Rough Draft of Op-Ed on the real issues behind direct flights between Taiwan and China

Cross-straits relations between Taiwan and China made international headlines in the past few weeks when the two sides agreed to institute a series of direct flights for the Lunar New Year holiday. In US newspapers, articles highlighted the historic nature of these flights, which would fly non-stop from airports within Mainland China proper to Taiwan without transferring in Hong Kong or Macau.


The mandatory stopover policy, which began in 1949 with the establishment of the PROC, remains a symbolic barrier against direct contact, and is a standing reminder of enmity and separateness. As long as there is a strict border policy blocking movement across the straits, the two sides remain as divided as East and West Berlin before 1989.


Are the one-time Lunar New Year flights the first blow to the wall between Taiwan and China?


Even the most naïve observer of the potentially explosive cross-straits situation would not be so simplistic as to believe that cross-straits hostility can disappear overnight because of one diplomatic move. Recent policies on both sides of the straits continue to escalate the tensions: Beijing is moving towards the ratification of “anti-secession legislation,” and President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan seems ready to make good on his promise to “revise the constitution,” which China regards as a declaration of independence.


In the end, the Lunar New Year direct flights are merely a result of short-sighted political maneuvering in Taiwanese politics. (The CCP, of course, views the success of the direct flights as an added bonus, a chance to draw Taiwan ever closer to reunification.) The corporate sector in Taiwan has long thrown its weight behind direct flights. Taiwanese businessmen have large-scale investments on the mainland, and travel often between Taiwan and China. They must apply for a taibaozheng, or “Taiwanese Countryman Document,” issued by the mainland instead of using their Taiwanese passport, which is issued by the Taiwanese government—this is an accepted practice. Yet businessmen find the extra hours spent waiting for plane transfers as a ridiculous waste of time. Lengthening the commute wastes time, and time is money. The recent Lunar New Year flights are the culmination of years of lobbying.


Perhaps here we should examine the reason behind the enthusiastic reception of the New Year direct flights within the Taiwanese corporate community. The Lunar New Year for ethnically Chinese people everywhere is the ultimate extended family celebration in a culture that places a heavy emphasis on family. The direct flights were designed for the specific purpose of allowing Taiwanese businessmen to travel home for the New Years’ holiday. A group of tourists who tried to take advantage of the flights were refused tickets because they did not fulfill the requirements. They were not going home.


The overwhelming popularity of these homecoming flights reflects the strange lifestyle choice of many expatriated businessmen. Most of them have left their families in Taiwan and live alone on the mainland. Direct flights are a big deal, because these businessmen do not see their families for most of the year. If their lobby for direct flights were to bear fruit, they would be able to visit home with much higher frequency, not to mention at a much cheaper cost.


But why would so many businessmen choose this way of living? Wouldn’t it only be rational to relocate the entire family, eradicating the need for home-visit flights, whether they are direct or non-direct?


This situation is anything but rational, because at the end of the day, the majority of Taiwanese businessmen do not consider China home. By choosing to leave their families in Taiwan, they show that they do not consider the mainland a good environment for raising a family.


The reason for this widespread mistrust of the mainland lies in the fundamentally authoritarian political system in China. During the campaign for the 2004 Taiwanese presidential election, Taiwanese businessmen who were suspected of supporting the “green” or pro-independence ideology at home found themselves the focus of financial investigation by government officials in China. These “green businessmen” were often denied papers for building factories or held in custody for purported espionage. Chinese authorities declared openly that such “green businessmen” who made money in China in order to support the pro-independence cause in Taiwan were “unwelcome.”


The powers that be in China sent a loud message to Taiwanese businessmen: you and your capital investments are welcome, but only so long as you are politically correct. If you toe the line in your personal political beliefs, you will be refused the right to work.


Given that Taiwanese businessmen are working in this sort of coercive environment, why would they subject their families to the same oppressive scrutiny?


The desire for direct flights within the Taiwanese corporate community is filled with paradoxes and self-contradictions. Speaking loud and clear with their lifestyle choices, they keep home safe and far away in Taiwan; but because they cannot face the fact of their own exile, they demand that Taiwan be brought closer, that it be more and more accessible. They suffer a fundamental conflict between business interests and deep-seated personal interests.


Breaking down the wall between Taiwan and China is not a matter of softening cross-border transportation policies. This is a stalemate over both national identity and individual freedom that could never be resolved by something so simple as direct flights. When all’s said and done, home is where the heart is, and unless China makes an honest attempt to woo Taiwanese hearts, instituting real change in the political system, the Taiwanese cannot consider China home.