Taiwan issue is China’s core national interest, and research on its policy towards Taiwan has always been paid great attention to. Since 2004, there has been a series of noteworthy measures taken, which indicates that mainland’s policy on Taiwan has undergone a significant adjustment. However, existing research mostly focuses on explanative argument, and lacks in specific evaluation of statistics and analysis on policy efficacy. Meanwhile, existing study into statistics and policies is mostly short-term case-specific analysis, in the form of event commentary or annuals, thus in want of long-term, comparative research. This thesis focuses on statistics and event development process, attempting to improve in both regards.
This thesis will analyze Chinese mainland’s policy towards Taiwan from 1996 to 2006 by combining event analysis with policy recommendation, macro research with micro research, and fully utilizing information from books and internet, drawing on experts’ research findings and experience.
As to the criterion of policy citation for analysis, three aspects are considered: the adoption of these polices should be within regular intervals; these policies should be related to political elections; these policies should bring about major impacts. Thus, instances such the Taiwan Straits missile crisis in 1996, direct flight of chartered planes across the straits and the adoption of Anti-Secession Law in 2005 are selected.
As to analysis on policy efficacy, cited are elections of Taiwan leader in 1996、2000 and 2004, Taiwan’s “Three in One” Elections in 2005, elections for Taibei and Gaoxiong mayors in 2006, as well as results of opinion polls immediately after the issuing of related policies.
The departure point and ultimate aim of mainland’s policy towards Taiwan is to effectively contain Taiwan independence forces, creating favorable conditions for peaceful reunification. Currently, the fluctuation of Taiwan independence forces is reflected by Taiwan electoral politics and opinion polls. As these two points are where pro-independence forces and anti-independence forces collide, they are important basis for evaluation of mainland’s policy towards Taiwan in this thesis.
For some time, some of mainland’s measures could not meet with expected results, nor could they be sympathized with by Taiwan people, thus placing mainland in a passive position. In the past two years, Chinese mainland has adopted such strategies as facing the status quo, promoting people’s exchanges cross the straits, improving its image and so on, with a view to regaining an upper hand in the cross-straits interaction. The intention of this thesis is to identify the impact point of mainland’s policy on the opinion of Taiwan people, as well as on Taiwan’s political situation, by analyzing the efficacy of these policies of the past decade since mid 1990s.
Furthermore, this thesis will attempt to draw of sketch of the development track of mainland’s policy towards Taiwan, compare successes and losses of different stages and answer such fundamental questions of research on cross-straits relations as how to better gain the support of Taiwan people, how to better put into play the economic and cultural factors.
These thesis is divided into 5 chapters, namely, the definition of mainland’s policy towards Taiwan; the overall analysis of the efficacy of mainland’s policy towards Taiwan over the past decade; comments on policy efficacy by looking at the influence on Taiwan people’s opinion; analysis of factors that influence policy efficacy and analysis of separate policies, which is followed by a conclusion.
Key words: Mainland’s Policy towards Taiwan, Peaceful Reunification, One Country Two Systems, Elections