due to political tensions, Taiwanese trade and invest ment on the mainland at first had to be arranged quietly through Hong Kong. but it picked up because it was profitable.

Lee Teng-hui soon left the KMT to form the Taiwan Solidarity Union, hich allied with the DPP (Dickson and Chao, 2002). The People First arty, led by another ex-KMT politician, named James Soong, obtained Yotes in southern parts of the island in places where the KMT had for ccades allied with some rural lineages, and in other places where "aborig- ines" and Hakkas recalled Hokkien oppression long ago and thus opposed neDPP (Copper, 2010:97; Bosco, 1992). A group advocating closer ties with China, the New Party, received few votes. he DPP's Chen Shui-bian was barely reelected in the 2004 presiden- Clection, during which he was shot and suffered a minor injury. TheTaiwanese politicians for the first time could make public speechesn

Hokkien or Hakka rather than Mandarin. For many previous years, candi- dates outside the KMT had run, and sometimes won, as nonparty indepen dents in local electoral fights. The frequency of local voting bred among Taiwanese a taste for the spectacle of democratic contests (Rigger, 199).

Coarged that he arranged the incident to gain sympathy votes. His nrol of the legislature was further weakened in the 2004 legislativeeec hich gave nearly 51 percent of the seats to the "pan-blue" coalitionUedby the KMT and the People First Party, while 45 percent went to the

China Beyond the Heartland 207

Lynn T. White I and Robert E. Gamer

206

Lconfidence-building military eXChanges, direct flights, Dostal and economic links, including a common market. His

rhe campaign was "no independence, no unification, no milita China

through

service,and cultural-green" coalition of the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (Rnsc

and Hwang, 2006; Fell, 2005). edford

Some leaders of the DPP still called for total independence for n (Huang and Li, 2010:217-295). They would simply declare Taiwan

ereign nation, with no formal links to overseas Chinese and no cl30y. the mainland. Lacking a majority in the parliament, however, Presidident Chen had to soften those demands and inittated a 'Three Direct Links polies

to develop unofficial connections with the mainland for trade, postal ser ice, and transportation, so that these activities would no longer have to be carried out through intermediaries such as Hong Kong. Beginning in 2001 goods could be shipped to and from the mainland through Taiwan harbors and airports, and restrictions againstTaiwan investments in the mainland were eased. In 2002, both China and Taiwan joined the World Trade Orga nization, although Taiwan because of Beijing pressure could be admitted to such bodies only with the name "Chinese Taipei" (J. Chang and Goldstein, 2007). The most important quasi-political change was economic: by 2008, the PRC was already Taiwan's largest trading partner, with two-way trade surpassing USS132 billion, and US$100 billion of Taiwan business.

eelection was welcomed by the Chinese Communist Party.Taiwan rinheral areas likes to seek a dominant noncommunist partnercontln

in Taiwan), knowing that communism is

in 2009, when former president

uroons in Hong Kong,theK nular even among self-identitying

Chinese in those places.

DPP'sproblems were exacerbated

Shui-bian was jailed for corruption and ordered to serve nineteen

years- arc--after indictment by a prosecutor whose personal

background was

deep green'" (long-time pro-DFF) but who Saw evidence of Chen's illegal.

iv and did his constitutional job. Ma's election paved the way for a quick

resolution of many cross-strait ISSues. within months, agreements were

concluded to expand mainland tourism to Taiwan (1.6 million Chinese vis-

ited Taiwan in 2010, and 4 million Taiwanese visited the mainland), expand

free trade, cooperate on banking and crime fighting, regulate securities

trading, and other matters. The number of flights between Taiwan and the

mainland surpassed 270 weekly. Mayors of major Chinese cities led delega-

tions to Taiwan, announcing large new economic projects (W.-c. Lee, 2010:185-226; Jeffries, 2010:47-133).

