Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Lee Teng-hui Nixed Secret Meeting with China's Jiang in 1990s

Max Hirsch of Kyodo reported a couple of days ago that Lee Teng-hui nixed a secret meeting in the Strait aboard a ship with President Jiang of China:

Former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui admitted in a recent exclusive with Kyodo News that he had nixed a covert meeting with then Chinese President Jiang Zemin in the 1990s after Jiang, according to a Taiwanese shipping tycoon, had already signaled a willingness to attend the tete-a-tete.

"I was asked to attend the meeting, but I refused -- that's true," Lee told Kyodo, saying that he had rejected the summit for fear of hindering democratization at home by "joining hands" with the island's authoritarian rival.

The admission marks the first time Lee, 85, has gone on record about the planned meeting, billed by analysts as a would-be watershed in China-Taiwan relations.

A Beijing-Taipei summit has never emerged amid more than a half-century of enmity that could trigger war, even as businesses ties across the Taiwan Strait flourish.

.....

Hosted by Taiwan's influential Evergreen Group, the secret summit -- designed to ease tensions -- was to transpire on the group's freighter straddling the Taiwan Strait's median line, which divides the maritime zones of Taiwan and China, Evergreen Group Chairman Chang Yung-fa told Kyodo in a January exclusive.

Evergreen is a Taipei-based shipping and transportation conglomerate founded by Chang, 80, who masterminded and pitched the meeting to Beijing and Taipei.

China and Taiwan regularly propose peace talks with each other, but Beijing's insistence that Taipei first recognize its "One China" principle before meeting have marred all efforts to hold open talks.

The canceled clandestine summit marks the first reported case of a Chinese president agreeing to meet his Taiwanese counterpart unconditionally.

Adding to the drama of the expected talks were simultaneous helicopter trips -- one for Lee from Taiwan; the other for Jiang from China, Chang said. Each man was to arrive at the ship at the same time to symbolize '"an equality of sovereignty."

In December, Hong Kong newsweekly Yazhou Zhoukan quoted Tang Shubei, former vice chairman of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, as confirming the momentous meeting that almost was -- the first such admission from a Chinese official.

A quasi-governmental agency, ARATS facilitates cross-strait dialogue for Beijing.

"Jiang couldn't go to Taiwan, Lee wasn't willing to go to China, and Hong Kong was ruled by the British," Tang said. "So, meeting on a ship in the strait became a possibility."

Chang said he lobbied Beijing "for three months" until Jiang expressed a willingness to attend the meeting "sometime between 1993 and 1996," before China's military began lobbing unarmed missiles near Taiwan that year.

Jiang, he said, dispatched Wang Zhaoguo, who directed China's Taiwan Affairs Office from 1990 to 1996, to Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, to meet with Chang and signal Jiang's willingness to attend.

A longtime friend of Lee, Chang also persuaded the Taiwanese president to approve the proposal, and for a time, the meeting appeared on the verge of happening, he said. At the last minute, however, Lee sent word through a staffer that he was pulling out, Chang added.

"If...while furthering Taiwan's democratization, I had been seen as taking cues from Jiang Zemin, many problems would have arisen," Lee said, while explaining his rejection of the summit.

"(Chang) is a businessman. Businessmen only think about their own interests," Lee said. "I couldn't have an outsider leading the nation."

For a Taiwan rapt in democratization throughout the 1990s, a summit with communist China could have sparked a backlash for Lee if news of the meeting had leaked.

Jeopardizing the island's nascent democracy movement by fueling a perception of bowing to Beijing -- and so soon after "Tiananmen Square" -- was not a risk Lee was willing to take.

In 1989, a mass demonstration of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing turned bloody after People's Liberation Army troops killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters in or near Tiananmen Square, squashing the rally.

Succeeding the late Chiang Ching-kuo as president in 1988, Lee is typically credited with fostering Taiwan's then delicate shift to democracy, while Beijing has resisted political reformation despite its economic liberalization.

Chang, however, told a different story: Lee, he alleged, sought all credit for the landmark rendezvous, brushing aside Chang and going through a "Hong Kong connection" to re-schedule the summit and seal his legacy.

Indeed, in 1992, Taipei under Lee set a benchmark in cross-strait exchanges after Koo Chen-fu of the Straits Exchange Foundation, ARATS' counterpart on Taiwan, met with Wang Daohan, then ARATS chairman, in Hong Kong.

So promising were the talks that Koo and Wang Daohan met again in 1993 under more formal circumstances in Singapore.

In 1996, however, cross-strait relations nosedived after China fired missiles near Taiwan in exercises meant to curtail the island's growing independence movement.

Undeterred, Taiwanese voters that year elected Lee to stay on as president in the island's first direct presidential election.

Ever since, the government in Taipei -- be it under Lee or the Democratic Progressive Party -- has struck a stridently pro-independence tone, while cross-strait exchanges fumble on behind closed doors.

"Such is Taiwan's fate," lamented Chang, while reminiscing last month over the canceled summit and cross-strait ties.

Business opportunities galore, he said, are lost to enduring enmity across the strait as Taiwan slips further into economic malaise.

"If the summit had happened, Taiwan wouldn't be the way it is now," he said. "It'd be prosperous."

Taiwan is quite prosperous, thank you. Do people really think we can go back to the days of 8% annual growth? 5% is dandy, really.

This is a very interesting tale, but I think Chang overdramatizes the effect of such a meeting. It is far more likely that the Chinese would simply have insisted that Taiwan is part of China, and nothing would have come of it.



8 comments:

Red A said...

Well, 5% is nice, but if we could do better, wouldn't that be desirable? Due to compounding, even small increases like 5% to 5.5% matter.

