The EU and Cross-Strait Relations: European Policies towards the Greater China
Centre and Periphery
Bruno Coppieters
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
[email protected]
Paper for the Fourth European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) Conference,
Stockholm University, 21-22 April 2007.
Provisional draft, without language corrections
About three thousand years ago, oracle bones were used in China to predict future events.
The predictions covered crucial issues, such as good and bad omens in the king’s dreams,
weather conditions, and warfare. The oracle bone divinations provided the necessary
knowledge for decision making. For present-day scholars, these bones (or shells) are
important sources to retrace customs and political events in ancient times. Moreover, the
script to be found on these oracle bones permit to reconstruct the evolution of the Chinese
writing, as some of its characteristics have been preserved up today. Chinese characters,
contrary to many other forms of pictographic writing, have indeed been passed down and
transformed continuously over thirty centuries, from the late Chang dynasty up to the
present.1
It is interesting to notice that the divinatory inquiry used to give spiritual powers
to these bones has some formal resemblance with present day scientific practices. A kind
of preface indicated the time of divination and its author. Only one question could be
This paper has been presented at the International Conference on “The Emerging Global
Role and Tasks of the European Union”, organized by the Institute of International
Relations, National Chengchi University, Taipei, 19-20 December 2006.
1
See Hsu Ya-hwei, Ancient Chinese Writing. Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Ruins of
Yin, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2002, pp. 36-38.
1
asked at each divinatory session. Then as now, knowledge of future events required a
clear focus. In the case of the oracle bones, this requirement did not exclude that an
enquiry on the same subject could be repeated numerous times, a repetitive act of
verification that is also common to present scientific practice. The outcome of the
divination was then inscribed on the shells or bones in order to provide a reference for
future checking, and it was sometimes even indicated if the real outcome confirmed with
the prognostication, 2 a kind of enquiry in line with best practices in present social
sciences.
The present paper, which focuses on the policies of the European Union in the
conflict on sovereignty across the Taiwan Strait, is likewise based on ancient ideas, that
have been continuously been used up to the present day. Among the various symbolic
signs, the circle has traditionally been one of the most powerful and suggestive. The
concept of a centre has been associated over the centuries with the sacred and the
transcendent, with the pole that subordinates the periphery. It is only through this
subordination that it may affirm its sacred and superior character.
This is precisely the case in any modern conflict on sovereignty. States and
nations, who have succeeded to the Gods as sovereign powers, affirm the sacred
character of their will through its imposition on periphery territories. The idea of a state,
even the idea of a de facto state is based on such a centre-periphery relationship. State
control over a fixed population and over a clearly delineated territory, and the capacity to
enter into relations with other centres are its defining characteristics.3 The principles of
territorial integrity of states and of national self-determination also honor this view. If an
external power crosses the peripheral boundaries of a state without its authorization, it
commits an act of aggression that questions the very nature of that state as a supreme
power. The principle of national self-determination, if pushed to its ultimate logical
conclusion of a claim for full independence, is based on the view that nations have each
the right to constitute a centre, on par with other centres.
2
See Hsu Ya-hwei, op. cit., p. 28.
These are the material features of a state according to the so-called “declaratory” theory
of the state. According to the constitutive approach, the recognition of a state by other
states, of a centre by other centres, is the primary condition of the existence of a state.
3
2
The model of a centre-periphery relationship aims at providing a better
understanding for the dynamic processes taking place as a consequence of the spatial
partitioning by borders.4 The present paper assumes that this model is particularly well
suited to analyze the domestic and international dimensions of conflicts on sovereignty,
including the one on the status of Taiwan. Furthermore, it permits us to engage in an
analysis of future policy options, particularly those of the European Union. The paper
proceeds in four steps.
First, we will differentiate the various types of centre-periphery relations that are
applicable to conflicts on sovereignty.