Both sides built up their weaponry, although Taiwan's smaller size made an arms race unhopeful for it. Mutual suspicions remained high (Ed- monds and Tsai, 2006; Bush, 2004; Cole, 2006; Copper, 2012; Tian, 2006; Tsang, 2005; Tucker, 2005). President Chen suggested that the question of independence should be decided in a referendum, a stance that enraged mainland leaders, who claimed that all Chinese should have a say on the extent of their country. The issue emerged again in Chen's 2008 reterendum that asked voters if Taiwan should seek membership in the United Nations, only a third of voters turned out, so the initiative failed. They knew that ieSecurity Council, in which China has a veto, must approve new UN Dbers. Chapter 7 discusses this enduring source of tension.

More than a million Taiwanese businessmen live in Shanghai and other mainland cities. Surprisingly, many have mistresses and extra children there. Furious Taiwan wives say that the "one country, two systems" slogan

Diguo liangzhi) really means "one country, two wives" (yiguo liangqi). In both Taiwan and Hong Kong, the number of mainland spouses has soared TCCent years (Davis and Friedman, 2014; Dodwell, 2015). Politics

be-

bween governments can be calmer than politics within families. Ma Ying-jeou was a mainlander, but he said mainlanders were Just

Ne wanese." In his 2012 reelection bid, he won with 52 percente his DPP opponent, Tsai Ing-wen, a woman lawyer and1aiwanc

Won 46 percent. Ma had not been touched by scandal while 1saiSin Again, Out Again: Economic Partnership or Civil War?1wo-thirds of voters cast ballots in Taiwan's 2008 separate legislativee and

presidentialelections, and they returned the KMT to rule. AlongWISmaller pan-blue parties, the KMT received 72 percent of thevo n-egislative elections, compared to the DPP's 24 percent. The1ait

questionable business startup reminded voters of Chen' s Drr

h nduct. She found it difficult to present an alternative agenda 1orfive

lally after Ma advocated signing a peace pact with China in the nextlen years200,0 Taiwan business

nChina.With public opinion polls showing theracecon omy had slowed under Chen (4-5 percent GDP growth, with 4 un

enen people who were benefiting from

employment), and the KMT ran on a platform of safety, opposience and favoring improved relations with the mainland. Tnatdon't-rile-China bloc eighty-seven seats to the DPP'S tw

warmernswith the mainland flew home to cast ballots.BeyPSpeci a win, did not disavow Ma's proposed pactbuthe

of 113. This gave Ma a mandate to continue new initiatives twenty-seven intnelegislature, ending deadlock there. In the presidential election KMT retained control of

parliament, with 64 Seats

at

hile soon fol-

thelowed, the KMT'sMa Ying-jeou won with 58 percent oDPP's Frank Hsieh got 42 percent. Ma, who hasgraduaNew York University and Harvard, ran on a platform ofseei

ina.For the firstTaiwan SinaWeibo.

me, Beijing did not censor Internet coverage or tne

1any millions of mainlanders followed it close!y onadelection, and

degreesiroO

China Beyond the Heartland 209Lynn T White ll and Robert E. Gamer208

ments, allows "differentinterpretations of "one China" but declares there is iust a single such nation. The representatives must be formally non- overnmental since the ROC and PRC do not recognize each other's diplo- mats. Tsai cannot acknowledge what Beijing calls a "core connotation" of he "1992

consensus (i.e., that the CCP runs the sole legitimate govern- ment of China, including Taiwan). When campaigning, to keep the populist pro-independence DPP factions in her camp, she said the "1992 consensus" was "an option and not Taiwan's only option." In her inaugural address, Tsai said "the stable and peaceful development of the cross-Strait relation- ship must be continuously promoted." But she is under scant domestic po

litical pressure to repeat "one China" verbiage. So, Beijing soon cut inter- actions between the two officially unofficial organizations that had been managing interactions between Taiwan and the mainland (Copper, 2016:56; Bush, 2016a; Hernandez, 2016).

