In April 1927, the First United Front violently collapsed. After working alongside the Chinese Communist Party to oust the local warlords then in control of northern China, the nationalist Chiang Kai-shek ordered the brutal Shanghai Massacre. His soldiers proceeded to slaughter thousands of communist sympathizers over a three day period. That bloody affair would lead to decades of civil war between the two parties — interrupted by the brief Second United Front during World War II — before culminating in the Kuomintang retreat to Taiwan (then Formosa) in 1949. Now, nearly a century since the Shanghai Massacre, the legacy of the two United Fronts seems as though it may win out over the strife that has divided the parties for decades.
The Kuomintang (KMT) ruled the island as a one-party military dictatorship from 1949 to 1987, but now is the main opposition party in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan. Taiwan’s other main political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has controlled the presidency since 2016. In that time, relations between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China have decisively soured, as the DPP generally takes a more confrontational stance than the KMT on cross-strait relations. The current president, the DPP’s Lai Ching-te, has asserted that Taiwan is already an independent and sovereign nation, and that as such it has no need to declare its independence from China. To the DPP, Taiwan and China are two separate nations, and there is no scenario in which they should be a single one.
The KMT, meanwhile, has in recent decades found itself agreeing with its old foe the Chinese Communist Party on one key statement: that Taiwan is a part of China. While the KMT and CCP may disagree on what that “China” is, this consensus has led the conservative KMT to adopt a more conciliatory policy towards the People’s Republic than the DDP. That openness has become more salient after the new KMT party chair’s recent visit to the mainland.
56 year-old Cheng Li-wun took office as chairwoman of the KMT last year after being elected in October. Her victory was the subject of some controversy. Taiwanese security officials claimed her campaign was promoted on social media by accounts allegedly linked to the CCP, and during the election she weathered accusations from a prominent KMT political commentator that she was backed by China. These claims have done nothing to blunt Ms. Cheng’s rhetoric. Both during and after her election, she has argued ferociously in favor of rapprochement with the People’s Republic, going so far as to assert during a televised debate that “Taiwan and the mainland should join forces to reach new heights in human civilization.” Such statements have certainly caught the attention of ears on the mainland: after Cheng’s electoral victory, Xi Jinping himself sent her congratulations.
Ms. Cheng’s rise has coincided with uncertainty on the world stage. The United States is watching the world order that it dominated since the end of the Cold War collapse on itself. Some commentators have compared the current Strait of Hormuz crisis to the failure of the British Empire to maintain control of the Suez Canal in 1956 — an event which ultimately led to the end of the United Kingdom as a world superpower. With the U.S. government pivoting towards prioritizing control of the Western Hemisphere while moving deterrence assets from around the world to the Middle East, it appears that the U.S.’s ability to control the progression of overseas conflicts will be significantly reduced in the coming years. Cheng Li-wun certainly thinks so: Lee De-wei, another KMT politician, has said that in Ms. Cheng’s opinion, “America is no longer the center of the world.”
This bet on America’s decline as a superpower has likely been an integral part of Ms. Cheng’s reasoning for courting China. These efforts at diplomacy reached new heights in recent weeks as Chairwoman Cheng became the first KMT leader to visit China in a decade. Embarking in April on what she referred to as a peace mission to the mainland, Ms. Cheng pledged to seek reconciliation with China at the tomb of Sun Yat-sen, the KMT’s revolutionary founder. Ms. Cheng also met with Xi Jinping, who told her that China will “absolutely not tolerate” independence for Taiwan. Cheng, for her part, expressed “hope the Taiwan Strait will no longer become a potential flashpoint of conflict, nor a chessboard for external powers.”
This meeting could prove to be a seminal moment for China-Taiwan relations. Though currently out of power, in December the KMT managed to block the passage of a $40 million defense budget proposal intended to pay for arms acquisitions from the United States. If the KMT can win the Taiwanese presidential election in 2028, then Cheng’s visit to the mainland may be looked back on as the beginning of a new era in relations between the KMT and CCP.
But what would closer relations between mainland China and Taiwan look like? Even if the KMT can secure the presidency in 2028, only around 15 percent of the Taiwanese population supports incorporation with China under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework that currently governs Hong Kong and Macau. The Taiwanese skepticism of this framework has likely been exacerbated by the actual treatment of Hong Kong and Macau under One Country, Two Systems, which has seen the Chinese government take more and more direct control of both cities. The kind of political integration that the CCP hopes for Taiwan likely won’t come to fruition, even under a KMT government. Instead, it seems far more likely that the two countries will grow closer on economic terms.
Though plenty of U.S. observers are concerned about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the truth is that such a strategy would be costly, counterproductive, and atypical for the PRC. Even U.S. intelligence doesn’t find an invasion likely in 2027. China, as powerful as its military may be, also doesn’t employ war as an arrow in its quiver in the same way that the United States does — in fact, the last time that China was involved in a war was in 1979. Rather than bombing and invading its enemies, China seems to prefer to use its economic might as diplomatic leverage. Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, China has used its enormous economy to invest in nations throughout the global south. China has also mobilized its economy defensively, engaging in several trade wars with the United States during both Trump administrations.
China’s foreign policy has thus far relied upon utilizing economic, rather than military, force to advance its goals. If Ms. Cheng’s visit to the mainland is any indication, China may soon find conditions ripe to bring its economic power fully to bear against Taiwan. If the more conciliatory KMT secures victory in 2028, the PRC and Taiwan could potentially flesh out an agreement focused on economic integration. While the two economies are already rather entwined, they could still both stand to benefit from integration. Something along the lines of a scaled-down European Union — potentially utilizing a shared currency and a customs union — could see a benefit to both the PRC and ROC, without necessarily indicating annexation. While that might be contrary to China’s ultimate goal (political control of Taiwan), the PRC would likely view it as a crucial step on that path. Likewise, while the Taiwanese government might be wary of such close ties to China, such an agreement would support the KMT’s argument that Taiwan is ultimately a part of a larger Chinese nation.
As the reins of the world slip further from the grasp of the U.S., certain countries now have their own chance to guide the flow of history. China seems poised to take advantage of U.S. disarray, though not in the way many commentators expect. Should the KMT prove victorious in 2 years’ time, China may usher in a new era of economic diplomacy heralded by Cheng Li-wun’s visit to the mainland — economic diplomacy that could be the driving force behind the third (and potentially final) renewal of the United Front.
Featured Image Source: NPR