The New York Times
By AUSTIN RAMZY
By AUSTIN RAMZY
But Beijing has discovered, again, that money can’t buy love.
In Taiwan last year, large protests broke out against an agreement to expand trade with the mainland, and the governing Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, which favors closer ties with China, has plummeted in popularity and is widely expected to lose the presidency and possibly the legislature in January elections.
Now, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has agreed to meet the president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou — the first meeting between the leader of the Republic of China, the government that fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war in 1949, and the leader of the People’s Republic of China, established on the mainland by Mao’s victorious Communists.
The historic encounter, scheduled to take place on neutral ground in the city-state of Singapore on Saturday, will be trumpeted by both sides as a milestone in cross-strait relations. But it also seems to be an implicit acknowledgment by Mr. Xi that the Chinese effort to woo Taiwan with economic benefits alone has been unsuccessful — and that Beijing’s dream of unification with the island is as distant as ever, despite a long courtship.
“Xi Jinping is at a loss,” said Parris Chang, president of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic and Strategic Studies, a think tank in Taipei. “He doesn’t know what to do.”
Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor at the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, described the decision to meet Mr. Ma as “a Hail Mary pass with time expiring.”
“Beijing has finally realized that the partner it has been working with on Taiwan, the K.M.T., is heading for disaster,” Professor Sullivan said, referring to the Kuomintang by its initials.
Mr. Xi is breaking with long-established policy by agreeing to meet Mr. Ma. But it is unclear how much further the Communist leadership is able or willing to go to win over the 23 million people of Taiwan, who polls show are uninterested in unification and increasingly anxious about the self-governing island’s dependence on the much larger Chinese economy.
Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, is widely favored to become Taiwan’s new president. So far, she has not been subjected to the sort of vitriol that the Communist Party has heaped on some of the D.P.P.’s past candidates, an indication that Beijing may be receptive to working with her.
Yet there has been no hint that China is capable of taking steps that might improve its public standing in Taiwan, by allowing the island greater representation in the United Nations or other international organizations, for example, or signaling a willingness to treat it as an equal in a future political union.
In many ways, the Communist Party’s approach to Taiwan has mirrored its policies in volatile Chinese territories like Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang, where it opens its checkbook to distribute economic benefits but refuses to compromise on political matters.
But Taiwan is different — beyond Beijing’s rule — and the problem that China faces there is an example of the limits of its heavy reliance on trade and investment to project influence overseas. Even as it has assumed the role of a global power, its one-note focus on economic relations has sometimes backfired, with resentment against Chinese investment simmering from Southeast Asia to Africa.
Since his election in 2008, Mr. Ma has made more than 20 deals to expand commerce and interaction with mainland China. But student-led demonstrators occupied Taiwan’s legislature for nearly a month last year to block passage of a new trade bill that he championed, a protest that became known as the Sunflower Movement and that unnerved Beijing.
The lesson for the Chinese leadership was that “the usual influence of the mainland — more money, more investment — has less impact,” said a senior Asian diplomat following cross-strait relations, who requested anonymity to speak freely about a subject the Chinese consider sensitive.
Joseph Wu, secretary general of the D.P.P., said the meeting scheduled for Saturday represented a shift by Beijing but was also a “double-edged sword.”
“China is trying to woo Taiwan,” he said. “However, I think the resentment among regular people for China is quite deep. People’s dislike of President Ma is also deep. For those two to get together in Singapore may not change people’s minds.”
Part of the problem in Taiwan has been slow growth; gross domestic product contracted in the last quarter, despite all the Chinese tourism and trade. Many are worried that investment in China has undermined Taiwan’s own industries. And even when the island’s economy performed better, wage growth stagnated, with the benefits of cross-strait trade going disproportionately to Taiwan’s business elite.
The larger concern, though, has been China’s intentions. Beijing considers Taiwan to be Chinese territory that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary, and the demonstrations against Mr. Ma’s policies have been driven by fear that China is using trade to achieve what decades of military bluster could not.
Both sides have said Saturday’s meeting is meant to consolidate peaceful relations and ensure future prosperity. “This meeting is positive, for Taiwan, for the mainland, for the world,” Mr. Ma said in a news conference on Thursday.
But many in Taiwan view the meeting as an attempt to influence the vote in January. Beijing has tried before to dampen popular support for independence-leaning politicians in Taiwan. It lobbed missiles into waters near the island ahead of the 1996 election. And it lavished attention on the Kuomintang to undercut the former president, Chen Shui-bian, whose moves to formalize Taiwan’s separate status from China angered Beijing and, at times, Washington.
“China has always tried to use different methods to influence Taiwan,” said Lin Fei-fan, one of the leaders of the Sunflower Movement. “Most people in Taiwan understand why they want to meet now,” he added.
Given that the Kuomintang’s candidate, Eric Chu, is trailing Ms. Tsai in the polls, the Chinese government sees a meeting with Mr. Ma as a chance to shake up the race, said Li Jiaquan, a retired Taiwan researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “We chose the timing because the situation for K.M.T. is critical right now,” he said.
“The meeting is to inspire the routed K.M.T.,” he added, “and on the other hand, suppress the charge of the D.P.P.”
But Mr. Li acknowledged the gambit had little chance of success with an electorate in Taiwan that has soured on closer ties with the mainland. “I can’t say it would really work, but we need to do something to humble the D.P.P.,” he said.
Many analysts in Taiwan predict the meeting will only hurt the K.M.T. further. Ms. Tsai has already gone after Mr. Ma on the issue, denouncing his surprise announcement of the meeting and warning him against making concessions that could undermine Taiwan’s status.