Fully 40 percent of Taiwan's exports then went to China and Hono Kong, which surpassed Japan as Taiwan's largest trading partner. As late a 2010, Taiwan's GDP growth was still high, but in later years it converged toward normal lower rates for such a prosperous first worldeconomy. By 2016, Taiwan's GDP was about half of Russia's and one-fifteenth of main land China's (although they have much larger populations; IMF, 2015). China's National People's Congress passed an "Anti-Secession Law

authorizing Beijing's Central Military Commission (now chaired by XiJin ping) to use force against any Taiwanese declaration of independence, or if "possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted" Many analysts see Xi as a new quasi-emperor; others have used extensive documentation on China's top leaders to explore the extent to which collec- tive norms of decisionmaking may still prevail in China (C. Li, 2016). PRC behavior toward Taiwan may be the most important test of whether just one high Chinese leader, or instead mutually moderating sets of them, will be The United States, un-Chinese though it is, remains important in Bei-

jing's and Taipei's cross-strait strategizing. When President Jimmy Carter recognized the PRC in 1979, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act. This law says US policy is "to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan." This was not about Taiwan independence or Taiwan as a state, but it was about defending a people's "system" in some new sense. Like China's Anti- Secession Law, this formally domestic US law supports military budgets and is in effect a contingent declaration of war, authorizing the US president to defend Taiwan against an unprovoked attack by China-so long as he or she deems such action to be in overall Us interests. It would not apply if Taiwan (the ROC) were to declare itself non-Chinese, and that would surely provoke Beijing to wa. The United States has assured Beijing that"al Chinese" on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agree there is just one China and Taiwan is part of it, but State Department lawyers have argued that the US position on what country owns the island is undecided, even though the Cairo Declara- tion authorized ROC troops to accept Japanese surrenders there at the end of WorldWarI (Maurer, 1974). This slippery legalistic ambiguity is worth at-lention for two reasons. First, it infuriates patriots in Beijing, to which the United States has acknowledged that "Chinese" know Taiwan is part of their country. Its late imperialist aspects do not serve US interests. But secondly, provides a formalistic justification for defense of the island's democracy 5ue relevant to many US allies globally and to the finding that liberal Ies do not attack each other. The president in Washington would weighe ikely effectiveness of deterrence and the overall interests of the United ates before sending in the navy. If threats from Beijing were minor or eco- mic rather than military, many US groups would oppose such an action Oanghai Communiqué, 1972; Doyle, 1983; Copper, 2016:77-78).

predominant. The biggest problem for Taiwan is how to place the question of unif-

cation in the background. An overwhelming majority of islanders want con- tinuation of the cross-strait status quo, either permanently or with a deci- sion much later. Less than 10 percent want independence immediately, and far fewer want unification now (Rigger, 2014:122; Bush, 2016b). On the mainland, "unification" has widespread support, but it is a vague term. Bei- jing has 1,600 missiles aimed at Taiwan. The island's military planners agree with outside analysts who guess that defeat of an unprovoked inva- sion from the mainland, if the United States participates, may be pre dictable until about 2020, but later years are very uncertain (Cliff, 2015). Political choices in Beijing, Taipei, and Washington are all crucial if war is to be avoided. Taiwan continues to seek recognition by intenational organizations. It

has sought formal visits by its president to other countries, and relations unofficial if need be-with as many other governments as possible, as well as UN readmission, which China would veto. About twenty small countries in Central America, the South Pacific, and Africa and the Vatican maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Beijing strongly resists moves by other countries to maintain formal links with Taiwan, although it softened its rhetoric while the KMT held the presidency. In 2016, the DPP's Tsai Ing-wen won that post with 56 percent of the

vote. The KMT candidate received 31 percent-and Tsai was more careful than her DPP predecessor Chen to avoid tension with China. Beijingdis trusts the DPP as a secessionist movement aiming to separate Taiwan from China, and it wants Tsai to go further than Ma and accept that the mainland and Taiwan both belong to the same country. A "1992 consensus," agreed on by PRC and ROC representatives appointed by their respectivegovem

