But this does not diminish the importance of these borders or make them any less contentious or impermeable. Chen Shih-min, an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University in Taipei, believes Beijing’s call to scrap the median line is a sharp reminder for Taipei that despite improving cross-strait ties, the two sides still maintain confrontional relations.
“Abandoning the median line in the Taiwan Strait is only possible if Beijing renounces the use of force against the island,” Chen said July 7. “From a military perspective, demilitarizing air space along the line would only favor [mainland China] as Taipei has no plans for direct military action against Beijing.”
The issue of dispensing with the median line reared its head July 2 after Wang Yi, director of mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office under the State Council, called on Taipei to consider opening the median line to ease cross-strait flight congestion on the northern and southern routes.
“To meet increasing demand, cross-strait flights need to reach around 700 to 800 per week,” Wang claimed. “Doing away with the line is the best way to achieve this.”
The median line was drawn in 1955 by General Benjamin O. Davis Jr., commander of the 13th Air Force, then based in Taipei. Following a series of air battles over the Taiwan Strait in 1958, both Taiwan and mainland China seemingly reached a tacit agreement over the line’s existence. Incursions into each other’s airspace were scaled back and the possibility of renewed conflict minimized.
Despite the mutual consensus, Beijing never recognized the median line’s existence since it maintains Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory. As far as Beijing is concerned, the only reason to maintain such a non-binding agreement with Taipei is because both sides share a special and complex relationship shaped over nearly 60 years.
As the second-highest ranking mainland leader to call for dispensing with the median line, Wang’s comment set the cat among the pigeons in Taiwan’s Presidential Office.
President Ma Ying-jeou wasted no time in rejecting Wang’s call out of hand. “We have clearly stated our position to Beijing. While we have no intention of being difficult, the issue is one of national security.”
For Chen, the median line issue can be traced back to the ROC’s relocation to Taiwan in 1949 and growing antagonism between Taipei and Beijing. He maintains that preserving air and naval superiority in the Taiwan Strait has always been an essential part of the island’s defense policy.
“In order to defend Taiwan against an attack from the People’s Liberation Army, maintaining a high state of military readiness in the Taiwan Strait is a fundamental part of the country’s security policy, irrespective of which party is in power,” Chen said.
Chen explained that the median line issue has received little attention for nearly a decade, mainly because of former President Lee Teng-hui’s July 1999 comment that Taiwan and mainland China have a “special state-to-state” relationship.
“Lee’s remark led to Beijing suspending bilateral talks,” he said, adding that former President Chen Shui-bian’s hard-line “anti-China” policy did not improve this situation any.
Chen said it is also worth noting the role of the media in the median line issue. “Some pro-unification outlets tend to oversimplify the concept of the median line as being a creature of conflicting demands and policies during the Cold War,” he said. “They intentionally fashion an image or argument that favors their particular political agenda.”
Chen proposes that Beijing used this out-of-date argument to bring pressure to bear on some within the KMT, denouncing them as having a Cold War approach to cross-strait relations.
“The [mainland Chinese] leadership took advantage of this issue to communicate with those ‘refuseniks’ in the Ma administration and encouraged them to adapt to post-Cold War thinking,” he said, adding that from Beijing’s perspective, a more “pragmatic” attitude should be introduced into discussions over this issue.
In addition to his remarks concerning the median line, Wang also reiterated Chinese Communist Party General-Secretary Hu Jintao’s call last December for Taipei to establish a mechanism to build mutual trust between the military of both sides.
Ma adroitly sidestepped Wang’s comment, instead stating that what is more urgent and pressing at the moment, is for the two sides to solve the issues that matter most to the public. “Exchanges between Taipei and Beijing should focus on economic issues first and then political affairs,” he said.
Chen states that Ma’s emphasis on economic issues can be explained within the context of domestic politics and the dynamics of Taipei, Washington and Beijing’s strategic relationship.
From the perspective of domestic politics, opening the median line is a key component of national security and considered “high politics," Chen said. “But to date, progress in cross-strait negotiations since Ma took office last May has been primarily confined to economic issues, or low politics.”
“Why Ma repeatedly reiterates his position of economics first and then politics is because if he compromises on the median line, opposition charges that he is sacrificing Taiwan’s sovereignty to appease Beijing may jeopardize his administration’s ruling legitimacy,” Chen said. “If Ma wants to consolidate his power domestically, the island’s mainstream public opinion, which favors maintaining the status quo, cannot be overlooked.”
As for Washington, the academic said given its long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward the Taiwan Strait, maintaining the equilibrium between Taipei and Beijing best serves U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Under this policy, the United States does not want Taiwan to be independent or move too quickly toward [mainland China]. From this position, opening the median line might touch a U.S. nerve as such an issue is a feature of cross-strait security,” Chen said.
According to Chen, despite Taipei’s rejection of Beijing’s recent overtures, the current state of cross-strait interactions would likely remain unchanged. “It appears Beijing is focused on working to help the KMT secure and consolidate its legitimacy as a ruling power on the island.”
“For Beijing, Ma’s victory in Taiwan’s presidential election last March offered up an unprecedented opportunity for advancing bilateral political relations,” Chen said. “This is because the then president-elect made it clear that seeking de jure independence for the island would never be an option for his administration.”
With Beijing perceiving Ma’s good will as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to move both sides even closer to their long-held goal of peaceful unification, Chen cautions that the median line issue will remain a thorny one for some time to come.
“Although the median line is invisible, its impact on cross-strait relations is very real and of great significance. Improving economic ties will not see it erased overnight.”(JSM)
Write to Chiayi Ho at chiayi@mail.gio.gov.tw