“One China” and Taiwan’s Future
Recorded on September 29, 2021
“One China” and Taiwan’s Future
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM (Eastern Daylight Time)
Wednesday, September 29, 2021 9:00 PM - 10:30 PM (Taipei Time)
A Conversation with Faculty Director Emeritus Jerome A. Cohen and Professor Yu-Jie Chen
Highlights
13:28 Yu-Jie Chen: According to the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party, they like to say that the cooperation between 2008 and 2016 was built on the 1992 consensus. Here I put a question mark, because as I said previously, we found that it wasn't really a consensus. It was a diplomatic maneuver for both parties to set aside their differences. It was a clever maneuver, but there was not a consensus. Because when the KMT talks about the 1992 consensus, what it means is 'one China, respective interpretations' (OCRI). ... On the other hand, the KMT also acknowledges the Chinese Communist Party has a different interpretation of China which is, of course, the PRC. The Chinese Communist Party doesn't really acknowledge the part 'respective interpretations' in OCRI. With these two very different understandings, the supposed consensus is a dissensus over what one China means.
35:30 Jerome Cohen: What's at stake is the future of Taiwan. And the President Tsai government in Taiwan, which refused to endorse the so-called understanding, the consensus about one China, really cannot give away the future. President Tsai has made it very clear that she does not want to change the status quo; she's not trying to create an international crisis. But she cannot adopt a formula that would implicitly declare that Taiwan in the future cannot be recognized as separate from China.
37:29 Jerome Cohen: In today's world, is there a right on the part of one government to use force to settle a territorial dispute, a so-called irredentist dispute ... between two governments over the proper ownership and control of territory. Beijing says the US in the 1860s resorted to force to suppress succession from the Southern government. Well, 1860s is a long time ago, and public international law has developed even in the seventy years that this problem has been fulminating.
43:56 Jerome Cohen: I think that the best that can be done at this point is to support Taiwan's democratic achievement but to do so in a way that will not inflame further the relationship. And at the same time recognize the world isn't standing still. Taiwan is an increasingly important player in the world community. It's engaging every day in functional, positive, cooperative interactions with many of the players of the world even in the absence of formal diplomatic relations. There's a need to develop further institutions to deal with this unique situation. A new form of international relations is gradually developing. That's why there is another struggle over names going on. What should the office of a foreign government in Taiwan, that doesn't recognize formally Taiwan, be called?
45:21 Jerome Cohen: There's a struggle to make names accord with functions and to recognize that Taiwan ... is a very active, important, deserving player. And how can we do that without creating a further, graver damage to the world community and the threat of war -- whether war is inflicted by either side intentionally or perhaps accidentally - and what kind of war would it be? would it be limited war, would it be nuclear war? ... This is a horrendous thought, and that's why this is the most important problem of an immediate nature in international relations.
51:00 Yu-Jie Chen: The propaganda by Beijing is to say that the US cannot be trusted so Taiwan had better work with China and cooperate with China and accept the one-China framework, etc. But it doesn't really have any appeal in Taiwan as far as I can tell. ... We also have seen different articles coming out refuting this analogy. I think they are correct in pointing out that Taiwan is not Afghanistan. This has also been widely understood in Taiwan; the two situations are vastly different. I don't see that propaganda working in Taiwan. I also want to say that Taiwanese know that we have to defend ourselves in order for other countries to lend a hand when necessary. It's not that Taiwanese think about only relying on the US or other allies' military support when a confrontation happens. ... Taiwanese know that we have to do more to ready ourselves.
55:36 Yu-Jie Chen: [A] lot of people in Taiwan had their heart broken when they saw Hong Kong fall apart last year. That's why there's this reaction in Taiwan, to say that we Taiwanese as a democracy should support Hong Kong.
1:00:35 Yu-Jie Chen: The two sides signed a framework agreement on economic cooperation .... Then the KMT tried to push ... an agreement on services trade. That got push-back from the younger generations as well as Taiwanese society, which then led to the Sunflower Movement in 2014, which changed everything. That agreement about services trade was not really passed because a lot of students stormed into the legislature and occupied the chamber for 24 days. There were 500,000 people on the streets supporting the students. Since then cross-Straits cooperation really cooled off. That's why I said that I don't see a lot of cooperation without strict scrutiny on Taiwan's side through a democratic process. The Sunflower Movement really originated from Taiwan's society aversion to the KMT's cooperation with China without a proper democratic oversight process.
1:24:12 Yu-Jie Chen: [T]here are many geographical and strategic reasons for the US to defend Taiwan and it’s in the US’s interest to defend Taiwan, but I’m not going to talk about that. I want to talk about Taiwan as a democracy. Taiwan has transformed itself on its own, as well as under international pressure, from an authoritarian regime to today’s vibrant democracy. And that is why in my slides, the first one, I put a photo of the parade of gays and lesbians in Taipei in 2018, and then a year later, we also legalized same sex marriage. So I think we share a lot of values with today’s democracies. I want to say that for this, Taiwan is worth defending.
About the Event
Beijing’s “One-China Principle” is the bedrock of its policy toward Taiwan. A majority of Taiwanese, however, disagree with any “one China” concept that implies Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China. Regardless of legal status, most people in Taiwan want to remain a self-governing liberal democracy. Our speakers — Jerome A. Cohen, founder and faculty director emeritus of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute, and Yu-Jie Chen, a USALI affiliated scholar and assistant research professor at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica — will talk about what “one China” means on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese attitudes towards their own identity and whether a peaceful solution can be found to this increasingly dangerous dispute.
About the speakers
Yu-Jie Chen is an assistant research professor at the Law Institute of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica and an affiliated scholar at USALI. Her research focuses on human rights and international law and relations, particularly in the context of China, Taiwan, and China-Taiwan relations. Professor Chen received her J.S.D. and LL.M. degrees from NYU School of Law. She also holds an LL.M. and LL.B. from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. She was an inaugural Global Academic Fellow at the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law (2019-2020). She has been a research scholar at USALI, a researcher and advocate for the non-governmental organization Human Rights in China, and an attorney at the Taipei-based international law firm Lee and Li.
Jerome A. Cohen is professor emeritus at NYU School of Law and founding director emeritus of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute. He is a leading American expert on Chinese law and government. A pioneer in the field, Professor Cohen began studying and teaching about China’s legal system in the early 1960s and from 1964 to 1979 introduced the teaching of Asian law into the curriculum of Harvard Law School. Professor Cohen is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has published hundreds of scholarly articles and edited several books about Asian law, specifically focusing on legal institutions, criminal justice reform, dispute resolution, human rights, and the role of international law relating to China and Taiwan.