China Beyond the Heartland 211 1ynn T. White l and Robert E. Gamer210

These uncertainties are on Taiwan voters' minds in any presidential election. Economic growth spurred by economic ties with China has not reached all of the islanders (notably some Hakka-speaking ones), but it af fects jobs for most. High unemployment, high housing prices, and low wages are of great concern. They do not want a violent war fought on their island. So, Tsai Ing-wen, a law professor who became president, has dis. tanced herself from those inher party who want to push for independence, but she has less leverage than Xi. The issue of Taiwan's relationship with China involves all 65 million

overseas Chinese, many of whom live in Southeast Asia (at least 25 mil. lion), Taiwan (23.5 million), and Hong Kong (7.3 million). They know they can be Chinese, but they are capitalists and have fewer reasons to want war than Beijing leaders may. Some are billionaires leading guilds and trading associations that dominate the economies of Indonesia (whose whole popu- lation is two-fifths of Southeast Asia's, with identifiable ethnic Chinese comprising just 3 percent there), Singapore (76 percent Chinese), Malaysia (34 percent), Thailand (14 percent), the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma (all between 1 and 4 percent Chinese, to the extent ethnicities are reported). Overseas Chinese can move themselves and their money eas- ily. They have intimate connections with the leaders and bureaucracies of all their governments (M. Brown, 2004; Redding, 1995; Weller, 2001).

A Tibetan family's farmn compound. The government ofers Tibetan farmers and herders low-interest loans for home construction, electricity, irrigation, and new roads.

military occupation because 100 miles of water separates the island from the mainland. Tibet is originally non-Han in ethnicity or languages, very poor, and under military occupation with increasing links to the rest of the PRC.

Leaders of Taiwan know they succeed best when they have economic support from overseas Chinese, many of whom are also Hokkien but who may also sympathize with the claims of their ancestral country. Still, they could lose much in a cross-strait war. CCP leaders have attempted a carrots or sticks approach to sway the sentiments of Taiwanese. The mainland has bought bananas, for example, from growers in southern Taiwan where the autonomist DPP is usually dominant, although this has not reduced votes for DPP candidates. Economy seldom trumps identity. After Tsai's 2016 election, China signaled some reversal of its decade-long policy of letting Taiwan keep a few embassies overseas; the PRC replaced the ROC in Gam- bia. There was a drop in mainlanders' tours to Taiwan, which had economic value to the island. Tsai's inauguration was accompanied by military exer- cises across the Taiwan Strait.

Tibet has many distant and contested historic ties to China. The 1949 Chinese revolution created a strong army, as revolutions tend to do; and, in 1950, it marched into Tibet. This invasion was noticed in the outside world, and it still creates strong partisans on either side. Westerners and some Chi- nese have long viewed Tibet through misty eyes as an otherworldly Shangri-la. This blurs myth with reality but, for most Tibetans, their home is not such an exotic place; it is the impoverished high-altitude quasi-desert that they love, and where they still pray to Buddha (Blondeau and Buf- fetrille, 2008; Baker, 2006; Brauen, 2004; Dodin, 2001; Feigon, 1998; Lopez, 1999; Wang and Shakya, 2009). As Chapter 8 explains, China's government recognizes fifty-five mi-

nority nationalities, many of which have histories of resisting Han rule. The ninth-largest of these recognized nationalities, with 7.8 million members, is Classified as "Tibetan." These people are spread among four provinces and speak a variety of Tibetan languages. They have fought fiercely among hemselves for centuries. Tibet's ties to China are complex, as are the ani- mositiles that separate Tibetans from Han and Hui (Chinese Muslim) people

Tibet China and Taiwan carry out a shadow play with thrusts and parries of defī- ance, even though they share cultural ties and commercial transactions. Tibet represents a sharp contrast. Tibet and Taiwan both raise concerns or usable paranoias in Beijing regarding long-term future sovereignty. Their other similarity is trivial: they both begin with "T" (in English). Taiwan is Han Chinese in ethnicity and dialect, prosperous, democratic, and not under

on the plateau.