Second, we will use these various meanings in an analysis of the dynamic
interaction processes across the Straits. The shift of international recognition that took
place in the 1970s expressed first of all a recognition of the degree of inequality and
asymmetry between Mainland China and Taiwan. The international community
acknowledged the One China principle. It thus accepted that the nature of the state
structures at the periphery had to be defined in the terms of the centre. For the European
Union specifically, this signifies that its policies towards Taiwan are part of its China
policies. As part of the European policies to another state, the Taiwan policies of the EU
cannot be compared to its bilateral policies with any recognized state.
Third, this model is used to describe the normative positions in the cross-Strait
debate. The alternatives range from a conception where the own authority is considered
4
I have applied the center-periphery model to the security situation in Georgia in the
following publications: ‘Conclusions: Locating Georgian Security’, in: Bruno Coppieters
and Robert Legvold (eds), Statehood and Security: Georgia After the Rose Revolution,
Cambridge/Mass., MIT Press, 2005, pp. 339-387; ‘Georgia in Europe: The Idea of a
Periphery in International Relations,’ in Bruno Coppieters, Alexei Zverev, and Dmitri
Trenin, eds., Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia, London: Frank
Cass, 1998, pp. 44–68; ‘An EU Special Representative to a New Periphery,’ in Dov Lynch,
ed., The South Caucasus: A Challenge for the EU, Chaillot Papers no. 65, December 2003,
pp. 161–170, http://www.iss-eu.org/chaillot/chai65e.pdf; an application of the centreperiphery model on the European policies at its boundaries is to be found in Michael
Emerson, Marius Vahl, Bruno Coppieters, Michel Huysseune, Tamara Kovziridze,
Gergana Noutcheva and Nathalie Tocci, ‘Elements of Comparison and Synthesis’ in
Bruno Coppieters et al., Europeanization and Conflict Resolution: Case Studies from the
European Periphery, Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe, issue 1,
2004, http://www.ecmi.de/jemie/
3
to constitute a centre confronting a periphery that has to be recovered (the PRC-position)
up to a conception where both authorities are seen as constituting two centres that have
either to reconstitute a reunified China through the mutual respect of their respective
equality (the Kuomintang-position) or that have to constitute separate independent states
(the position of the Taiwan Independence Movement). There are several variants to these
three positions which have to be explored through the centre-periphery model, including
the positions taken by the external actors US and EU. The questions of equality,
asymmetry and hierarchy are crucial to all of them.
Fourth, this model may be used as an instrument to predict the consequences of
possible changes at the centre of the Greater China.
The following analysis is based on the following two hypotheses. As all types of
centre-periphery relations are unequal, asymmetrical and hierarchical, it may be assumed
that the transformation in the relationship between both poles is affected by changes in
each of the poles, but more fundamentally by changes at the centre than at the periphery.
The use of a centre-periphery model further assumes that the transformation of the
relationship between both poles will affect more substantially the periphery than the
centre.
These two hypotheses have to be tested historically, for instance by analyzing the
consequences of the international recognition of the PRC as the sole’s representative of
China on the domestic transformation of Taiwan. If confirmed, these hypotheses have
also consequences for predictions concerning the future, for instance concerning the
potential impact of a democratization of mainland China on the cross-Strait relations. The
hypotheses derived from the centre-periphery model can also be used to measure the
impact of external involvement in the cross Strait conflict. The paper will analyse the EU
policies towards Taiwan with the help of this model.
For these purposes, various types of centre–periphery relations have to be
distinguished. They all express asymmetrical relations in respect to material and
normative resources making the periphery dependent from the centre. Among these
various forms of hierarchical relations, the term “periphery” in centre–periphery relations
may refer to lines of confrontation. The centre confronts the periphery or confronts
external threats at the periphery. Second, a process of integration of the periphery by the
4
centre may take place, a process which may amount to the assimilation of the periphery
through the centre. Third, the term “periphery” expresses something of marginal
importance to the centre, which may then take an attitude of indifference toward the
periphery. According to a fourth meaning, the periphery plays a bridgehead function for
the centre, providing a link to the outside world. Confrontation, integration, indifference
and bridgehead are the key words for our analysis of centre-periphery relations.
