Relationship between china and taiwan. From the Global Taiwan Institute this is just over hour. All right. Okay. Well good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Global Taiwan Institute. My name is russell hsiao, im the executive director here at gti. Gti is a 501 c 3 thinktank dedicated to taiwan policy research and analysis. Our mission is to enhance the u. S. Taiwan relationship through public education. We undertake several major programs that include a weekly publication called the global taiwan with brief, where we invite experts to contribute timely articles. We also have a Seminar Series that you are all participating in today where we invite practitioners as well as scholars to focus on current developments related to policy issues that affect the u. S. Taiwan relationship. Coming up very shortly we will be hosting our inaugural annual symposium on september 14th and this is going to be our flagship event. Were expecting a large turnout of people within government as well as academia and thinktank experts who are interested in taiwan. The purpose of the annual symposium is to establish a baseline on how we assess the u. S. Taiwan relationship. And so if youre not already registered, please do so on our website. Last, but not least we also have a Fellowship Program where we encourage taiwanese as well as American Scholars who are interested to conduct Field Research in taiwan and respectively for taiwanese scholars to come to the United States to do Research Related to the u. S. Taiwan relationship. Before i begin todays program, i also would like to acknowledge some of the important guests that we have in the room. They include our counselors and our advisor, one of our advisors, richard fisher, who is in the audience here today, and last but not least, our very important Staff Members at gti who make all our programs possible and they are. [reading names] and our very important interns, as well. So as the fall semester kicks into gear and if you havent found an internship already i invite you to please apply. If not this semester then the next. So to begin todays program, lets start. So every five years, roughly around 2,000 Party Delegates of the Chinese Communist party convenes in beijing. The purpose of these Party Congresses is to establish or set out a party line, update the constitution, and most importantly to select its senior leaders. Given the opacity of chinese elite politics the prelude to every Party Congress always involves officials falling from grace or rising from obscurity. The leaders who will emerge in the ccp, Standing Committee and the Central Military commission are the products of intense internal jockeying for power in the Worlds Largest party state and army and will have significant consequences on the policies of the peoples republic of china. The highest Party Official and thus the most powerful person in china is the general secretary of the ccp. By convention the general secretary serves two fiveyear terms for a total of 10. General xi jinping took power in 2012. Now, all eyes are set on the 19th Party Congress slated for this fall. The leaders of all the allpowerful Standing Committee and bureau offer material signals into the direction of how the prc policy will be conducted for at least the next five years. And many of the members of the Current Bureau as well as the Central Commission are set to retire. Arguably nowhere could the impact of a shift in the current approach on policy be greater felt than in the case towards taiwan. The general secretary wields enormous power and could theoretically end the state of hostility by deciding to make peace with taiwan. Perhaps more practically, he could and should end the current stalemate in the freeze of high level government dialogue with taipei. On the other hand, he could allow the military brass to dictate an even more heavy handed and belligerent posture against taiwan. Under the ccp, the general secretary chairs an interagency policy setting process through the taiwanese leading small group thats compromised of top level party, state and military officials responsible for taiwan. Membership in this body varied from administration to administration, suggesting that it may reveal the administrations policy towards taiwan. For instance, a veteran of Chinese Military intelligence was once the leading secretary general and served as a member of the leading small group during the third Taiwan Strait crisis in which they lobbed missiles towards taiwan to intimidate taiwanese voters. He was quite successful in securing a greater role for the military in taiwan policy. With the 19th Party Congress occurring this fall, which serves as a report card of the first term and with the annual retreat, what might we glean from how the makeup of the bureau will tell us and affect how the Xi Jinping Administration will approach taiwan in the remainder of his administration . Now, theres intense speculation that they might not be in line and that xi loyalists will get an extraordinary promotion into the Standing Committee. Furthermore, the confirmation that the former commander of the pla ground force will replace a general as chief of the joint Staff Department at the Central Military commission all could have bearings in terms of how china approaches taiwan and offers a kaleidoscope of different possibilities in terms of how the policies of china are Going Forward. Were in for a very special treat today because we have assembled a group of experts who know the ins and outs to help us discern the probable from the possible. Scott is the associate director of the center for asia pacific policy, as well as a member of the party Rand Graduate