關弘昌的部落格

In the late 1980s, Taiwan started its transition into a democracy after the ruling KMT launched a series of political reforms. In the meantime, it also initiated a range of economic and social exchanges with China, the island's rival state since 1949. What effect, if there is any, has Taiwan's democratization brought to its policy toward China?

In our opinion, although Taiwan's political reforms were associated with the appearance of a peaceful China policy during the period from 1987 to the mid-1990s, they eventually contributed to the increase of Taiwan's conflictual actions toward China from the mid-1990s to 2004. We trace the sources of this connection between Taiwan's democratization and China policy back to President Lee Teng-hui's rational calculation. We argue that when Lee took over power the best option for him to survive and secure his power base within the ruling KMT was to launch deeper political refo rms and follow the 「One China」 policy. Lee's adherence to the 「One China」 policy set a peaceful tone for Taiwan's China policy in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. However, his political reforms had turned elections into an occasion for politicians to promote implicitly or explicitly the issues regarding Taiwan's independent status, which increasingly raised people's Taiwanese identity after the mid-1990s. In order to appeal to the rising Taiwanese identity, politicians kept campaigning on independence-related issues in elections, which essentially were provocative in China's eyes. Thus, democratization has made elections a regular and frequent political competition in Taiwan. But because politicians tended to raise Taiwan-independence issues in these elections, especially when Taiwanese identity continued to grow after the mid-1990s, Taiwan's conflictual actions toward China would appear whenever elections neared. Consequently, the period from the mid-1990s to 2004 also witnesses a growth of Taiwan's conflictual actions toward China.
 
-- from Eugene Hung-chang Kuan and Tse-min Lin, "Taiwan's Democratization and China Policy: 1987-2004," paper presented at the annual meeting of 2007 Taiwanese Political Science Association.