The cross-strait conflict is a conflict on the status of Taiwan that does not find its
origin in a secessionist conflict – defined as a conflict where the periphery wants to
withdraw from the authority of the centre - but as a conflict between government and
opposition at the centre about the control of the centre. This conflict has been decided in
China in 1949 by the military victory of the revolutionary opposition over nationalist
forces. This victory was decisive but not complete, as the nationalist forces retained
control on Taiwan. The revolutionary transformation of the centre – leading to the
creation of a new state, the People’s Republic of China – led also to a new relationship
with the Taiwan periphery, which affected more substantially the periphery than the
centre. The modified relationship between the Mainland and Taiwan as a result of the
civil war led to radical changes in the periphery – foremost on the demographic and
political level – that exceeded by far its consequences for the Mainland.
As a result of the Cold War, Taiwan became part of the American defense system,
in which it was empowered with a strategic significance in the containment of the
communist threat. Its integration into the American defense system did not only have an
impact on Taiwan’s security, but also on its economical and political system. Massive
military support from Washington made it possible that the nationalist government on
Taiwan behaved as a central government that strived for retaking legitimate control over
lost territory.
In this particular phase of the Cold War period, before the normalisation of
relations between Washington and Beijing, the relationship between Taiwan and the
mainland can thus be understood as the result of policies based on three different centreperiphery relations: one where Taiwan was perceived by Beijing as a lost territory to be
reconquered by force by the central government, one where the mainland was perceived
by Taipei as a lost territory to be reconquered by force by the central government, and
5
one where Taiwan was perceived by Washington as an advance defense line against
communism. In all three relationships, the periphery was primarily defined as a place of
confrontation. In the common view of Beijing and Taipei of China as a divided nation,
the periphery had to be integrated into the centre. In the view of Washington, the Taiwan
periphery was perceived as being integrated into the centre. In none of these relationships,
the periphery was defined as a bridgehead with other regions or centre-periphery relations.
In none of them, the periphery was defined in terms of indifference. None could at the
time be indeed indifferent to political developments on the Mainland and Taiwan had a
seat in the UN Security Council. The Cold War confrontation had put Taiwan at the
centre of world politics.
The American relations with Taipei changed drastically as a result of the revision
of the American strategy in Asia in the 1970s and the normalization of its relations with
the People’s Republic of China. The American efforts in the beginning of the 1970s to
promote a dual representation of China in the UN could be described as a policy
promoting the peaceful coexistence of two centres. This attempt failed and at the end of
the decade, Taiwan was more isolated than ever.5 It preserved, however, an advanced
periphery position in the American defense strategy, and the passing by the US Congress
of the Taiwan’s Relations Act in 1979, after the establishment of full diplomatic relations
with Beijing, stated clearly that the US would not remain indifferent to the fate of the
island. But its exclusive privileges in international diplomacy had clearly come to an end.
In centre-periphery terms, integration, indifference and confrontation remained the key
terms to understand the position of Taipei in its relationship to Washington.
As a periphery entity, Taipei never had the leverage to halt the transformation of
its relationship to the centre. It was radically affected by the change of its relationship
with the Washington both on the international and on the domestic level. It did not only
loose its position in most international organisations where it was part of, starting with
5
This was the situation for more than a decade. Taiwan was member of only 11
International Governmental Organisations in 1991, less than Liechtenstein or Buthan
(both 57) and Namibia (52) which count as the three UN members with the least
participation. This illustrates the extent of its international isolation. In the 1990s, new
diplomatic initiatives managed however a turn to the better. Taiwan managed to increase
its IGO membership to 31 in 2002. See Chien-pin Li, ‘Taiwan’s Participation in InterGovernmental Organizations’, Asian Survey, Vol. 46, No 4, July/August 2006, p. 599.