School faculty. To his left we have richard mcgregor. Richard is a renowned journalist who served as the Washington Bureau chief from 2011 to 2014. He is the author of the party, the secret world of chinas communist rulers. Hes also the author of a book on china, japan and the United States and were really eagerly anticipating the release of that book so we can host him here to have a discussion about it. Last, but not least we have Christopher Johnson who is a Senior Advisor and holds a freeman chair in china studies. Chris is an accomplished Asian Affairs specialist, no stranger to the people in this room. Mr. Johnson spent nearly two decades serving in the u. S. Government in thegence and Foreign Affairs community and has extensive experience in analyzing and working in asia on transnational issues. He has frequently advised senior white house, congressional, military and foreign officials on the chinese leadership and on beijings foreign and security policies. So lets begin. In keeping with our format of our discussions in the past, i have prepared a series of questions that ill ask each of the speakers. I ask that the speakers are free to weigh in on the questions that are directed at the other speakers. And well reserve about 15 minutes at the end of the discussion for audience q and a. So richard, i would like to start with you. You argued in your seminal 2010 book, that the modern Chinese State still runs on soviet hardware. What is the role of the Chinese Communist party and the policy process, particularly as it pertains to taiwan . Thanks, russell and thanks for having me here. If you see me peeking at my mobile phone that was because i got the time wrong for this event and i didnt print out my notes and so im looking at my drop box. And i might even struggle to read that, actually. The role of the party, i dont think theres any much doubt that the role of the party and certainly, the Party Secretary xi jinping has strengthened remarkably since he took over in 2012. With the weakest state council for a long time, a much stronger role for the particular members of the anticorruption bureau, i think weve also seen that tougher line, more Central Control and tougher line extend to taiwan policy, as well. If you look at the statements out of the head of the Taiwan Affairs office, this is where i might read my notes because i wanted to get his words exactly right, hes really stopped talking about or paying lip service even to giving much room for or taking much note of taiwans distinctive quote unquote democratic system. He talks openly now about how the one country two systems idea should be applied to taiwan just as its been applied to hong kong and we also see whats happened there. To use his phrase, he says beijing should seek a spiritual matching between the people of the two sides of the strait to strengthen solidarity and enable cohesion and materialization of longterm stability. There should be a proper handling of the systemic differences between the two sides of the strait after reunification. In other words, it will be the ccp in control in taipei, should there be unification on whatever terms and not even i think the room that hong kong was given after 1997. Part of that i guess might be cyclical change. We have a ddp government in taipei, obviously, the ccps attitude to the kmt is very ddp is very different to that of the kmt. I was remembering or i certainly remembered in the course of the research for my new book about how ping had talked about reunification, the sooner the better. In other words, when people from the ccp and the kmt who not only fought could get together and do a deal and those days are over now. Theres a cyclical change in beijings policy but also a secular change. In other words, a general toughening up and just finally and i wont go into a great deal on the military side, which im not an expert on and i think scott is going to talk more about, but its certainly true and this applies to Chinese Foreign policy, particularly in the asian pacific. Chinas abilities, military abilities are much greater now. Xi jinping took over a much stronger country than 2002 and if your capabilities are stronger, youve got more willingness to take a coercive position rather than an seductive or pseudoseductive one. Thats great and i would like to stick with you because you brought up the distinction between cyclical and secular, differences in terms of how the party has approached its policy making. And so given the obvious importance of taiwan for the ccp, the issue as seen from beijings perspective has always been management at a high level and leadership serves as an indicator of such changes. So what has or hasnt changed in how the Leadership Transitions approach taiwan policy . Is this transition that were approaching right now unprecedented or are there parallels in the past that we can draw from to infer what the future may have in store . Show i dont know that i see distinct parallels. I think that after 96 and what they would have considered to be a humiliation in the wake of the shelling near the Taiwan Straits, that there was an element of the clock ticking on beijings demands for unification. I think tao managed through various devious ways to wind that back. We do have, of course, the first of a number of anniversaries coming up for the ccp, notably 2021, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party in shanghai. I dont see how it works in beijings interests at all to set a deadline, but if there were to be a nice gift wrapped present for 2021, i think, you know, theres no better one than taking taiwan. I guess in terms of transition, another point as well is that just how