Are Cross-Strait Communications Really Dead?

August 28 marked 100 days since Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in as Taiwan’s president, bringing to a close eight years of Nationalist Party (KMT) rule under Ma Ying-jeou. The excitement in Taiwan and abroad over the island’s first female president was not shared by Beijing; after Tsai’s inaugural speech, the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) issued a statement criticizing the address as an “incomplete test paper.”

The reason? Tsai, while acknowledging the “historical fact” of cross-strait meetings in 1992, did not explicitly condone the so-called “1992 Consensus,” under which the governments in both Beijing and Taipei agree that there is “one China” (while reserving the right to define that “one China” as either the People’s Republic or the Republic of China).

Well before Tsai assumed office, Beijing was sending clear warning signals that it would not accept anything less than a full embrace of the 1992 Consensus. At an historic meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in November 2015, Xi set a clear baseline for continued cross-strait relations: “No matter which party or organization, and no matter what they stood for in the past, as long as the 1992 Consensus and its core values are acknowledged, we stand ready to have contact.” He followed that up with a warning: without the 1992 Consensus, “the boat of peaceful development will encounter terrifying waves or even capsize.”

Beijing has long viewed the DPP with distaste. Unlike the KMT, the DPP was founded on Taiwan, and thus embraces a uniquely Taiwanese identity. It’s often described as a “pro-independence” or “independence-leaning” party, and has indeed skewed that way in the past. The only DPP president before Tsai, Chen Shui-bian, in office from 2000 to 2008, faced Beijing’s ire when he floated the idea of a referendum on Taiwan’s relationship with the mainland. The PRC interpreted Chen’s proposal as a precursor to a full-on declaration of Taiwanese independence and cross-strait relations never recovered while Chen was in office. Under the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou, however, Beijing was eager to get a fresh start; cross-strait economic, social, and cultural ties flourished from 2008 on. 

So when it became clear that the DPP’s Tsai was going to win in a landslide, Beijing’s unease was palpable. However, Beijing made the tactical decision not to base its concerns about Tsai on the vague barometer of her support for “Taiwanese independence,” but on a single, clear-cut issue: her stance on the 1992 Consensus. While this eliminated uncertainty, it also effectively left no room for compromise. For domestic political reasons, Tsai was unable to meet Beijing’s terms – and thus the PRC, painted into a corner, made good on its threat.

On May 21, a day after Tsai took office, TAO spokesperson Ma warned, “Only by confirming the adherence to the common political foundation of the 1992 Consensus that embodies the one China principle can cross-strait affairs authorities continue regular communication.” A little over a month later, another TAO spokesperson, An Fengshan, confirmed that “cross-strait communication mechanisms” had been “suspended” ever since Tsai’s inauguration. 

What precisely does that mean? It sounds like a potential death blow for cross-strait relations, and therefore for cross-strait peace; without communication channels, for example, should a missile be fired by one side on accident, the other side could overreact, potentially plunging the Taiwan Straits into the long-delayed final battle of the bloody Chinese Civil War.

But wait – Taiwan did accidentally fire a missile in China’s general direction, on July 1, and the two sides were able to handle the unfortunate incident (which killed a Taiwanese fisherman). There was a major hiccup caused by the lack of communication; according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, Taiwan’s naval officials did not immediately contact their Chinese counterparts because the Navy “does not have contacts with the other side of the Taiwan Strait.” Instead, they reported the mishap to Taiwanese authorities.

Beijing and Taipei have never had regular military communication channels; that is not unique to the Tsai administration. It nonetheless seems that the civilian authorities were able to get in touch with their mainland counterparts about the launch. Chiu Chui-cheng, the deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), said that Taipei had used all possible channels to communicate with Beijing over the incident.

Notably, TAO chief Zhang Zhijun claimed he had received “no information” from the MAC, but this is likely a form of diplomatic sleight-of-hand. Zhang was technically correct to say he had not been contacted by the MAC – all communication would have been done through unofficial workarounds – but he had likely received the information Taipei sent through other channels.

Taiwan admitted that it was reduced to passing information along via the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), the semi-official body that handled contacts with Beijing prior to the institutionalization of ties under Ma. SEF would then pass information to its counterpart in Beijing, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), which funneled it to the relevant government agencies -- an unnecessarily cumbersome process, but one that seems to have worked well under stress. Though Beijing had previously insisted the “consultation mechanism” between SEF and ARATS was dead as well, that does not seem to be the case (at least not in an emergency situation).

Indeed, Tsai recently told reporters, “While the official mechanism of communication has not been restored, unofficial communication channels with the mainland remain available.” She’s likely referring to the SEF/ARATS channel and other non-governmental forms of communication. Taiwan, which does not have diplomatic relations with most countries in the world, including major partners like the United States and Japan, is quite experienced at finding these unofficial workarounds.

It looks like when push comes to shove, official ties are not quite as severed as Beijing would like people to believe. For instance, when a bus crash in Taiwan killed 23 tourists from the mainland, as well as their Chinese tour guide, Beijing sent four officials to Taiwan (led by ARATS chair Liu Kezhi) to handle the aftermath. Such a visit would be impossible to arrange without communication mechanisms.

Meanwhile, ties at the local level are continuing apace. The annual Cross-Strait Forum, which aims to bolster people-to-people ties, convened on June 11 in Fujian province on the mainland. Likewise, an annual city forum bringing together officials from Taipei and Shanghai took place as scheduled on August 23 in Taipei. At that event, New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (who was also the unsuccessful KMT candidate for president in 2015) promised to promote more city-to-city exchanges.

That doesn’t mean all is well in cross-strait relations; it’s certainly flirting with danger to willfully shut the quickest channels of communication between two sides that are technically at war. Cross-strait relations have become more complex than ever before, making it difficult to return to the days of channeling discussions through the SEF and ARATS. That cuts both ways, though – however much Beijing might want to punish Tsai by leaving her administration out in the cold, cross-strait relations continue to plug along, albeit out of the spotlight.