International studies paper about conflict resolution

PAGE 15

Introduction

This paper concentrates on analyzing the armed conflict between PRC (People’s Republic of China) and ROC (Republic of China - Taiwan). Since the second Chinese Civil War happened, the issues about the relations between PRC and POC, which was also called as Cross-Strait relations (Haixia Liangan Guanxi), have become seriously sensitive topics in both of the two political entities that were geographically separated by the Taiwan Strait in the west Pacific Ocean. In 1949, the second Chinese Civil War led to the political status that the mainland of China is governed by PRC; instead, Taiwan pertains to ROC, which means this armed conflict has been going on for almost 68 years.

From the geographical perspective, Taiwan and China are separated by the Taiwan Strait. The military conflict, military maneuver, and armament race between these two regimes may lead to the potential crisis of a comprehensive war. Generally, there have been three Taiwan Strait Crises happening since 1954, but they were just regional military actions, or unimplemented plans. Among these three crises, 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis (The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis) caused the serious casualties on both sides: the total number of fatalities on PRC’s side is 678; and there were 439 deaths and 1,870 wounded on ROC’s side[footnoteRef:1]. Moreover, in 1995, the military maneuver of PRC caused the third crisis. However, the war did not break out, and it did lead to any fatality directly. [1: Brands, Henry W. "Testing massive retaliation: credibility and crisis management in the Taiwan Strait." International Security 12, no. 4 (1988): 124-151.]

Besides PRC and ROC, there are also other actors that involved in this conflict. The most important countries are the United States, which is seen as the international actor, and Japan, which can be considered as both regional actor and international actor personally. The complicated factors make the armed conflict between PRC and ROC become a stalemate, because the issues about Cross-Strait relations implicate the benefits of countries in Asia-Pacific area, even the whole world rather than just influence the conditions of China and Taiwan.

This article contains two main parts, the conflict parties, and conflict dynamics. In the first part, some characteristics, conditions, qualities, organizing methods, political systems, military coherence, power, and principle sources of support of these two parties will be demonstrated. In the second part, this article is seeking to discuss something further about the conflict such as core incompatibilities, drivers, strategies, patterns, key connectors, and external actors. The purpose of the whole analyzing process is to show the conclusion that the core incompatibility in Cross-Strait relations is the qualitative asymmetries about the political statues and identities of PRC and ROC.

Conflict Parties

There are two parties that are playing the most significant roles in the conflict of Cross-Strait relations. One of them is People’s Republic of China (PRC), a socialist country in East Asia, which was governed by the Chinese Communist Party. In the second Chinese Civil war, the Chinese Communist Party obtained the absolute superiority, and then achieved the formal establishment of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, the capital of China, on October 1st, 1949. Meanwhile, another government called the Republic of China (ROC), which was led by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang - KMT), was defeated, and then moved to Taiwan. PRC is divided into 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and 2 special administrative regions, which are allowed to implement a high degree of autonomy in the particular areas[footnoteRef:2]. The government of PRC would like to list Taiwan that was governed by ROC as the territory of China, and this behavior aroused the controversy about Taiwan’s status. [2: Liu, Wenling, Gert Spaargaren, Nico Heerink, Arthur PJ Mol, and Can Wang. "Energy consumption practices of rural households in north China: Basic characteristics and potential for low carbon development." Energy Policy 55 (2013): 128-138.]

As for another party in this conflict, Republic of China (ROC), it is a republican country in East Asia. From 1912 to 1971, it is widely represented by “China”. However, it often refers to “Taiwan” due to the actual territorial and political factors nowadays. In 1949, ROC lost the right of controlling the mainland of China. In contemporary society, the territory that is governed by ROC includes islands such as Penghu Islands, and Kinmen Islands. And the capital of ROC is Taipei. At present, the Legislative Yuan of ROC regarded the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as the ruling party, and the KMT as the largest opposition party. Besides them, there are also some other small political parties such as New Power Party, and local parties such as Taiwan Solidarity Union in ROC[footnoteRef:3]. [3: Fell, Dafydd. Party Politics in Taiwan: Party change and the democratic evolution of Taiwan, 1991-2004. Taylor & Francis, 2005:16]

(Link: http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/07/roc-vs-prc.html)[footnoteRef:4] [4: The China Desk. The PRC vs. The ROC. http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/07/roc-vs-prc.html. (Accessed July 24, 2007).]