Traditional Tibet OSt Tibetans live on or near a sparsely settled highland raised as the In- an tectonic plate crunches under the Himalayas (see Chapter 2, especially

ZIZ Lynn I. vwe d nODeItE. Gamer

China Beyond the HeartlandMap 2.5). Along the dry northern portions of this plateauinand Chantang-they make their living by herding sheen arthe river valleys and mountain passes to the water from Himalayan glaciers, a feudal nobility andkinolerows wi

213

rted looking in villages shortly after the death of a holy 1,Amdo,

yaks. Along

andsouth,wherebarley individual (a bodhisattva) to seek a baby inte which his soul had been re-

he raised as lamas (superior ones). In 1283, the Red1Hats declared one of

born, or reincarnated; those individuals were brought into monasteries

to lands in exchange for rent and labor service parceled

outShamans associated w

native Bon religion, storytellers, and singers of riddles propagatebeliefs associated with totemism, animism, and occultism (seeChan

elamas ruler of Tibet. In keeping with Tantric traditions time in India, these orders usea mantras (repetition of mystical words

the

The seventh to tenth centuries CE brought Buddhism and .

the and revolutions of prayer wneels) and mandalas (sacred diagrams) in rit. uals and meditations.

pter 12).power to Tibet. The country developed a written alphabet based on serin.from Indian Kashmir. Tibeta kings, beginning with the legendary SCripts Gampo, conquered territory in Nepal, Turkistan, and far north and east into

ongsten what is now Yunnan, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, and Shaanxi (Man2.2). Their daughters married Chinese emperors and rulers from surround.ing principalities. They welcomed scholars from Persia, China, and elsewhere. They signed peace treaties delineating borders with China-thenmuch wider than Tibet's present boundaries-in 734 and 822 CE (Stein,1995:56-75; van Schaik, 2011; Snellgrove, 2003; Novick, 1999:14-29;

The Rise of the Mongols and the Yellow Hats In 1403, a monastic scholar, concerned with these two orders' emphasis on worldly power and wealth, founded the Gelukpa (Yellow Hat) order, which also emphasized the need for monastic discipline, personal morality, and good works as part of the search for total liberation from the world. Armed with this reforming zeal, armies from its monasteries fought the Red Hats, with the followers of Sakya and the remaining Bon orders, and with the weak kings and princes for political control.Beckwith, 1993; see also Chapter 12).In about 775 CE, the king presided over the construction of a greatBuddhist monastery at Samye, brought in a monk from Nepal to be ilsabbot, ordained noblemen as monks, and arranged for monastics fromChina to come in and preach. In 791, he decreed Buddhism to be theoftC1al state religion. Monks had special privileges and received royal gns.5ut in succeeding centuries, disputes severely weakened the power or eings. Some nobles resisted the adoption of Buddhism, whereas otnets(SOmetimes claiming divine descent) took charge of the monasteriesSprouted up all over Tibet and surrounding regions, passing tnep4DDOt irom uncle to nephew. Many people joined monasteries, WnitO acquire much land and wealth. Doctrinal disputes arose ansnonks, some became morally decadent. Traditional Bon religio dt

cescontinued and were absorbed into Buddhism (Kapstein, z00 Schaik UU Thurman, 1996; Tuttle, 2005: M. Goldstein, 1997:1-29; *a"

In 1578, the Mongol ruler Altan Khan, seeking an ally among the con- tending forces, declared the head of the Yellow Hats to be the Dalai (ocean- wide, all-embracing) Lama. Altan's influence was extended further upon the death of this Dalai, when the monks found his reincarnated successor to be none other than a great grandson of Altan Khan! But this did not stop the bitter fighting for control among the various sects and the kings, who in

of

gan

ihe

be

nong

2011).