Look at the silly China garlic situation - where's the politician who frees up trade in Taiwan so that prices can become lower, not higher. The KMT featured Taiwan's beleaguered towel makers in an ad. Like how many towel makers actually exist and what national defense issue is at stake to protect their industry?

Beyond the economy, I think the government here could do better on many fronts. I don't know if its a national issue at all, but the state of roads in Taichung is horrendous. Frankly, Vietnam compared better, let alone China which is world-class in many cities now.

How about reforming the health system - why can I only get two days of medicine at a time, requiring wasted hours waiting for a doctor to re-examine my child's cold every 48 hours. (Maybe I should note that my wife thinks this is absolutely VITAL care, and apparently so do the many people waiting in line. Maybe more science education is in order.)

Lots of opportunities in Taiwan for market reforms and improved governmental services. I must credit my local politician who the day after he was elected instituted morning and evening garbage collection

Michael Turton said...

Hell yes, it would be great to do better. I just don't think we can. How many economies with Taiwan's per capita income grow more than 5% a year, sustained?

The garlic sitaution makes me laugh -- it's been that way for twenty years now. It serves vested interests to keep it illegal, i suspect.

I think the main problem with the improvement situation is the lack of demand for it -- the public just doesn't seem to care about many issues that we outsiders might.

Michael

Anonymous said...

Taiwan can definitely do better, but I don't think there is good reason to be pessimistic at all. Taiwan has several bright spots going on: traditional OEM/ODM manufacturing continues to be dominated by Taiwanese (Hon Hai, Quanta, etc), but new industries, like the LCD panel industry has gone from liftoff to the stratosphere with it looking like the huge winner for the forseeable future (does anyone remember rear projection TVs? plasma or OLED anyone? LCD has dominated them all), solar panels are selling like hotcakes, the DRAM industry looks like it will be recovering with some players leaving the industry...

Taiwan's branded businesses are also the big story of 2007. All people really remember is the failure of BenQ trying to enter the cellular handset market and failing spectacularly with the purchase of Siemens (either getting conned or simply not doing due diligence), but there were a lot of good things going on elsewhere. Acer is now the worldwide number 3 PC maker in the world. Asus is winning design awards right and left and hit a home run, no a grand slam, with the EEE PC. HTC is doing very well with its branded smartphones.

Traditional industries are getting into the act too--CPC and Formosa Plastics Group (oil refining, oil products), China Steel are picking up do to increased global demand for raw materials. China Telecom is expanding into Vietnam.

Last, we have WiMAX waiting in the wings, as well as a nascent, but fast growing biotech industry.

The real problem for Taiwan right now is the service sector. It really needs to figure out an international strategy and go beyond just Taiwan. There has been some success in the food and beverage sector.

Finance has been a surprise success too, if only relative to the rest of the world. Just as Taiwan was unaffected by the Asian Financial Crisis, Taiwan has been completely unscathed by the subprime mortgage mess. In 2000, the total market cap of TAIEX was around 8 trillion NT. Today, it has ballooned to nearly 20 trillion NT (not something you hear in the news everyday). Though starting late, TAIEX is finally preparing to allow companies from other countries to IPO in Taiwan.

Still, service accounts for 70% of the economy, and it needs to find ways to grow beyond Taiwan and start exporting, just as the IT/electronics industry has.

Anyways, Red's suggestion about improving gov't efficiency, I agree with completely. I personally think what should absolutely, absolutely be at the top of the list is the privatization of 1) postal financial services (what a goddamn waste...) 2) privatization of the Taiwan Rail Administration in conjunction with a big plan to do some urban planning/renewal with all that land that TRA holds in major urban areas in Taiwan. It's a perfect Taiwanese politician issue too, since you can build lots of "stuff" and claim it as a political accomplishment. Last 3) China Petroleum Company really needs to be privatized as well, with some sort of carbon tax on gasoline. I'd also recommend setting water and electricity prices at the true cost of production, plus slapping a carbon tax on electricity generated with fossil fuels too.

Anyways, Taiwan's fundamentals are good. A little better English, a DPP president to balance the KMT legislature (and temper the corruption), and I think Taiwan is ready to really accelerate growth even more.

Anonymous said...

This account just confirms what's been assumed by many for years: Beijing is willing to meet and negotiate *informally*, without making any demands on issues of sovereignty. The meeting between Hu Jintao and Lien Chan in Beijing could've just as easily been between Hu and Chen Shui-bian.

But the obstacle to progress remains firmly in Taipei.

Michael Turton said...

But the obstacle to progress remains firmly in Taipei.

It is Beijing that won't negotiate with the current Taiwan government, formally or informally, not Taipei. Things are different than in those days.

Michael

Anonymous said...

Michael,

Things were "different" in the old days alright... they were *more* tense in terms of mainland policy, not less. If you put half the time into understanding mainland policy that you put into seeking intellectual fig leafs for Chen Shui-bian's policies, you'd be well aware of this.

Michael Turton said...

Things were "different" in the old days alright... they were *more* tense in terms of mainland policy, not less.

I didn't say they weren't tense.

If you put half the time into understanding mainland policy that you put into seeking intellectual fig leafs for Chen Shui-bian's policies, you'd be well aware of this.

If you put half the effort you put into nonsense non sequitors into saying something intelligent, the pro-democracy crowd might have some respect for you.

I guess I'll never understand your servile, pro-China ways. I just don't get people who worship authority, cctang.

Michael

Anonymous said...

Michael, cctang keeps trolling... he wants you to waste time responding to his provokes to keep you occupied and to get a reaction.

When his posts go over the line, just don't bother responding or allowing his comments to be posted.