Democratization and Beijing’s Taiwan Policy

Abstract

Beijing’s Taiwan policy during Taiwan’s democratization was not initially shaped by consideration of political events on the island itself. Much more important was a combination of domestic pressures on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and changes in Beijing—Washington relations in the late 1970s. As democratization has proceeded in Taiwan, though, Beijing has been presented with new problems. Rather than reassess its claims to sovereignty over Taiwan, however, Beijing has tried to mobilize its resources in a variety of ways to manipulate emerging societal constraints in the island’s politics so as to promote unification on its own terms. The result is an emerging pattern of constraints on policy makers on both sides of the Taiwan Straits that is determined as much by developments on the mainland as it is by democratization in Taiwan.