In fact, these two parties are organized with different political and military systems. In PRC, Politburo of the Communist Party of China (Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, formerly known as the Central Political Bureau) plays a very important role in the decision-making process. As the highest leading body of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in this country, Politburo of the Communist Party of China is derived from the election and the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). On April 20, 1943, the Central Political Bureau passed the “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Adjustment and Simplification of the Central Organization”, and stipulated that during the time of two central plenum, the Central Political Bureau has the responsibility to lead the work of the whole party, and has the right to make decisions to all major issues[footnoteRef:5]. Other governmental agencies of the CCP are the executive departments and offices of the Central Political Bureau. As for the military power in PRC, People's Liberation Army (PLA), which is founded and lead by the CCP, is the main component of the armed forces of RPC. PLA has about 2.28 million active personnels, and the active forces are made up of the land force, the sea service, the air force, the rocket army, and the strategic support force[footnoteRef:6]. CCP insisted on the guidelines that “CCP commands guns”, and that “the army should accept the command from CCP”. The top military leadership of PLA is the CPC Central Military Commission, and their chairman has the responsibility of commending the whole army. In this way, besides the President of the PRC, Xi Jinping has two more titles, the current General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Obviously, the organizing method of PRC is that the main power lies within CCP, which is led by President Xi currently. And CCP can is regarded as the prince sources of support in PRC. Likewise, CCP is responsible for commending both political system and military power in PRC. In other words, one-party system (single-party system) is the most significant characteristics of PRC. [5: Zhang, Julia, Randy Chiu, and Liqun Wei. "Decision-making process of internal whistleblowing behavior in China: Empirical evidence and implications." Journal of Business Ethics 88 (2009): 25-41.] [6: Fravel, M. Taylor. "China's search for military power." Washington Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2008): 125-141.]

Compared to PRC, the organizing condition of ROC is relatively complicated. Up to December 2015, there were 291 registered political parties in ROC. However, ROC’s political system still seems to be two-party system, although there so many political parties in Taiwan. The reason is that each of DPP and KMT often got more than 40% of the votes in the presidential elections, so that they became the two stable major parties of ROC, and led two ideological blocs whose names are derived from the colors of their flags in Taiwan[footnoteRef:7]. The interesting thing is that the political status of ROC is always used as an important standard to distinguish these two parties. Pan-blue Coalition, led by KMT, are in favor of unification with mainland China under the government of ROC, while the Pan-green Coalition, led by DPP, supports formal independence for Taiwan. The third amendment of ROC’s constitution that was modified in 1994 demonstrates that the president is elected by the citizens directly for a term of four years and has one opportunity to be re-elected. The current president of ROC is Tsai Ing-wen, who is from DPP originally. The president of ROC has the power to coordinate the affairs of the Executive Yuan, the Legislative Yuan, the court, the examinations, and the supervisory office. And the highest legislature is the Legislative Yuan. As for the military situation, Republic of China Armed Forces, that are encompassing the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Military Police Force, are responsible for defending the security of ROC’s territory. And the government of ROC governs them through the Ministry of National Defense. In contrast to PRC, the right of making political decisions and the military power do not lie within a particular party or a particular group of people, instead, the structure that contains “Five-Yuans”(five main administrations) of constitution plays a crucial role in the development of ROC. On some aspects, citizens can express their opinions and exercise their rights well under the protection of different Yuans and various parties. The process of decision-making is promoted by different Yuans, and the military power cannot be utilized by one party or department. Therefore, the political and military powers in ROC are not as collective as those in PRC, and actually, there is not any center of gravity in ROC. In fact, elite profiling does not really exist on one particular person in ROC as well. Even the president of ROC, Tsai Ing-wen, needs to lead ROC by caring about the comprehensive situations rather than only represent DPP. And she has to get the permission from Legislative Yuan when she would like to nominate the leaders of those departments in ROC. [7: Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng, and Emerson MS Niou. "Salient issues in Taiwan's electoral politics." Electoral Studies 15, no. 2 (1996): 219-235.]

Conflict Dynamics

The core incompatibility in Cross-Strait relations is the qualitative asymmetries about the political statues and identities of PRC and ROC. In fact, Cross-Strait relations have been changing rapidly since the post-war reconstruction period, the second Civil War in China, the Cold War, the economic leap in Taiwan, the democratization of the Eastern Europe, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the democratization of Taiwan, the localization movement of Taiwan, and the rise of China. In the 1970s, PRC, which was led by CCP, became the only legal representative of China in the United Nations by replacing KMT, and ROC lost the representation of China. And then PRC did not allow ROC to use “China” as its national identity to attend the international system unless ROC accepted “One-China”[footnoteRef:8] policy and the unification would be achieved. These facts were reflected by the contents of United Nations Resolution 2758, which was passed in order to respond to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1668 that required any change in the representation of PRC in the United Nations. After that, most of countries in the international system started accepting and supporting “One China” policy, which compressed the diplomatic space of ROC, and ROC’s external relations with other countries. And the diplomatic crisis also influences other aspects of ROC’s development such as the economic cooperations and international trades between ROC and other countries. And the core incompatibility also derivative some conflicts about territory and sovereignty. For example, the government of PRC claimed to have the sovereignty of the whole China, including Taiwan, Kinmen, and Matsu. Although both PRC and ROC aroused some conflicts on various fields, the purposes of them are pretty clear: PRC wants ROC to admit the “One-China” policy, which refers to the view that there is only one state “China”, despite the existence of two governments that claim to be “China”. In Taiwan, KMT supports One-China policy with respective interpretations, while DPP emphasizes “One Country on Each Side”, which means that PRC and ROC are two different countries, as opposed to two separate political entitles within the same country of “China”. Therefore, the core conflict in Cross-Strait relations is the qualitative asymmetries about the political statues and identities of PRC and ROC, although it has been expanded to other fields. [8: Kan, Shirley A. China/Taiwan: Evolution of the “One China” Policy--Key Statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. DIANE Publishing, 2011.]

