One China, Two Parties

Taipei

In October 1958, Communist China was firing thousands of shells each day at Chinese Nationalist forces entrenched on the tiny island of Quemoy, just two miles from the mainland. The island had become a Cold War flash point, and the Eisenhower administration feared that the shelling would soon be followed by a Communist attempt to capture Quemoy and with it the tens of thousands of Nationalist troops garrisoned there. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles rushed to Taipei to meet with Chiang Kai-shek and discuss the complete withdrawal of Nationalist forces from the island.

According to an account in Jay Taylor's new book The Generalissimo, Chiang then sent a message to his enemies in Beijing warning that unless the shelling stopped he would be forced "to do what the Americans wanted." The day after Dulles left Taipei, the Chicoms announced they would limit their shelling to even-numbered days, leaving the Nationalists free to resupply their forces on odd-numbered days and bringing an end to the crisis. Zhou Enlai, the first premier of Red China, would later tell Henry Kissinger that Mao's Chinese Communist party (CCP) and Chiang's Kuomintang (KMT) had "cooperated to thwart the efforts of Dulles," who was pushing the withdrawal as part of a larger American strategy to permanently split Taiwan from the mainland.

More than 50 years later, American officials rigidly adhere to a One China policy lest they give any offense to Beijing, but the KMT and the CCP are still cooperating to thwart the efforts of those who would separate Taiwan from mainland China. That part is now played by Taiwan's Democratic Progressive party (DPP).

The 2000 election of DPP leader Chen Shui-bian as president of Taiwan marked the first democratic transfer of power in Taiwanese history, but after two terms in office Chen is in prison and his party in shambles. Chen had pursued a policy of "creeping independence" from mainland China, raising tensions in the strait and earning him a reputation as a troublemaker in Beijing and Washington. Chen's efforts to create a sense of Taiwanese, rather than Chinese, identity on the island were more successful, but with the KMT-controlled parliament obstructing his agenda and corruption scandals plaguing his administration, the DPP had little to show for his eight years in office.

In Taiwan's 2008 presidential election, KMT candidate Ma Ying-jeou, the Harvard-educated former mayor of Taipei, easily defeated a DPP candidate who couldn't distance himself from an unpopular incumbent. Ma pledged that there would be no negotiations over reunification during his term, but his call for greater engagement with China and his steadfast support for the One China policy led opponents to question his commitment to Taiwanese sovereignty. During the campaign Ma was compelled to declare that he was not Chinese but "Taiwanese" (one DPP member of parliament alleged he was actually born on the mainland) and that he would be buried in Taiwan. After eight years of DPP rule, even KMT officials must pander to Taiwanese nationalist sentiment in order to get elected.

Since being sworn in last May, Ma has pursued a policy that his critics describe as "creeping reunification." Over the last year, the KMT has worked to deepen cross-strait ties by eliminating caps on Taiwanese investment in China, establishing direct air links between the island and the mainland for the first time (100 charter flights a week now run between Taiwan's domestic airport and Shanghai), and opening negotiations with Beijing on an "economic cooperation framework agreement."

On the surface, the KMT's policy of engagement has had some success. The air links have been a boon to Taiwanese businessmen, who previously had to spend a full day traveling via Hong Kong or some third country to get to their operations on the mainland. The flights-and a ferry service to the once closed military zone of Quemoy-also bring thousands of Chinese tourists to Taiwan every day, creating business for hotels, restaurants, and other sectors of the service industry.