POLITICS : Choice for Taiwan Premier Raises Sovereignty Question

A leader with Taiwanese roots has been nominated to be Taiwan’s next prime minister, a move that further undermines China’s hope of regaining control of the island, which it views as a breakaway province.

Mainland-born politicians who fled China in 1949 held an iron grip over Taiwan’s political life for nearly four decades. But they will be left with only marginal influence if, as expected, Gov. Lien Chan wins legislative approval later this month as Taiwan’s prime minister. Lien, 56, a former foreign minister, currently heads the island’s provincial government.

Lien was named this week by Taiwan-born President Lee Teng-hui to replace outgoing Prime Minister Hau Pei-tsun, a mainland-born former general who heads the conservative wing of the ruling Nationalist Party. Hau, 73, submitted his resignation in the wake of a poor showing by the Nationalists in December legislative elections. During bitter intraparty feuding, Hau had pushed for a member of his own faction to be his successor.

Trained as a political scientist at the University of Chicago, Lien is expected to support Lee’s policies, including democratic reforms that are giving Taiwan’s voters unprecedented control over their own government. But in a gesture of reconciliation, Lien told reporters he would “loyally follow in Prime Minister Hau’s footsteps.”

The “mainlanders,” who long controlled the Nationalist Party, escaped to Taiwan after losing a civil war to the Communists. They insist to this day that the island is legitimately part of China and have always cherished the hope that communism would collapse on the mainland, opening the door to reunification. Many native-born Taiwanese, who make up a large majority of the island’s population, have feared that the mainlanders might someday strike a deal giving Beijing control.

The main opposition group, the Democratic Progressive Party, which draws almost all its support from native-born Taiwanese, favors a formal declaration of independence for Taiwan. Nationalist Party leaders oppose this course, either on the grounds that it would be unpatriotic to permanently divide Taiwan from the mainland, or in the belief that any such attempt carries too much risk of provoking a military attack by Beijing.

Lien traces his family ancestry in Taiwan back nine generations on his father’s side, but his mother was a mainlander and he was born in the central China city of Xian. He went to Taiwan in 1946, when he was 10, because of his father’s wish to return. Thus, unlike those who fled the Communists three years later, he is viewed as a member of the native Taiwanese community.

He has publicly reaffirmed his commitment to the Nationalists’ long-term goal of national reunification. But he also is expected to push efforts to use Taiwan’s economic clout to boost its international diplomatic status.

Ever since then-President Richard M. Nixon visited Beijing in 1972, U.S. policy has been based on the premise that both Beijing and Taipei view Taiwan as part of China.

But Lee has downplayed the old Nationalist claim that Taipei is the legitimate government of all China. Instead, he is pushing the idea that Beijing and Taipei should recognize each other as equal political entities that control separate parts of a single divided nation. Beijing has bitterly rejected the proposal.

“Taiwan is an inalienable part of China,” Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin warned in comments reported in December by the official New China News Agency. “We (wish) to realize the reunification of China through peaceful means. But if there is to appear an ‘independent Taiwan’ or if foreign powers plot to split China, we will take resolute measures to guard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Any slide toward confrontation would pose major challenges for U.S. policy. One justification behind former President George Bush’s decision last year to approve the sale of 150 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan was a desire to ensure that Taiwan’s air force can deter a Chinese attack without dependence on direct U.S. military intervention.