6
the UN, but the loss of its privileged position in the American strategy was also one of
the factors in the transformation of its domestic politics, leading to the lifting of the
martial law in 1987 and the creation of a multi-party democracy. The internal
transformation of Taiwan made also the fault line in the population between so-called
“Mainlanders” and “Taiwanese”, which reflected domestically the cross-strait centreperiphery relationship, more visible. The creation and functioning of political parties
along this fault line showed the substantial impact of the cross-Strait centre-periphery
relations on the domestic structure of the periphery.
A second radical transformation of the position of Taiwan as a periphery entity
happened in relation to Beijing with the economic reforms espoused by the Chinese
Communist Party in 1979, which was based on the presupposition that a modernization of
the centre would create a long term material basis for “peaceful reunification”. Beijing
conceived the centre-periphery relations with Taiwan as integration and as subordination.
Also in this case, the change of the centre-periphery relationship after 1979 was primary
the product of fundamental reforms initiated by the centre. On the political level, Taiwan
has refused to engage in negotiations that would formalize its position as a periphery. But
it failed to resist dependency successfully on the economic level. Taiwan has tried but has
progressively experienced greater difficulties in averting economic dependency from the
mainland, and has been losing progressively its control over cross-strait economic flows.
Economic indicators such as export dependence and trade-surplus dependency on China
have grown dramatically over the years.6 In the view of the centre, Taiwan had – just as
Hong Kong and Macau - a role to play as a bridgehead with Western capital markets,
even if this position would strengthen Taiwan’s own position in front of the mainland.
Thus both the centre and periphery found a certain advantage in having Taiwan turned
into a bridgehead for the centre, but the economic relations between both sides of the
straits becoming progressively more asymmetrical, in favour of the centre.
Mainland China and Taiwan have gone in the last 30 years through tremendous
changes. As far as the specific impact of the cross-strait relationship on the domestic
transformation of both sides is concerned, it seems that it has affected the periphery more
6
See Hui-wan Cho, ‘China-Taiwan Tug of War in the WTO’, Asian Survey, Vol. 45, No 5,
September/October 2005, pp. 738-739.
7
deeply than the centre, both on the economic and political level. Taiwan changed
tremendously as a result of these transformations in its periphery position towards both
Washington and Beijing in the 1970s. Democratisation and the policies of
“Taiwanisation” of parties and the state structures have put an end to the hegemony of
politicians originating from the Mainland.
The unresolved cross-strait conflict on the status of Taiwan not only reflected on
domestic politics but also directly on the identity of individual citizens. Opinion polls on
the question of a single versus a dual national identity reflect the continuous changes in
nationalist mood on the island. These questions of identity are formulated in terms of
priority – exclusive for single identity, non-exclusive for dual identity –, reflecting a
centre-periphery conception of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Those
individuals expressing a single identity as Taiwanese or Chinese consider either Taiwan
or China as a central and exclusive focus of loyalty, whereas those who express one or
the other form of a dual identity state that their loyalty goes to Taiwan and to China either
in or without a certain order of priority. Contrary to those who express a single national
identity, those who express a dual personal identity refuse to lift the psychological
tension between the two poles.
In its relations to Beijing, Taipei had to avert that integration turned into
subordination. In its relations to Washington, it had to prevent indifference. The
democratization of Taiwan was helpful to increase its leverage in Washington. The new
relationship with the international community forced also the Taiwanese periphery to
reconsider the constitutional fiction of representing a central authority that had to recover
the territory lost by the civil war. The 1993 Mainland Affairs Council’s White paper
suspended Taiwan’s claim for sovereignty on the mainland. But by doing so, Taiwan
replaced one form of confrontation with Beijing – on the legitimate authority to represent
the one China – with another – on the question of Taiwanese state identity and status.
