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5/ The Taiwan Issue in Chinese Domestic Politics In the PRC, as in the United States and in Taiwan, there were strong links between the Taiwan issue and domestic politicS. In China the Taiwan issue was linked to deep divisions within the cCP over the course of China's post-1978 reforms; to decliningbeJief in MarxismLeninism -Mao Zedong Thought and emergence of nationalism as a new source of state legitimaCYi to the transition of political power from the generation of elders who founded the PRC to successors lacking the authority deriving from participation in epic state-forging struggles; to the struggle within the CCP elite to consolidate a new paramount leader as successor to Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong; and especially to the increasing role of the PLA in China's political process as members ofthe ccp elite maneuvered for the mantle of Deng and Mao while seeking to avoid popular uprisings of the sort that resulted in the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe. The linkages between the Taiwan issue and questions of domestic power and policy were deep and complex. During the 1980s there was mounting elite opposition to the reforms that were swiftly moving China away from a planned and self-reliant economy toward a market economy open to the world. According to American political scientist Richard Baum, the reform coalition that supported Deng Xiaoping's rise to paramount powerin 1978 involved disparate groups. Some reformers, represented by Hu Yaobang, favored full development of a market economy integrated into the world economy, and were even willing to countenance a degree of politicaJ pluralism to achieve those ends. Hu Yaobang was secretary general of the cCP from 1981 to 1987. The early 1989commemoration of his 1988 death touched off the powerful movement that culminated in the Beijing massacre. Others, represented by veteran leader Chen Yun, favored a much more limited role of markets within a system of continued dominance by central planning and state enterprises. These more conservative reform47 48 The Taiwan Issue ers viewed any political liberalization as anathema. In the early years of reform these divergent perspectives were united in opposition to the Maoists and neo-Maoists led by Hua Guofeng. Mao had chosen Hua as his successor when Deng Xiaoping was purged for the second time in April 1976. Hua led the purge ofextreme Maoists, but insisted on continuation of the Maoist development model. As the process of marketization deepened and accelerated in the mid-1980s, tension mounted between the divergent liberal and conservative reform perspectives,l Taiwan was linked to this intensifying factional debate within the reform camp. One aspect of the conservative critique was that integration into world markets and other global economic institutions would lead to dependence on the United States, which, with its Western ames, had set up and dominated them. Extensive Chinese Involvement in such institutions would make China vulnerable to u.s.-Western pressure. Sooner or later the United States was certain to use China's greater dependence to extort China. When the Taiwan issue erupted in 1992 with President Bush's decision to sell F-16s to Talwan, the dire warnings of the conservative reformers seemed validated. Here was the u,s. president asking for Chinese acquiescence to a blatant violation of the 1982 communique on the ground that he had opposed efforts to withdraw MFN status for China! In other words, because China needed continued access to u.s. marketst it should tum a blind eye to the sale of high-tech weapons to Taiwan. There was another, more ideologically rooted link between the conservative critique and Taiwan. Among the main forces of the conservative camp were leading functionaries in the ideological apparatus, men such as Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu.2 These ideologues believed that the United States was pursuing a secret, long~term strategy to weaken China because it stood as the last major obstacle to u.s. achievement of world hegemony. One manifestation of this strategy was the u.s. effort to subvert socialism and communism viii "peaceful evolution." Much of the liberal reformers' program was in line with this imperialist plot, Deng Liqun said. Another dimension of the plot was an effort to split China's territory. Tibet and Taiwan were the main targets of this campaign. The 1989 upheaval in China had already swung power dramatically in the conservative direction. Such key liberal leaders as Zhao Ziyang, Hu QUi, and Tian Jiyun had been purged or demoted.3 Strict controls...

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