The political status and the identity of a country is related to the the ruling party closely. Since KMT is in favor of One-China policy, there are relative symmetries between the goals of KMT and CCP. However, CCP and DPP have different views towards One-China policy. In order to achieve their diverse purposes and to maximize their respective benefits, CCP and DPP become the drivers of conflict in Cross-Strait relations.

Over the years, both PRC and ROC have tried their best to modify the Cross-Strait relations and to keep their benefits by utilizing different kinds of strategies and tactics such as using some strategies with forces and weapons, negotiating, and drawing supports from other countries. Generally, PRC is relatively active, and ROC is standing on a relatively passive position. A very typical instance is the three Taiwan Strait Crises, especially the second crisis and the third one. During this long process, 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis (The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis) is regarded as a sign that can demonstrate the outburst of this conflict. In this war, the islands of Kinmen and the nearby Matsu Islands along the east coast of the PRC was shelled by PRC. In order to emancipate Taiwan from the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang - KMT), PRC launched the war, which is the only direct military contest between PRC and ROC until now, with land force, sea force, and Air Force. And it caused more than 3000 fatalities. As for the third Taiwan Strait Crisis, on May 22, 1995, Bill Clinton (the 42nd president of the United States) invited Lee Teng-hui (the 7th, 8th, and 9th president of ROC) to have a private visit in the United States, which broke the practice that there had been not any top leaders of ROC visiting the United States for 17 years. From PRC’s perspective, CCP believed that the United States had helped Taiwan seek independent political forces. Therefore, in July 1995, March 1996, and 1999, PRC promoted three large-scale missile live-fire launches[footnoteRef:9]. Since the PRC’s main aim of doing the launches was to deterring ROC with military forces, there was not any war breaking out. [9: Kan, Shirley A. China/Taiwan: Evolution of the “One China” Policy--Key Statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. DIANE Publishing, 2011: 29-30]

(Link:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis#/media/File%3ATaiwan_Strait.png)[footnoteRef:10] [10: Global Security.org. Taiwan Strait. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis#/media/File%3ATaiwan_Strait.png. (Accessed March 23, 1996). ]

As for some negotiations, the most representative one is 1992 Consensus. In fact, 1992 Consensus is not a particular meeting; instead, it is a political term that refers to the outcomes of a meeting that was organized in Hong Kong in 1992 between some semis-official representatives of PRC and ROC. The main idea of 1992 Consensus[footnoteRef:11] is closely related to “One-China” policy and another political statement, “One-China with respective interpretations”. Although the government of PRC thinks highly of the importances of 1992 Consensus, it has not been accepted by the government of ROC, even DPP denied the meanings and uses of 1992 Consensus. [11: Shiquan, Xu. "The 1992 Consensus: A review and assessment of consultations between the association for relations across the Taiwan Strait and the straits exchange foundation." American Foreign Policy Interests 23, no. 3 (2001): 121-140.]

Based on the circulation of personnel freedom, nowadays, the economic activities, trades, and other cooperations between PRC and ROC have been very close. On November 07, 2015, the former president of ROC, Ma Ying-jeou, and Xi Jinping met each other in Singapore, and had a friendly conversation about the development of Cross-Strait relations. However, since the reign of Tsai Ing-wen in 2016and, PRC has added much pressure to ROC because PRC government worried about the Cross-Strait policy of DPP government so much. In this way, the communications between PRC and ROC were weakened.

The fact, that PRC intervened and prevented ROC to become a member of United Nation as a “state”, can demonstrate that external actors are always important for both PRC and ROC when they carry out the “game” in Cross-Strait relations. As for some external actors that play important roles in Cross-Strait relations, Japan is a factor that cannot be ignored. Taiwan-Japan relations mainly refer to the relationship between ROC and Japan on different historical stages, as well as the current economic and cultural communications between ROC and Japan. However, in the current situation, the United States is the external actor that has most leverage in Cross-Strait relations. At the end of 2016, before Donald Trump became the president of the United States, he tried to use One-China policy as a bargaining chip to promote the negotiations about foreign trade with PRC. Moreover, he also tried to use ROC as a “pawn” to access the negotiating advantages of some issues such as DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) nuclear issue, and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, in order to let China make some concessions. On February 09, 2017, President Trump and President Xi had a further conversation on phone. In that conversation, President Trump stated that the United States will constitute strengthening the relations with China and following the long-standing One-China policy.