Taiwan’s pursuing of a dual recognition and dual representation in the UN during Lee
Teng-hui’s administration in 1988-2000 had as an objective to have the existence of two
equal political entities in a divided nation recognized. Lee Teng-hui further spoke about
state-to-state relations. This means that reunification should proceed according to a model
8
recognizing the equal rights of two centres, and not according to any kind of centreperiphery model.
On the diplomatic level, a new battlefield further emerged concerning the question
of participation of Taiwan to international governmental organisations and – in those rare
cases it could participate - of the precise nature of its status. Framed in a centre-periphery
framework, Beijing tries to have Taiwan’s peripheral status confirmed by the
international community. As stated in the Beijing 2000 White paper ‘The One-China
Principle and the Taiwan Issue’, Taipei could only be accepted in those IGOs which
practiced the membership of regions. According to these policy guidelines, the existing
ad hoc arrangements made for some international organisations in favour of Taipei’s
participation, such as APEC and WTO, does not offer a precedent for membership to
others.7 China insists that its own membership to the WTO was based on its sovereign
status, whereas the “Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu”
or “Chinese Taipei” has only the status of a separate customs territory, meaning China’s
separate customs territory.8 Taiwan has resisted these views. It had to compromise on its
denomination in the WTO as a customs territory, but it always refused to be considered
as a dependent entity, stressing its own standing in this organization and distinguishing its
qualifications from those of Hong Kong and Macau.9
Beijing – and the Chinese community of scholars and officials working on crossstrait issues - has over time advanced several interpretations of its guiding foreign policy
formula of ‘one country, two systems’, but none of them departs from a centre-periphery
approach to reunification. Even the interpretation of this formula that does not refer to
Taiwan as a province of the People’s Republic of China but considers that ‘one country’
should be understood as a state building process that will emerge from the negotiations
between the sides, does not consider them equal in the sense of being equally sovereign.
In the view of Beijing, any conception common state structures has moreover to take into
7
Chien-pin Li, op. cit., p. 602. For the time being, Taiwan and China are both members
from seven international organisations: three have an economic purpose (Asian
Development Bank, APEC and WTO) and four that provide a framework for technical
information and support in such fields as meteorlogy and agriculture. See Chien-pin Li, p.
603.
8
Hui-wan Cho, op. cit., p. 745.
9
Hui-wan Cho, op. cit., p. 741.
9
account the degree of inequality between the sides in terms of demographics and
economic potential. Institutional mechanisms may correct this asymmetry, and even
include provisions to create some forms of symmetry in certain domains10, but cannot lift
basic discrepancies in material and normative resources.
Taiwan’s is divided over the question which kind of progress has to be achieved
with mainland China, but there is a cross-party consensus that the formula of ‘one
country, two systems’ cannot lead to a fruitful dialogue between the sides. In the view of
the Taiwanese political elites, equality in the negotiation process - and sovereignty11 if it
ever comes to state structures - remain conditio sine qua non for political compromises.
This large consensus exists despite a total lack of agreement concerning the concrete way
to implement the principle of political equality in political negotiations. The Taiwanese
views do not make abstraction either from the degree of asymmetry existing between the
sides, but draw different conclusions from it, by defending policies at odds with centreperiphery conceptions.
In respect to its membership to international governmental organisations, such as
the WTO, Taiwan has made clear that it wants to use its membership to intensify its
relations with China in a multilateral framework providing for equal rights under
commonly accepted rules.12 Such attempts go against the Chinese view of the type of
centre-periphery relationship to be achieved, and have consequently been averted by
Beijing, among others by the refusal to discuss bilateral disputes with Taipei within the
multilateral setting of the WTO.
The 2005 Chinese anti-secession law did not consider that the separation of
Taiwan from the Mainland should be considered as the result of secession. The name
itself of the law rather suggests that secession is rather perceived as a threat implied by
the policies of the present Taiwanese government and to which the centre can not remain
indifferent. The law had as an aim to prevent such moves, by threatening with the use of
10
In the military field, to take the most crucial policy domain, Taiwan would according to
Beijing have the right to preserve its own armed forces.
