Alan M. Wachman: Diplomacy Across the Taiwan Straits

From The Harvard Asia Quarterly, Professor Alan Wachman wrote about “the ‘State-to-State’ Flap: Tentative Conclusions About Risk and Restraint in Diplomacy Across the Taiwan Straits”:

Poring over the ashes of the diplomatic conflagration ignited by Lee Teng-hui’s interview with Deutsche Welle (Voice of Germany) on July 9, 1999, students of diplomacy may now be emboldened to draw lessons from what happened. It is probably too soon to determine whether the diplomatic fire is completely out or whether there are embers remaining from the summer’s confrontation that may flare up anew. However, it does seem that Lee Teng-hui’s gambit succeeded because Beijing exercised calculated restraint. Beijing’s pique was pricked by one phrase President Lee used in response to a question about cross-Strait tensions. Seeking to make clear that Taiwan should not be viewed as a renegade province of China, Lee explained that amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1991 cast cross-Strait relations “as a state-to-state relationship or at least a special state-to-state relationship, rather than an internal relationship between a legitimate government and a renegade group, or between a central government and a local government.” This explicit assertion of Taiwan’s status reinforced fears in Beijing that Lee Teng-hui is not committed, as he claims, to the unification of China, but is working to ensure that Taiwan’s separation from the mainland endures. Beijing views “China” as a nation-state that must be unified under one government and territorially indivisible. It derives legitimacy, in part, from defending the dignity and integrity of “one China” against foreign and domestic forces that threaten to divide it. Imposing its ideal on reality, the PRC does not concede that China is now a divided state. So, Lee’s “state-to-state” nomenclature-indicating that each side is sovereign over only those territories it currently governs-conflicts with Beijing’s prescription: that there is one China.

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