China’s crackdown on Hong Kong may have pushed Taiwan farther than ever

Less than 8% of respondents supported “unification” with mainland China, while most wanted to maintain the status quo – an arrangement by which Taiwan remains self-governing, without an official declaration of independence.

Samuel Lee, a student in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, said Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong had increased his distrust of the communist regime.

“It reinforced my views on the Chinese government (that) they don’t really do what they say. They always break their promises,” he said. “I really want Taiwan to remain the way it is today.”

rising tension

Mainland China and Taiwan have been governed separately since the end of the Chinese Civil War more than 70 years ago, when defeated Nationalists retreated to the island.

Taiwan is now a flourishing multi-party democracy, but the mainland’s ruling Communist Party of China continues to view the island as an inseparable part of its territory – even though it has never been controlled.

Today, relations between Taipei and Beijing are at their lowest level in decades. In October, China’s military sent a record number of warplanes into the air around Taiwan, while Chinese diplomats and state-run media warned of a possible invasion unless the island crossed Beijing’s line.

But it hasn’t always been like this. In fact, over the past 30 years, the prospect of conflict seemed far-fetched. In the early 1990s, many Taiwanese firms relocated manufacturing operations to the mainland, where labor was cheaper, and officials were hungry for outside investment to fuel economic growth.

Relations flourished further after the turn of the century. Taiwanese pop music and television became wildly popular on the mainland, and Chinese tourists continued to visit Taiwan, which was promoted by state media as China’s “treasure island”.

In an interview with CNN last month, Tsai said the threat from Beijing is increasing “every day”.

“China’s plan towards this area is very different from before,” she said. “It’s more ambitious, more expansionary, and so things that were acceptable to them then may not be acceptable to them now.”

Speaking to CNN in October, Tsai said her citizens had rejected the model. “The people of Taiwan have clearly stated that they do not accept ‘one country, two systems’ as a formula that can solve cross-strait issues,” she said.

Austin Wang, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas who specializes in Taiwanese politics, said Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong have played a significant role in the way Taiwan’s younger generation sees China.

“In the past, many Taiwanese were fine with ‘One Country, Two Systems’ because China promised that people’s day-to-day lives would remain the same. But the situation in Hong Kong suggests the opposite,” he said.

“I think the issue is trust. When Taiwanese people do not consider China to be trustworthy, all promises or incentives given by China are discounted.”

economic interdependence

But despite rising tensions in the Taiwan Strait in recent years, both Beijing and Taipei cannot afford to cut ties altogether.

Last year, mainland China was Taiwan’s largest trading partner and accounted for 26% of the island’s total trade volume, according to Taiwan’s Foreign Trade Bureau.

Meanwhile, mainland firms are relying on Taiwan – notably Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) – for their super-advanced semiconductor chips as China competes with the US in a technology race.

While the world’s attention has often been focused on Beijing’s growing military threat on Taipei, Wang said many Taiwanese also recognized that the island’s economy depends on its ties with the mainland.

“The Taiwanese people really understand the importance of cross-strait economic cooperation, and Taiwan’s economy is highly dependent on China,” he said.

“Nevertheless, the people of Taiwan are also cautious about how much China can exploit this dependence for political gains.”

“Regional economic integration is an unstoppable global trend. If we do not face it and engage in the process, it will only be a matter of time before we are eliminated from competition,” Ma said.

Lin, then a graduate student at National Taiwan University, later led the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which successfully forced Ma’s government to scrap the trade deal. The three-week-long protest saw student activists take over Taiwan’s legislative building in the island’s largest demonstrations in decades.

Today, Lin regularly advises President Tsai on key policies. He said Taiwan should reduce its economic dependence on China by forging greater partnerships with the United States, Japan and the rest of the world.

“We should be aware that China is a country that often uses economic means to interfere in the politics of other countries,” he said. “We will continue to negotiate economically with China in the future, but we must also keep our distance to minimize the impact of supply chain restructuring or China’s internal instability to Taiwan.”