11
The KMT does not want to put the question of the kind of sovereignty to be achieved
for Taiwan at the centre of the negotiations, whereas the DPP considers sovereignty
through independence as its final objective. Interviews in Taiwan, December 2006.
12
Hui-wan Cho, op. cit., p. 743.
10
coercive means including the use of military force. But the law does not prescribe that the
lack of progress in the direction of full integration of the periphery into the centre should
be considered as a just cause for the use of so-called “non-peaceful” means. In this
particular respect, the law does not contradict the American and European view that any
future process of reunification of the sides should proceed according to the express
consent of the population of Taiwan. According to the anti-secession law, the majority
opinion in Taiwan in favour of the preservation of the status quo should not thus lead to a
confrontation with the centre. Non-peaceful confrontation would only result from
unilateral moves of the periphery away from the centre.
It does not seem likely that any political change at the periphery would be able to
transform fundamentally the relationship with Washington or with Beijing. Taiwan has in
both cases to behave according to parameters defined at these two centres, if it strives at
improving its international position and bargaining power. Beijing has clearly indicated
that it cannot remain indifferent to the question of the international status of Taiwan. It
conceives the future of cross-Strait relations as a process of integration without, however,
abandoning the option of confrontation, including on the military level, as a last resort.
Washington has also repeatedly declared that it could not be indifferent to the fate
of Taiwan. This is dictated both by domestic considerations – the significant degree of
support Taiwan still mobilizes in Washington – and geopolitical interests. The American
policies towards Taiwan were always part of its policies towards China. From this
perspective, Washington does not have any interest and consequently opposes a
Taiwanese policy of confrontation that would result from unilateral steps for
independence.
Taiwan has so far profited from the lack of active involvement of China in
international crisis management. This has limited the need for Washington to prioritize
the agenda setting with China in a way that would be detrimental to Taiwanese interests.
But it is difficult to see how Taiwan may avoid to be increasingly marginalized in a
situation where the growing weight of the Chinese economy and of political
responsibilities taken by China on the international level will necessarily lead to a new
type of bilateral relationship between Washington and Beijing. This marginalization may
even lead to a point where it would be possible to speak about a new stage in the relations
11
between the US and Taiwan. 13 Increased tensions between both capitals may surely
enhance the strategic importance of Taiwan in American eyes, but such a policy of
confrontation would even be more detrimental to its own security interests than its
marginalization through increased Sino-American interdependency.
The end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and 9/11 have led to deep changes
in the American foreign and defense policies. These had direct consequences for its
policies towards particular world regions and its management of international crises.
None of these two changes had, however, an effect on the American policies towards
Taiwan that is comparable to the shift of its China policies in the 1970s. As far as the
foreseeable future is concerned, Taipei may ameliorate or worsen its relations with
Washington, depending of the degree of predictability and moderation of its cross-strait
policy. Launching a direct cross-Strait dialogue may also decrease the tensions between
Beijing and Washington. There are no indications, however, that such changes, taken into
account the improbability of any breakthrough between both sides on the question of
sovereignty and state reunification, may fundamentally alter the present type of
relationship between Taiwan and the United States. A shift in their bilateral relations that
would be as radical as the one of the 1970s could be the consequence of a type of
interdependency between the US and China, where Taiwan’s security and relationship to
the Mainland would cease to be perceived as crucial for American interests in the region,.
A radical transformation of the relationship of the mainland with Taiwan as a
result of a transformation of the centre is not to be foreseen but can not to be excluded
either. A democratization of the mainland could point in different directions as far as the
relationship with Taiwan is concerned. It could increase the capacity of the mainland to
integrate the periphery. Mainland China could also be confronted with a series of crises,
including secessionist ones, which would significantly decrease the attention given to
Taiwan. In this case, it may be forced to adopt a certain indifference to cross-strait
13
The normalization of the American relations with China leading to a shift of
international recognition away from Taiwan was still characterized by the “most crucial”
priority of Taiwan’s security. Richard Nixon wrote in one of his travel notes, on the way
to his travel to China in February 1972, that the priorities were as follows: 1. Taiwan –
most crucial. 2. V.Nam – most urgent.” Ann M. Morrison, ‘When Nixon met Mao’, Time,
11 December, 2006, p. 60.
12
relations. Understood more positively as goodwill, such an indifference may also result
from increasing tolerance among the Chinese public opinion and political elites for
Taiwanese identity politics. Confrontation is a third possibility, resulting from the vision
that reunification should lead to quick results, as a main priority of a democratized China.