quickly beijing could overwhelm taiwan militarily as well and thats a much different calculus now than it was five, 10 or even five years ago. Thanks for that. Chris i would like to move to you. It was expected when it was known that xi jinping was going to take over after tao that given xis experience with businessmen from taiwan, people consider him to sort of be part of the notaiwan faction, suggesting that maybe perhaps he would adopt a softer approach to taiwan than his predecessors. However, this has clearly, not been the case. You have done a lot of thorough analysis on xi. What do you think accounts for the position that xi has taken on taiwan . Great, thanks and let me add my thanks for the invitation to come talk today. I think, you know first and foremost like so many narratives that were around about xi jinping, it was just wrong that he had these mind sets. Just like it was wrong that he was a sexier tao, that he was turning left to turn right. Theres a whole series of these narratives, i dont know where any of them came from, but they were wrong and they are still wrong. So you know, thats a very important point. So taking from that then what does it mean . I dont then consider it a surprise that hes adopted the policy that he has number one. Number two, i think well discuss this a little bit later, but i dont see this as pressure from the pla, pressure from pick your constituency that, you know, if xi were left to his own devices, indeed, he would pursue this softer policy just like tao did, but there are quote invisible hard liners who are pressuring him, no, this is what he believes and thats what you have to take as the jumping off point. Folks that ive spoken to who are very close to his circle say if you want to know what xi jinping thinks about any issue under the sun, look at what he says about it first, thats what he really means, what comes next can be glossing and back tracking and so on. What did he say first on this issue . This cant be passed to another generation. So, and i think, you know does that mean he wants to invade taiwan . No, it doesnt. But i think that hes setting that policy sort of stance very, very clearly, and as richard was pointing out i think were seeing probably the most feckless one that weve seen in a long time. The last time they had any independence was under wang yi. Jiang goes with the party line. My question is like so many things related to xi, once were past all the smoke and mirrors of the Party Congress, and its done and weve all digested the results, whats he going to do next . And having gotten that out of the way, presumably, it will free up bandwidthwidth for these issues. Were going to see a return to the Foreign Policy vision that he set out in 2014 where he sketched out a very interesting framework but then kind of turned it over to the mfa to do something with and they havent done anything with it. I think taiwan policy also, you know, holds a lot of potential for change. And i dont know the answer to which direction hes going to go, but its not a soft approach, that much i can tell you. And on that a little bit, on your assessment that the actions taken by xis administration reflects xis personal belief and approach to taiwan policy, theres been a prominent china analyst in taiwan and i just returned from taiwan from a business trip that we were there to hold a joint conference with the taiwan thinktank there, argued that the risky behavior undertaken by xi in the past few years indicate that he is not necessarily consolidating control but reflects more of a continuous power struggle that has been ongoing since the 18th Party Congress. Can you give us a more deeper dive in terms of whether or not you agree with this assessment, what might either scenario mean in terms of how xi will approach taiwan during his second term . I think the core of it is to look at the relationship with the military, which obviously is very important in this process. And, you know, if we look at the 95, 96 Taiwan Straits crisis, its very clear that senior military officers basically said what they were going to do in response to provocation. And he got out in front of them and complied. Likewise, which was a lot of talk in the china watching community about a rogue pla and out of civilian control. That was all nonsense, but i think what the military did do was to take advantage of certain core lets call it monopolies that they have inside the system to create a nice big gray zone for themselves within which to operate on broad foreign and Security Policy issues. I think some of this is to be expected because the pla is modernizing and professionalizing and professional institutions care about things that touch on their corporate interests so some of that is natural. But i think the difference was that at the end of the day, they have a monopoly on military technical expertise. There is no rand, there is no csis, theres no civilian institution in the chinese system that provides such advice to their leaders. They have a monopoly on intelligence in a lot of ways. Certainly, you mentioned when he was running the show, that was very much happening inside their system. Three, they have a monopoly on forces and, you know, gear right there . Theres no civilian expertise in this space, either. So they created this very comfy gray zone for themselves. What has xi jinping done since hes arrived . Hes been substantially decreasing that gray zone, shrinking it down a lot and you cannot separate anticorruption in the military and force restructuring, which i think are the 12 punch of neutering the pla out of that equation. And so as such, i just dont believe that they are off on their own pr