Liang, a 21st-generation descendant of the Hakka people of southern China, yearns for Taiwan and the motherland to be united – just not under the Chinese government’s terms.
“Taiwan has always been China, and when we look at the ancestors, our past generations, they’re all actually migrated from mainland China. So at the heart of the question is that we are actually Chinese people,” he said.
Liang’s anguish typifies the conundrum faced by Beijing. His heart belongs to the mainland, but his head tells him that uniting the two neighbours is politically impossible.
The philosophical sentiment ripples throughout Taiwan. In Tainan, two hours by fast train from Taipei, businesswoman Frankie Kuo says that Taiwanese and Chinese people are “part of the same family” and that Taiwan’s murky international status has not given it the outcomes it needs in the global economy. But unifying with the mainland under Xi is not worth the cost.
“There’s no freedom at all over there,” she says.
The more Beijing-friendly Kuomintang [KMT] is hoping to stop a record third term for the Democratic People’s Party [DPP] at Taiwan’s presidential elections this weekend. The DPP, which fiercely defends Taiwanese sovereignty without formally declaring independence from China, has been in charge during a steep decline in relations with Beijing, triggered mostly by China’s own military threats towards its democratic neighbour.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said a DPP victory would continue to follow “the evil path of provoking independence” and take “Taiwan ever further away from peace and prosperity, and ever closer to war and decline”. On Friday, Beijing warned voters to make “the right choice”, saying the party’s candidate was dangerous.
But even the KMT, which theoretically claims the reverse – China as part of Taiwan’s territory – has no intention of uniting with the mainland. The party’s leaders fled to the island after the Chinese civil war and have maintained their own claim to the mainland ever since.
The prospect of unification, which was once supported by a small minority, has now become such a fringe pursuit in Taiwan that it is difficult to find anyone but a small handful of older men who will publicly support it.
One of them is Qi Jialin, the chairman of the Alliance for the Reunification of China. In his office in downtown Taipei, Qi is nervous about speaking publicly about the election because he fears he will be targeted for his pro-unification views, but once he gets going it is clear he sees Taiwan’s future with Beijing.
Qi says to get there, Taiwan needs to start building closer economic links with the mainland. He invokes 19th-century Germany as an example of successful unification.
“The Kingdom of Prussia was based on economic ties. So we can see based on history that the economy and cultural exchanges can deepen relationships,” he said.
But in his ideal version of Taiwan, one partner has more power than the other. “There’s no other option than implementing One Country Two Systems,” he said, referring to the same model used by China to govern its territories of Hong Kong and Macau, both of which saw all public displays of political resistance effectively wiped out over the past three years.
“The only difference is Taiwan has [presidential] elections. If Taiwan was to be unified, the leaders will be elected through negotiation,” he said. “Taiwan should be able to enjoy a high degree of autonomy excluding these kind of supporters of separatism.”
Qi’s message is not resonating with Taiwan’s voters. Less than 2 per cent support unification as soon as possible and a fraction of those back Qi’s version of Chinese dominance. That compares to one in five who want the island to move towards formal independence, and more than 30 per cent who want to maintain the status quo, according to monthly surveys tracked by National Chengchi University. In 1996, the number who wanted Taiwan to move towards unification reached as high as 19.5 per cent.
Far from being a unifying figure, Xi has become his dream’s worst enemy. China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong was mentioned more than a dozen times by DPP leaders at a rally for the party’s presidential candidate Lai Ching-te in central Taipei on Thursday night.
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“Do you think Xi Jinping will allow freedom [for] Taiwan?” DPP legislator Hsu Shu-hua screamed to tens of thousands of cheering fans. “My opponents attack me because they support Xi. I have to break these opponents down.”
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