r the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan, wholad con t0

quered China, sent his troops deep into Tibet, where theieau send him tribute and thus symbolicaKhan,

recognized his power. Ger nghis

Sakya Panchen to Mongolia,

in turn, invited the Tibetan scholawhere he devised an alphabet. The Mongolscongu betans converted

most Mongols to their own form In 1270, Kublai Khan granted Sakya's followers uathemse Meanwhile,

Genghis's descendcontrol ofMongolia, andvarious

of lamaist Buddhism.

ership of all Tibet.

Ives for meof Hats

were fighting amon Tibetan monasteries allied with :

them, often fighting with their own forces. Twoo JOmer residence ofthe Dalai Lamas, in Lhasa.

Lynn T White llandRobertE Gamer

China Beyond the Heartland214 215

onasteries in Mongolia and China and welcomed lamasPanchen Lamas made that trek, developing to the

imperrial court at Beijing.

however, when chooSing Dalai amas.

turn allied with rival Mongol princes. In the seventer

the king, and help ruler sent his

armies into Tibet, kill ma build the great Potala

Palace (Namgyal, 2002.thefifh aher, 201i

ties to China's emperors. The Tibetans continued to ignore the Chinese,

Schaik, 2011). This palace still dominates the valleva

he was declared the sovereign in Tibet (with a

pav. the neMongols to assist him). The Manchu ruler who

founded

New Twentieth-Century Challenges

1644also was his ally. After his death, bitter fighting brokedynastyiamong thirteenth Dalai Lama, who lived from 1875 to 1933, befriended aTbetan factions, MongoI princes, ana chinese emperors over

lama and was put in contact with the Russian czar (Richardson. 24-73-90, 268-273). Thisfrightenedthe British in India, who tried to

who choose successors. When Dzungar Mongol forces invaded TiheShould drive out another Mongol prince who had killed the sixth Dalai6o enter into

negotiations with China and Tibet to define Tibet's western and was trying to replace him with his own candidate,Manchu-On hina

and

a this failed, they sent a military expedition that cap-

red Lhasa in 1904 (Batt, 2001). Tne Dalai Lama fled to Mongolia, but be- fare withdrawing the British forced his officers to sign a convention delin- eating the borders India preferred and opening Tibet to trade with Britain. Two years later, the British signed a treaty with China, to which Tibet was ot aparty, recognizing the 1904 treaty and China's suzerainty over Tibet (see Chapter 7). In 1907, Britain concluded a similar treaty with Russia. No

uthernborders. Whentacked Tibet and established small military garrisons there. The Dalai Lama ruled with assistance from ministers, acouncilCom

posed of monks and nobles, another monastic council, and a National As- sembly composed of high officials. Important decisions required theap proval of all these bodies (Rahul, 1969:22-12; Richardson, 1984:14-27 Between the death of a Dalai Lama and the growth into manhood of his successor, regents were chosen. Nobles held power and supervised admin. istration in various regions of Tibet. Kham and Amdo to the northeast re. mained under Mongol control. China sent to Lhasa two formal representa- tives (ambans), who had some influence in the kingdom. But when they killed a Tibetan official in 1750, Tibetans massacred Chinese living there. Qing troops intervened to restore order. Chinese troops also helped Tibet repel a 1788 invasion by Nepalese Gurkhas to capture Ladakh (east Kash+ mir, on Tibet's western border). They dictated peace terms and closed the borders to the British, who may have instigated the invasion. The Chinese also successfully helped Tibetans resist invasions from Dogras out of Kasie mir in 1841. By 1847, despite that loss, the British marked the boundaries Detween 'Tibet and Dogra. The Chinese did not recognize those boundaries, Cn ater became a focus of China's dispute with India. But anolner urkha attack in 1855 was more successful, forcing Tibet to giveutrading rights.

