An Easy One for China

Two down, one to go. The way Beijing sees it, regaining power over the coastal island of Macao takes China two-thirds of the way to returning the country to the “embrace of the motherland.” But unlike the takeover of Macao and Hong Kong before it, China’s potential reunification with Taiwan poses a much more complex problem than striking a deal with a European colonial power thousands of miles away. Beijing will have to make its case for unification with the people of Taiwan, not with distant governments.

After 442 years of Portuguese rule, Macao was handed over Sunday to China on terms similar to those under which Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Like Hong Kong, Macao has become a “special administrative region” of China, with its own constitution and considerable local autonomy for 50 years under a “one country, two systems” arrangement. For Beijing, the takeover of Macao marks the end of centuries of foreign occupation.

But as China’s government-controlled media made clear in whipping up a frenzy of nationalism, the takeover of Macao is a mere prelude to the ultimate prize, the reunification with Taiwan. “Unity of the motherland and patriotism are the feelings deeply rooted in the culture of the Chinese nation,” one Communist paper gushed.

It should be clear to Beijing that the parallel between Macao or Hong Kong on the one side and Taiwan on the other goes only so far. Taiwan is not a colony whose fate can be negotiated away. Rather, while coexisting with China under the ambiguous “one China” formula, it is a functioning democracy growing increasingly wary of the Communist rulers in Beijing. Taiwan has its own armed forces and, more important, under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, a promise from the United States to defend its territory against China’s aggression.

Chinese leaders tested the U.S. commitment in 1996 when they lobbed missiles close to a Taiwanese port, prompting President Clinton to send two aircraft carriers into Taiwanese waters. Beijing has never renounced the possibility of armed invasion of Taiwan and responds with threats of violence to any expression of independence from Taipei. Their uneasy relationship is likely to grow testier as Taiwan approaches its March presidential election, in which all the leading candidates oppose reunification.

Taiwan has built a thriving democracy and modernized its economy. Clearly, its people will not agree to a reunification with a Communist-run China unless Beijing itself changes. First of all, China should renounce the military option. Instead, it should use its and Taiwan’s approaching membership in the World Trade Organization to forge closer economic ties. Establishing direct air, shipping and communication links would go a long way toward building a bridge across the Taiwan Strait.