The lack of predictability of the long term transformation of the centre is one of
the main factors that could make it difficult for the Taiwanese periphery to engage at
present in negotiations on a final peace settlement. It has not only to be assumed that an
internal transformation of the centre would have tremendous effects on its relations with
the periphery, but also that the periphery will be even more affected by these changes of
the relationship than the centre itself. This makes it extremely difficult for the periphery,
whose fate so largely depend on the internal and unpredictable changes at the centre, to
build closer ties with it. This possibility may help to explain why some voices within the
Kuomintang were calling in 2006 for the conclusion of a formal agreement to preserve
the present status quo, where both parties would agree that Taiwan would neither be
independent not reunified with China within a longer time period of up to fifty years.14
The European Union has never played any crucial role in the cross-Strait
relationship. In the field of security, the European disengagement from Asia in the wake
of decolonization and the lack of a European military presence in the region has to be
taken into account. As a soft power, the European Union is in principle able to generate
values and norms to be assimilated by a periphery, as it had done for instance in its own
neighbourhood in Northern Africa, the Balkans, Turkey and Eastern Europe. But the
simple projection of European soft power on other world regions is not sufficient to turn
them into peripheries.
Rather than to understand the European Union’s policies towards Taiwan as
constituting separate and specific centre-periphery dynamics, these policies may rather be
understood as being inserted into the two centre-periphery dynamics described above.
The European kind of adherence to the “one China policy” means that its policies
towards Taiwan are part of its China policies, and are not to be understood as a separate
set of relations, as this is the case for Washington. The European Union is hereby not
14
‘Many in Taiwan like Chinese Status Quo’, International Herald Tribune, 12 December
2006; Interviews in Taipei, December 2006.
13
challenging the centre-periphery relationship between Beijing and Taipei. Beijing made
also clear that it would not tolerate any transgression of the rules of this relationship by
the European Union. This concerns for instance the sales of European weapons to
Taiwan. 15 From the Chinese perspective, the nature of the European relations with
Taiwan, and the level of representation of individual EU member states and of the
European Commission in Taiwan cannot infringe in any way on Beijing’s “one China
policy”.
The European Union’s policies towards the region have also to take the American
policies towards Taiwan into account. To take the same example of European arms sales:
the European Union radically underestimated the degree of American involvement in the
cross-strait relations when it discussed the lifting of the arms embargo towards China in
2004 and 2005. It failed to overcome American opposition to its normalization of arms
trade. From the perspective of Washington, the lack of political responsibility of the
Europeans in the management of the cross-strait conflict did not mean that they could
make abstraction of American interests in affirming their “strategic partnership” with
Beijing. 16 Also in this case the European Union has to respect the centre-periphery
relationship between Washington and Taipei.
The European Union has thus to acknowledge the centre positions of both Beijing
and Washington when it navigates in the Taiwan Strait. This does not give it much space
for autonomous initiatives. The low level of European engagement in cross Strait
relations is taken into account in Taipei’s European policies. The European Union is
generally expected to strengthen Taipei’s position as a periphery and to exert a
moderating influence on Beijing. They should constrain the policies of the centre, when it
comes to the question of Beijing’s military threats. They should further convince the
Chinese government to increase the international space given to Taipei in international
15
As a result of attempts to sell military hardware, the Netherlands (in 1981) and France
(in 1992) were confronted with serious diplomatic crises with the PRC.
