China is prepared to be patient and settle for the status quo for the indefinite future, provided Taiwan does not declare independence. This would have the virtue of enabling Beijing to concentrate on China ’s economic development and sidelining an issue which, in the event of a military conflagration, could do untold damage to the country’s global and regional standing. There is a quiet belief on the part of the Chinese that time is on their side. Taiwan ’s growing economic dependence on China is one obvious reason for this, while China ’s own spectacular progress is clearly making the country steadily less unattractive in the eyes of the much richer Taiwanese. At the same time Taiwan, throttled by its lack of diplomatic recognition, finds itself in danger of being excluded from the new regional trade arrangements centred on ASEAN. [980] Another factor is the improvement in China ’s military competence and capacity across the Taiwan Strait, consequent upon the country’s growing economic and technological capacity, which acts as a powerful deterrent to any adventurist action by Taipei. Furthermore, the fact that the Bush administration consistently sought to restrain President Chen Shui-bian’s more outlandish schemes also served to reassure Beijing. [981] Most important of all, the sweeping victories achieved by the KMT in the parliamentary and presidential elections in early 2008 confirmed Beijing in its new sense of optimism. Weary of Chen’s preoccupation with independence and concerned about the weak state of the economy, the electorate voted decisively for improved relations with the mainland, not least economic, with the new president Ma Ying-jeou promising to maintain the status quo and seek a closer relationship with China. Direct air flights and tourism have followed; and it is possible that a Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement, similar to the one between China and Hong Kong, might in time be agreed. [982] In April 2009 there was dramatic progress when China and Taiwan concluded new agreements on financial services, direct flights and fighting crime. This almost certainly marked a major turning point, paving the way for a much closer relationship between the two countries. Indeed, it is not inconceivable that we might witness a major breakthrough in, or even resolution of, the disputes between China and Taiwan in the relatively near future.

In the longer run it is conceivable that Washington might contemplate the idea that Taiwan is no longer a fundamental interest that must be defended at all costs. [983] Certainly, in the light of China ’s rise, Taiwan has enjoyed a declining priority in Washington over recent decades. The Chinese may also have begun to entertain the possibility of rather looser political solutions that might one day be acceptable to the Taiwanese. For some time the Chinese have essentially offered Taiwan an enhanced variant of ‘one country, two systems’, [984] but this has recently been given less prominence. Perhaps the Chinese will contemplate the idea of a Chinese commonwealth or a federal commonwealth under which Taiwan would enjoy not only a high degree of autonomy, as it would under the Hong Kong formula, but also, while recognizing the symbolic sovereignty of Beijing, in effect be granted a measure of independence and even limited autonomy to act in the international sphere. [985] For now, China ’s growing optimism is not misplaced. However, the situation remains fraught with uncertainties. If a future DPP government should at some point go for broke and declare independence, then China would almost certainly seek to reverse that action by military means, thereby embroiling the whole region and the United States in a crisis which would have far-reaching consequences. It may be unlikely, but such a scenario cannot yet be ruled out. [986]

BIG BROTHER AND LITTLE BROTHER

Since 1949 Taiwan has been China ’s most acute regional problem. It is conceivable, however, that Taiwan might be placed on the back burner for a decade or more, during which time longer-term trends might effectively resolve the issue one way or another. If that should happen, then by far the most difficult issue facing China in East Asia would be Japan. [987] Until the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5, which was a direct consequence of the Meiji Restoration in 1868 — with Japan ’s turn to the West, rejection of its own continent, especially China, and its expansionist ambitions — relations between China and Japan had been relatively harmonious. Japan had been a long-term tributary state, duly honouring and acknowledging its debt to Chinese civilization and the Confucian tradition, even if at times it proved a distant and somewhat recalcitrant one — which, given its island status and advanced civilization, was hardly surprising. [988]

For well over a century, however, following the 1894 war, China ’s relationship with Japan has been far worse than that with any other power. Many Chinese still see that war and the subsequent Treaty of Shimonoseki as the darkest hour in China ’s ‘century of humiliation’. China ’s ignominious defeat and the extremely onerous terms inflicted on China in the peace left a particularly bitter taste. Defeat by what was seen as an inferior nation within the Chinese world order was considered to be a far greater humiliation than losing to the Western barbarians, and served to undermine the prevailing Chinese world-view. This was a case — in the Confucian discourse — of the student beating up the teacher or the younger brother beating up the older brother. [989]

The ignominy visited upon China in the 1894-5 war was compounded and accentuated by Japan’s occupation of north-east China in 1931 and then its full-scale invasion of north-east, east and parts of central China in 1937; the scars these hostilities left have never been healed. To this day, the Nanjing Massacre defines the nature and identity of the Japanese as far as the Chinese are concerned and therefore in large measure their attitude towards Japan. It may have taken place seventy years ago, but it remains an open wound, as present in the relationship between the two countries as if it had happened yesterday. Even the numbers killed — 300,000 in the Chinese interpretation — is still a highly charged issue. [990] Of course, the reason why these questions remain so alive is because the Japanese have failed to apologize properly, or demonstrate any serious sign of confronting their own past, unlike the contrition that the Germans have shown for their behaviour in the Second World War. [991] The Japanese paid dearly for their defeat at the hands of the United States and Europe — with huge casualties, the Tokyo trials, the confiscation of its overseas assets and the American occupation — but they have shown little remorse towards their Asian neighbours for their country’s often barbaric behaviour, which was far worse than anything Japan meted out to the Western powers. The Nanjing Massacre was the worst example, with the mass killing and rape of civilians, but this was repeated on a smaller scale elsewhere in China, while the Japanese occupation of Korea was also marked by considerable cruelty. [992] The numerous apologies that Japan has given have been little more than formulaic, while the courts have refused to compensate the individual victims of crimes committed in Japan ’s name. The grudging attitude towards its Asian neighbours is symptomatic of post-Meiji Japan — respect for the West and contempt for Asia. Nor, for most of the post-war period, has Japan needed to rethink its attitudes. [993] It rapidly re-established itself as the dominant power in the region, in a different league to its poorer neighbours, while the United States, its sponsor and protector, neither required nor desired Japan to apologize to Communist China during the Cold War, given that a new and very different set of priorities now applied.