On the other hand, the United States also can be regarded as the key connector in Cross-Strait relations. Under the tense situation of Cross-Strait relations, the communications and cooperations between PRC and ROC have been receded on some aspects. In this case, the United States becomes the hinge that promotes the “indirect communications” between PRC and ROC. ROC government tried to achieve the relative independence by getting the supports from the United States. For PRC, Sino-America relations cannot be easily broken as well, therefore, PRC government will not allow ROC to make any negative effects on Sino-America relations, and does not let the conflict between PRC and ROC influence the relations between PRC and the United States. In a sense, PRC and ROC can understand some conditions of each other, combing some information, and expressing attitudes toward some specific issues by keeping in touch with the US.

In addition, some Southeast Asian countries, such as the Philippines, are also the ligament in Cross-Strait relations. ROC needs the international trade with some Southeast Asian countries to support Taiwan’s economy. In this way, although those Southeast Asian countries support One-China policy, ROC still does not want to arouse any clash with them. Although those Southeast Asian countries may not be able to improve the Cross-Strait relations, they maintained the stabilizing of the Cross-Strait relations indirectly.

Besides some countries, some cultural forums, students exchanging program, and other social activities also provided PRC and ROC more opportunities to communicate with each other, and they also can be seem as the dampeners of conflict in Cross-Strait relations.

At present, Cross-Strait relations are related to not only the interests of both sides of Taiwan Strait, but also the situations of Asia-Pacific region, and even the world’s strategic layout of power and global security. The consciousness about independence in ROC and the consciousness of unification in PRC are still colliding. And the ongoing armed conflict in Cross-Strait relations has become a long term issue, and it cannot be solved in a short term. In fact, in the current society, new generations’ attitudes and views toward Cross-Strait relations should not be ignored. Relating this conflict to the ideas of new generation in PRC, most of the young people are supporting “One-China” policy, and they would like to work on the achievement of unification between PRC and ROC. The reason is that the education they got has been full of the thoughts of CCP, so that they would like to support and protect CCP’s decisions and policies. And the statement that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory” has been rooted in their deep minds. In contract to the new generation in PRC, the young people in ROC do not have strong sense about CCP, they disagreed with some of the statements of CCP, and even they do not want to identify themselves as Chinese people. New generation will make significant effects on the development of Cross-Strait relations, and their thoughts should draw the attentions from both PRC and ROC. “One-China” policy is the main point of this game. PRC wants ROC to admit the “One-China” policy, and advocates that there is only one state “China”, although there are two governments existing, while ROC emphasizes that PRC and ROC are two different countries. In conclusion, the core incompatibility in Cross-Strait relations is the qualitative asymmetries about the political statues and identities of PRC and ROC.

References

Brands, Henry W. "Testing massive retaliation: credibility and crisis management in the Taiwan

Strait." International Security 12, no. 4 (1988): 124-151.

Fell, Dafydd. Party Politics in Taiwan: Party change and the democratic evolution of Taiwan,

1991-2004. Taylor & Francis, 2005: 16

Fravel, M. Taylor. "China's search for military power." Washington Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2008):

125-141

Global Security.org. Taiwan Strait.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis#/media/File%3ATaiwan_Strait.png. (Accessed March 23, 1996).

Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng, and Emerson MS Niou. "Salient issues in Taiwan's electoral

politics." Electoral Studies 15, no. 2 (1996): 219-235.

Liu, Wenling, Gert Spaargaren, Nico Heerink, Arthur PJ Mol, and Can Wang. "Energy

consumption practices of rural households in north China: Basic characteristics and

potential for low carbon development." Energy Policy 55 (2013): 128-138.

Kan, Shirley A. China/Taiwan: Evolution of the “One China” Policy--Key Statements from

Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. DIANE Publishing, 2011: 29-30

Shiquan, Xu. "The 1992 Consensus: A review and assessment of consultations between the

association for relations across the Taiwan Strait and the straits exchange

foundation." American Foreign Policy Interests 23, no. 3 (2001): 121-140.

The China Desk. The PRC vs. The ROC. http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2007/07/roc-vs-prc.html. (Accessed July 24, 2007).

Zhang, Julia, Randy Chiu, and Liqun Wei. "Decision-making process of internal whistleblowing

behavior in China: Empirical evidence and implications." Journal of Business Ethics 88

(2009): 25-41.