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How did the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland get so dysfunctional? In a sense, it was always that way. Taiwan was the booby prize in China's civil war. In 1949, the losing KMT forces of Chiang Kai-shek, 1 million-strong, packed up much of China's bullion and art treasures and decamped to the island known to the world as Formosa to establish a government-in-exile. Chiang's Republic of China claimed to be the government of both Taiwan and the mainland and was given scant chance of survival until the U.S. became its protector during the Korean War.
The situation was relatively clear-cut until U.S. President Jimmy Carter formally recognized the People's Republic in 1979 and the U.S. broke official relations with Taiwan. That's when Taiwan's international status went into a diplomatic hall of mirrors, from which it has yet to escape. Every American President since Carter has gone out of his way to assure Beijing that the U.S. acknowledges a "one China" policy—in other words, that Taiwan has no legitimate reason to exist independently. And yet American support and arms sales are the main guarantees that Beijing won't gobble up Taipei. Taiwan has functioned as an independent country for 55 years, but China won't allow anyone to admit to it. Beijing stridently insists on the maintenance of what it calls the status quo—which refers not to Taiwan's de facto independence but its claim of being a government-in-exile for all of China (although Taiwan formally abandoned that stance in 1991). Beijing has warned it could invade if Taiwan declares formal independence by, say, holding a referendum on sovereignty issues. China doesn't allow planes to fly from Taipei to Beijing or ships to sail directly across the strait because that would be a right afforded to an independent country. And yet Taiwan's businessmen are welcome to own and operate shoe or microchip factories on the mainland, which they do to the tune of an estimated $100 billion in investment.
For years Taiwan went along with the charade—and its official policy was that reunification with the mainland was inevitable, though hopefully not for eons. In 1995, Chen's predecessor Lee Teng-hui began rocking the boat. The U.S. let him visit his alma mater Cornell University to give a speech, and Beijing literally went ballistic: it fired unarmed missiles into waters north of Taiwan. Into this combustible scenario stepped Chen—a man who has shown an even greater willingness to antagonize the mainland. Since taking office, Chen has pushed self-determination for Taiwan still further, although with some strategic whitewashes of his own. He says he would never declare independence, but he declares that Taiwan is a sovereign, independent state at the drop of a hat. As the 2004 election drew near, he called for the referendum that Beijing feared would set a precedent for future votes on sovereignty, and declared that Taiwan needed a new constitution.
Chen's nationalistic China-baiting was good politics, but it's also part of a personal mission. He told Time in an interview last month that he considers himself a figure "who creates new chapters in history"—an ominous indication to Beijing that he's now gearing up for more epochal tussles over Taiwan's sovereignty issues. Infuriating as this may be, "China will have to deal with Chen," insists DPP legislator Hsiao Bi-kim, "if it wants to deal with Taiwan at all." But that's a big if. First, Chen needs his election victory validated. Then, even if he backpedals at the start of his second term, China is unlikely to respond. Chen has already announced his intention to rewrite the constitution if re-elected: he wants to submit the issue of constitutional reform for approval by a national referendum in 2006 and complete the document in 2008—the year of the Beijing Olympics, a moment when China cannot afford to attack Taiwan. Chen says the exercise isn't meant to promote independence but to deal with such issues as lowering the voting age. That's not how Beijing, or just about anyone else, sees his plan. "A new constitution would signal clearly that Taiwan has nothing to do with China," says Chao Chien-min, a political scientist at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
If there is no change in the election result, the KMT will have lost two presidential polls in a row, and will be at risk of becoming a political dinosaur, further strengthening Chen's hand. In the meantime, though, it can challenge the election result, make life hard for Chen in the legislature, carp about his failed referendums, and try to regroup in time for the December legislative election. Still, there is one thing nobody will underestimate about the President after last week's electoral drama: his survival skills.