16
Opposition came also from within the European Union, with a number of states, such
as the Czech Republic, refusing to accept the idea that the lifting of the arms embargo
could under the present circumstances have major beneficial consequences for
democratization or reform.
14
organisations, such as the WHO. None of these Taiwanese requests aim at a
transformation of the structural dependency of Taiwan from the mainland.
There is also the expectation that the European Union could favour democratic
reform and the respect of human rights on the mainland. A democratic transformation
would indirectly be beneficial for cross-strait relations.17 This last request is interesting as
it presupposes that a long term policy of conflict resolution in a centre-periphery setting
has to depart from the perspective of the transformation of the centre. Counterbalancing
the centre would not be sufficient to achieve a resolution of the conflict, which means to
transform the interests and identities of both sides into compatible interests and identities.
The view that conflict resolution across the Taiwan Strait and regional integration
in Asia should take more inspiration from the European experience – as stated by
Taiwanese scholars and President Chen himself - assumes that the European Union has
managed to overcome some of the problems that follow from the high degree of
inequality existing between European states. This view is based on a centre-periphery
approach to European integration. As far as regionalism is concerned, it would indeed be
difficult to understand this integration process without using the concepts of a ‘centre’
and a ‘periphery’. A group of six core countries have signed the treaties establishing the
European Community in 1957. This union has progressively integrated 21 more countries
at its periphery. For the new periphery countries bordering the enlarged European Union,
which ranges from Russia in the East to Marocco in the South, they have either accession
perspectives (Balkans and Turkey) or have been included in the European Neighborhood
Policy.
In the context of this process of European regional integration, the centreperiphery model expresses the basic inequality, asymmetry and hierarchical relationship
between those “inside” and those “outside” the core EU institutions. But it also takes into
account that the European Union may progressively enlarge itself, and integrate countries
into its core that were previously part of its periphery, and by doing so reestablish a basic
equality through membership. This would correct the previous forms of inequality,
asymmetry and hierarchy. But this model assumes that the members of the regional
institutional framework relate to each other as sovereign equals, whereas the contested
17
Interview with Taiwanese scholars, Brussels, November 2006.
15
status of Taiwan is precisely at the core of the cross-strait conflict. The European model
of regional inter-state integration is thus not capable to resolve or even to conceptualize
the problems involved in attempt to insert divided states and nations in a framework of
regional integration, particularly if the intra-state conflicts are characterized by a high
degree of inequality and asymmetry.18
It may thus be concluded that the bilateral relations between the European Union
and Taiwan and particularly the European policies towards the cross-strait conflict are
inserted in the centre-periphery dynamics between Beijing and Taiwan on the one hand
and between Washington and Taiwan on the other hand. Taiwan is a periphery in both
relationships. The European Union is active as a “soft” power but it remains a weak
external actor in the region. Both Taiwan and the European Union strive for an
enhancement of their respective positions, but this will not enable them to alter
substantially the existing dependency patterns.
18
The European model of regional integration has however also another theoretical
dimension, referring to functional integration and particularly the spill-over of economic
to political integration. But the European experience in this respect also refers to interstate and not to intra-state integration dynamics and is thus of a different type as in the
cross-strait dynamics (which does not make it less valuable). In respect of the intra-state
conflicts in Cyprus, Moldova and Georgia between recognized governments and de facto
states, the European Union has not promoted a functional policy of integration, or not
successfully advanced policies aiming at a spill-over from the economic to the political
level. In the context of the 2004 discussions on the establishment of direct trade links
between North and South Cyprus, such an option has been examined but failed to be
successful. In this context, such a policy of establishing trade links with a de facto entity
as a basis for economic and social integration and confidence building has been described
as “Taiwanisation”, giving to such policies a name which is unknown in Taiwan itself.
There the term “Taiwanisation” refers to the end of the hegemony of politicians
originating from the Chinese mainland on political parties and institutions in Taiwan,
after its democratization.
16