Stealth Crackdown on Dissent About Taiwan

For the last two months, the aging Wang Daohan, China’s lead sage on the perpetually sticky Taiwan issue, a well-known proponent of a peaceful solution, and someone whom the U.S. government regards as a notable policy moderate, has been resting in a quiet hospital room. This international diplomat, who has spent so much of his life observing and helping China to recover from its many self-inflicted wounds, has himself been struggling to regain his health from an array of the afflictions that hit men in their sunset years. But last week he also struggled to represent his government, as best he could, in its emerging hard-line on Taiwan. Admitted one Western diplomat after leaving the hospital: “We would have wished for a little more flexibility.”

These days, China is flexing its inflexibility on Taiwan; the authorities are starting to squeeze out any whiff of dissent. True, Beijing hasn’t ordered any out-and-out Maoist purge, but something akin to a subtle mass dampening of critics and cynics seems to be underway. The steely party line is that Taiwan will become part of China whether it wants to or not, and that China’s headlong rush into market capitalism is not capitulation to capitalism but is in fact “socialism with Chinese characteristics”--whatever in the world this might mean. These positions are not new, though they have hardened. It is the intolerance of dissent that is worrisome, because healthy relations with Taiwan are inextricably linked to China’s ability to carry out economic reforms.

The crackdown is being applied in ways guaranteed to have the most public visibility and effect. Some relative free-thinkers have been deprived of their government attachments and perks; one noted intellectual was defrocked from the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; a former editor of People’s Daily, the official party newspaper, was criticized for the unforgivable sin of revisionism. Reports influential columnist Willy Wo-Lap Lam of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post: “Observers within and outside the mainland are shocked by the ferocity of the anti-rightist movement.” A full-scale purge, he suggests, might not be so far off.

Maybe, but what’s happened so far in China is far from anything approaching an old-style, full-scale pogrom against “rightists”, i.e., closet capitalists. Despite all the tension in the air, the economic reforms largely proceed apace. “Chinese capitalists in general seem to be doing rather well,” points out Nomura Corp. analyst William Overholt, a widely respected China-watcher based in Hong Kong, “what with the Chinese constitution being changed to support them, the banks being told to lend to them. So, it’s important not to interchange the footnote for the main text.” Even so, Beijing does look to be increasingly uptight--and might be capable of additional repression, especially on the Taiwan issue, as next month’s inauguration of Taiwan President-elect Chen Shui-bian approaches. This is the most widely anticipated event on the mainland since Clinton’s arrival for the summit in 1998.

In addition, Beijing is fully aware of the daunting levels of unemployment caused by all the economic restructuring. China’s growth rate for the first quarter of this year was officially announced at more than 8%, which, if actually true, is terrific. But the uncertainties of globalization, largely and sometimes uncritically embraced by business communities here as everywhere, have political leaders extremely nervous about social costs down the road.

It thus seems that President Jiang Zemin, who so far has managed to adroitly keep the left and right neutralized, is now having to watch his own centrist back. “There are some disturbing things behind the scenes,” agrees one China-watcher based in Beijing. “Jiang is being forced to make compromises with conservatives that he finds distasteful.”

A well-informed Western diplomat says the big chill has everyone spooked: “There is definitely uncertainty about what think-tankers and others can say, especially about cross-strait relations. . . . It’s easier for folks to remain silent now.” That even goes for Wang, a party elder with an inside track to Jiang. He may have been cut out of the policy loop by the ever-smaller power elite circling the wagons.

As all mainland eyes focus on what Taiwan’s president-elect will say about reunification next month--to date, Chen has been brilliant in his conciliatory tone--mouths are closing and tensions are mounting. It would be a gross exaggeration to say that the smell of war is in the air; indeed, the general population seems to be content to get on with life, as if nothing has changed. But, as the seasoned Overholt puts it, “This is China’s critical hour. If this huge set of reforms works, they’re home free. If it doesn’t, they’re in trouble. If they have a big confrontation right now with Taiwan, the economic reform is over.” What happens on the mainland and across the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks may determine China’s course for years to come.