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By the end of the twentieth century, there were many secessionist groups, but, the move towards Taiwanese secessionism has arguably been the most significant of these. It triggered the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, which resulted in a historical military confrontation between Mainland China and the US. As will be shown, from 1988 to 2000, Lee Teng-hui, as president of Taiwan, manipulated the political Cross-Straits relationship to promote what was ultimately a secessionist policy. This caused Mainland China to react strongly and triggered sharp tension between Taiwan and Mainland China. This thesis considers what motivated Lee Teng-hui to implement a secessionist Cross-Straits policy and why he supported unification while adopting a substantive secessionist policy. It looks at how he was able to instigate Taiwanese hostility towards Mainlanders, to transform the hostility into a sense of Taiwanese national identity and ultimately into Taiwanese secessionist ideology. A historical approach was used in exploring the origins of secessionism, and descriptive and analytical methods to review systematically and comprehensively political developments in the ROC and its civil war, and to study Lee Teng-hui’s life; the national identity of Taiwan and Mainland China; the implementation of Lee Teng-hui’s political Cross-Straits policy; and the reaction of Mainland China. The study showed that the main cause of Taiwanese secessionism was ethnic conflict between Taiwanese and Mainlanders. It originated from the 228 Incident of 1947, in which Mainlander-led troops slaughtered many Taiwanese. Soon after, the Mainlander-led government fled to Taiwan from Mainland China, and many Taiwanese (including Mainlanders) were killed during the State of Emergency in the 1950s and 1960s. Since the Mainlander-led government fled to Taiwan in its original central government form, the Mainlander élite occupied key positions in the government during the 1950s and 1960s. It resulted in unfair power-sharing for Taiwanese, and caused the Taiwanese élite to believe that they had to establish their own government (nation). Lee Teng-hui had participated in the CCP and had been under political surveillance by the Mainlander-led government for over twenty years. He weathered these political difficulties, but by reasonable inference, there was a close relationship between the political oppression by the Mainlander-led government and his secessionist political Cross-Straits policy. Because Taiwanese residents were indoctrinated by Chiang Ching-kuo and his father, Chiang Kai-shek’s administration for about 40 years, Chinese ideology was dominant and Lee Teng-hui initially paid lip-service to Cross-Strait unification whilst working towards secessionism as reflected in the Chingdao-Lake Incident (1994); the private dialogue between Lee Teng-hui and Shiba Ryotaro (1994); the address at Cornell University (1995); and his two-state theory (1999). However, due to strong pressure from Mainland China, he did not reach his secessionist goal during his presidential term (1988-2000). In conclusion, this thesis shows that Taiwan Island’s geopolitical importance is at the heart of the US’ support for Taiwan’s secession from the Mainland. Therefore, Lee’s secessionist Cross-Strait policy aside, US national interests lie in containing Mainland China and it has, therefore, always played an important role in the secessionist issue and always will. From the perspective of Mainland China, either in terms of nationalism or national security, Taiwan’s secession is a life-and-death issue. If Taiwanese authorities were to declare independence, the only option for Mainland China would be to launch a unification war. For the US, Taiwan is only a pawn that it uses to contain Mainland China. Therefore, in the Cross-Strait issue, the US has more options than Mainland China, namely, to use military intervention in the future to deter Chinese unification or to decide to share common peaceful international relations with Mainland China by accepting Cross-Strait unification. / Thesis (DPhil (International Relations))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

as English abstract / Oppressed by the severe surveillance of the Japanese police in Taiwan, short-lived Taiwanese Communist Party (TCP) (1928-1931) marked a significant step in the Taiwan’s anti-Japanese movement and social thought. The TCP was the first political organization in Taiwan to put forward the slogan of Taiwan’s independence. Following the Comintern’s activation in the East in 1920s, the first contacts between the Taiwan’s leftists and the Comintern representatives took place in early 1920s. Starting from 1927, the Comintern pursued the policy of activation of the communist movement in the colonies and establishment of communist parties in these countries. Established on the Comintern directive in Shanghai with the help of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and being subordinated to the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), the TCP was developing quite independently under the leadership of Xie Xuehong and in the close alliance with the Taiwan Cultural Association and the Taiwan Peasants Union, until the end of 1930 when the TCP established a contact with the Far Eastern Bureau (FEB) of the Comintern through the TCP Shanghai representative, Weng Zesheng, who served as liaison with the Comintern. As the result, the Comintern activated its work toward Taiwan, started dispatching emissaries to Taiwan who in the framework of the Comintern’s rhetoric of that time promoted the Party’s reform to eliminate the “opportunistic errors”. The activation of the Party’s work followed, the Union for Reorganization was established. The Comintern did not have chance to adjust the activity of the reformed TCP as within few months after the beginning of actual interaction between the Comintern and the TCP, the TCP was destroyed by arrests. The thesis is devoted to the Comintern’s role in the TCP’s establishment, development, reform, establishment of the Union for Reorganization, the Party’s activation and destruction. The research is based on the TCP files deposited in the former archive of the Comintern. The documents include the correspondence of the representative of the TCP, Weng Zesheng, with the Comintern FEB. The correspondence between Weng Zesheng and the FEB sheds light on the inner-party processes in the TCP, clarifies the essence of the inner-party struggle and reform, and explores the role of personal relations in the inner-party struggle which resulted in the UFR establishment without direct involvement of the Comintern. The available now text of the consultations of Weng Zesheng with the CCP representative Qu Qiubai makes it possible to clarify the CCP’s involvement in the TCP’s development and reform and to conclude as to whose directive it was to commence the struggle against Xie Xuehong. The TCP’s history was short but very intensive. Abandoned by its superior, the JCP, and not having relations with the international communist leadership, the TCP suffered lack of the financial and ideological support, and was left for the mercy of unpredictable fate of the exhausting inner factional struggle, still was able to survive under the “white terror” until the Party’s reorganization in 1931. According to the research results, the TCP inner-party struggles during 1928-1931 were in fact the result of resistance to emigrant party groupings who were attempting to take control over the TCP’s Taiwan based Party organization. Neither the JCP and the CCP, nor the Comintern had a real opportunity to influence the activities of the Taiwan-based communists. Taiwan’s communists overseas used the Comintern’s rhetoric and their contacts with the Comintern and the CCP to promote their agenda in the inner-party struggle. The implementation of the plans of Weng Zesheng and the opponents of Xie Xuehong in Taiwan on the Party’s reform and activation led to the Party’s destruction by the Japanese administration.