outside power has ever formally recognized Tibetan sovereignty. In 1910, a Chinese general began to conquer territory in eastern Tibet

and then Lhasa itself, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee to India. When the new republic was formed in China in 1911, it declared that Tibet was an in- tegral part of China, but it could not defend China's troops on the high plateau that were under attack from Tibetan forces. China withdrew its sol- diers, and the Dalai Lama expelled the ambans and renounced all Chinese connections with Tibet. In 1914, Sir Henry McMahon sat down in Simla, India, with representatives of the Chinese and Tibetan governments to set boundaries within Tibet-over diverse objections of both the other par- ties-between areas under more direct or less direct Chinese administra- tion. Ever since then, controversies have swirled over the extent of Tibet as centered on Lhasa (the current Tibet Autonomous Region {TAR)) or as inked more closely to China (the Tibetan Amdo and Kham regions in Han majority provinces). Dalai Lamas, including the current one, who was born m Amdo, naturally define Tibet's terrain to include all traditionally Tibetan arcas. The Simla Accord unequivocally declared China to be the suzerain power: "Tibet forms part of Chinese territory." The Tibetan representative

ut the Chinese delegate refrained; he left the conference early andPparently disagreed with the idea that a Sino-British treaty should deln-careas within China (Klieger, 2016; Shakabpa, 1967:246-259; M. Cold

ne Dalai Lama is believed (along with Songsten Gampo, Tibet si first

centralizing Buddhist king) to be an indirect reincarnation

tual progress. Tibet's second great lama is the Panchen Lama, a00e

S patron bodhisattva, who has achieved a degreeor en

gntenment but has returned to Earth to help living mortaid

ha, before

to return to Tibet

asteries, who is the reincarnation ofAmitabid1om Avalokitesvara took his original bodhisattva vow 991; McKay, 1997; Smith, 2008). In 1915, Khams roseinrevot

Some land that had been taken by Chinese troopsin 1910. and help all beings (Richardson,1984:38-60)exchange for helping repulse the 1788 Gurkha pt Tor the British representative in Lhasa, who

had a radiO mitter,

Lama China

and

demanded Pancha the right to dictate candidates among whom

the Dalai

two nservative monks largely cut Tibet off from the outsideworid

& ban on selling food to outsiders. Roads and wheeled vehi-* Lma would be chosen. It also allowed thos

China Beyond the Heartland 217 216 Lynn T. White Il and Robert

E. Gamer

valid, so he was somewhat disturbed when he discovered that Chi-

foreign minister, Zhou Enlai, assured him the maps were sim-

cles were few; only about twenty westerners entered Tibet durin

three decades (Hopkirk, 1995; Harrer, 1954). Tibet created nthenex showed portions of India within Chinese territory. China'slegally

poke anyfor- of ese

mapsstill

premichardson, 1984:199, 2lD; see Chapter 7formore),

The Shock ofModernity

Jonge

foreign affairs and exchanged no ambassadors. Few Tibetans

eign language. Four students went to study in England, and in 1948afew

more were selected to study in India. An English school began

1945, but had to close when the monasteries objected that it mioht idnwith religious beliefs. Tibet did not issue a passport until 1948, whenits

out a trade delegation in an attempt to alert the world to its pending trok. (Shakabpa, 1967:289-290).

system, about a third of the land had be-

tate, a third to the nobility, and a third to the monasteries that

dheirland out to families. Ordinary Tibetans who were not monks,

nuns, or nobles turned over portions of their agricultural output for rent and

move about Tibet and engage in commerce with traders who traversed the

erfere

nt ubles

ribet's traditional social

parceled i After the death of the thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1933, China sent an in

formal delegation to Lhasa with a radio transmitter. They stayed until he

Tibetan council seized the radio transmitter and expelled them in 1949 after

the leader of the Sera monastery, who had ties to the Chinese, attempted a

coup to overthrow the young Dalai Lama's regent (Shakabpa, 1967: 290-294; Harrer, 1954:222-231; H.-t. Lin, 2007). The new Communist regime in China declared that Tibet was a province of China.

es and were asked to conrioute labor to civic projects. They were free to

kingdom. They could also serve as administrators or rise within the hierar-

ehyof the monasteries, though top positions usually went to members of noble families. Local administrators settled civil disputes and tried criminal

cases, often with an ear to local public opinion; severe punishments were

rare (Tung, 1996; Carrasco, 1959; Cassinelli and Ekvall, 1969:153-185;

In 1950 with some assistance from Kham rebels who resented Lhasa's

rule, Chinese troops entered Tibet, defeated the Dalai Lama's troops, and forced his government to sign a 1951 agreement on "the peaceful liberation

of Tibet," declaring it an integral part of China. The Dalai Lama and the "existing political system in Tibet" would stay in place, and freedom of re

ligion would be guaranteed, but foreign affairs would be handled by Beijing (Richardson, 1984:290-293). Today, many Tibetans would like to return to the terms of that agreement. El Salvador wanted the topic of Tibet's status placed on the agenda of the UN General Assembly. but other countries following India's lead in contending that China's right to suzerainty over Tibet was already established-refused to allow sucha debate (Richardson, 1984:186).

Richardson, 1984:16-17; Harrer, 1954:88-90).

Though people lived on meager diets, starvation was uncommon be-

cause granaries and seed supplies were maintained by public authorities for

distribution in time of need or emergency. The Dalai Lama was the leader

of his own religious order (the Gelukpa Yellow Hats), but many monaster-

ies belonged to other Buddhist orders or followed traditional Bon practices.

Some in Tibet adhered to Islam, Hinduism, or other religions, which they

were free to do. Many areas were controlled by nobles or by monks who

did not belong to the Yellow Hat order. The monasteries subjected monks

and nuns to stern discipline, maintained their own militias, stored large

quantities of weapons, and conscripted young men for armed service (Har-

Ter, 1954:179, 234, 246-247; M. Goldstein, Seibenschuh, Tsering, 2006;

China's new government wished to repudiate the treaties impoSedo China's emperors by Britain and other imperial powers (see Chapter 7). e 1914 Simla convention had declared that the Dalai Lama had spiritualtthority over all believers in his faith, but removed his political autnoriy from Nepal, Ladakh, Bhutan, and Sikkim. The Dalai Lama had been re tant to accept that latter provision, and China had not signed the Simlarcord. When India achieved independence in 1947, its governmente awanarlal Nehru moved quickly to establish good relations witn MOraes, 1960:117-143; Patterson, 1960; Rahul, 1969:88-100).Aetial objections, India acquiesced in the agreementbetwee hIndia hadin 1951 and signed a treaty in 1954 giving up rights that DI hichbeclaimed in Tibet, contending that China had ancientsuzeralny Came indistinguishable from sovereignty) over Tibet. This treaty,

however,

did not precisely define the border between Tibet and India. Noithat the "McMahon Line" (in an annex to the Simla ACCO

Casinelli and Ekvall, 1969:65-72, 98, 115, 294-301).

vast majority of Tibetans either inside or outside the monasteries

ere illiterate. Monks resisted the introduction of modern medicine, fearing

a endanger their hold on power, so infant mortality in Tibet was

nehighest in the world. They also resisted introducing motor vehlrh icty, and industry. People moved from village to village on 100td by

OTScback and carried goods on the backs ofyaks. Around

Sa and along the southern river valleys of Tibet, the Chinese

mediate

occupy

nally left this social system largely intact, thougn tn

CDalai's administration (Richardson, 1984:191-192). It opened new clin-emanding the appointment of reliable supporters witnin

Ies andsch and proceeded to build Tibet's first modern road,

eastem Tibet. Transport brought new

la as well as communist reformers. In the areas near tne

Ogh the Amdo and Kham regions orea assun zained mers. In thearcalersfrom