“The way to win an election in Taiwan is to be the less dangerous of the two options,” said Nathan F. Batto, a political scientist at Academia Sinica in Taipei. The D.P.P. was voted out of power after Mr. Chen’s efforts to assert Taiwan’s sovereignty and rile China, he noted. “But over the past four years, I think Ma Ying-jeou defined himself as the more dangerous option. He engaged China too eagerly.”
Others said the criticism of Mr. Ma overlooked how his policies had drastically reduced tensions and the potential for armed conflict between China and Taiwan. “He deserves more credit than he gets,” said Kai-Fu Lee, a prominent tech investor from Taiwan and former head of Google in China.
The D.P.P. says it would be open to meetings with Mr. Xi, too, if it wins in January, but it has rejected Beijing’s insistence that both sides first agree that Taiwan is part of “one China.” It has also called for broad transparency and legislative oversight of meetings with mainland officials.
Beijing has tried to hedge for the possibility that the D.P.P. will return to power in Taiwan, inviting several party figures to China for meetings with local officials in recent years. But if Ms. Tsai is elected as expected, there is little doubt that she will slow its efforts to bind Taiwan more closely to the mainland economically.
That leaves Mr. Xi with limited options. “This line of united-front thinking has failed,” wrote Li Ping, a journalist for Apple Daily, a newspaper in Hong Kong, referring to China’s strategy of using economics to pursue its political goals. “But the Communist Party has never engaged in introspection.”
Jane Perlez contributed reporting and Yufan Huang contributed research from Beijing.
香港—過去八年里，中國政府向台灣島上過去的敵人播撒了很多經濟上的好處，如直飛航班、商業合作，甚至還有海底管道。雙邊貿易額提升了超過50%，大陸遊客曾經不能到台灣旅行，如今卻成群結隊地前來，單單是去年就來了近400萬人。
但是北京再一次發現，用金錢買不到愛。
去年，台灣爆發了大規模抗議活動，對一項進一步擴大與大陸貿易的協議表達不滿。執政的國民黨支持與中國大陸建立更緊密的關係，該黨人氣遭受重創，民眾廣泛認為，國民黨會在明年1月的大選中丟掉總統寶座，可能也會失去立法院。
現在中國國家主席習近平已經同意與台灣領導人馬英九(Ma Ying-jeou)會面，這是中華民國的元首第一次與中華人民共和國的元首會面。1949年在內戰中戰敗後，中華民國政府遷往台灣，在毛澤東領導下取得勝利的共產黨則在大陸建立了人民共和國。
這次歷史性的會面定於周六在中立的地點新加坡舉行，屆時雙方都會宣揚，此次會面是兩岸關係的一座里程碑。但站在習近平的角度，這也是在含蓄地承認，中國大陸簡單以經濟利益向台灣示好的舉措失敗了——儘管做出了長期的追求，但是北京方面尋求統一的夢想，卻一如既往地遙遠。
「習近平不知所措，」 台北智庫台灣政經戰略文教基金會的執行長張旭成(Parris Chang)說，「他不知道要做些什麼。」
諾丁漢大學當代中國學學院(School of Contemporary Chinese Studies)副教授喬納森·蘇利文(Jonathan Sullivan)形容此次的習馬會無異於「終場前念着聖母保佑朝對方球門大開一腳。」
他說，「北京方面終於認識到，他們在台灣一直合作的夥伴國民黨，正在走向災難。」
習近平同意會見馬英九的決定打破了一項長期確立的政策。然而並不明朗的是，共產黨領導層為了贏得2300萬台灣民眾，能夠走多遠、願意走多遠。這座自行管治的島嶼對於日益增強的中國經濟很依賴。民調顯示， 台灣民眾對統一不感興趣，對經濟依賴則變得越來越焦慮。
傾向獨立的民主進步黨(Democratic Progressive Party)主席蔡英文(Tsai Ing-wen)被廣泛期望會成為台灣的新任總統。共產黨曾對民進黨過去的一些候選人發起過惡毒攻擊，但迄今為止，蔡英文還沒有受到類似的攻擊，這顯示出北京方面可能對與她合作持開放態度。
然而目前還沒有跡象顯示，中國大陸有能力做出實際上可能在台灣改善其公眾形象的舉動，例如允許台灣在聯合國或其他國際組織擁有更大的代表權，或是展露出在未來的政治聯合體中平等對待台灣的意願。
從很多方面來看，共產黨對台灣的做法，與中國在香港、西藏和新疆等不穩定地區採取的政策頗為相似。官方樂於打開支票本，廣撒經濟好處，但是拒絕在政治事務上做出讓步。
然而台灣有一點不同，它不受大陸政府的統治。中國大陸官方在這裡遇到的問題，也體現出它在海外投射影響力時，高度依賴貿易和投資的局限性。儘管中國已經成為一個全球大國，但是一門心思地關注經貿關係有時卻產生了反作用，從東南亞到非洲，對中國投資的反感都在隱隱醞釀之中。
自2008年當選以來，馬英九簽訂了超過20項協議，拓展與中國大陸的經貿往來。但在去年，以學生為首的示威者佔據台灣立法院近一個月，試圖阻撓馬英九推動的一項貿易法案得到通過。這場抗議被稱為「太陽花運動」，令北京感到不安。
中國領導層得到的教訓是，「通常能讓大陸獲得影響力的東西——更多資金、更多投資——作用沒那麼大了，」一位關注兩岸關係問題的資深亞洲外交官說，他要求匿名接受採訪，以針對中國考慮敏感的話題暢所欲言。
民進黨的秘書長吳釗燮(Joseph Wu)表示，此次定於周六的會面代表着北京的轉變，但也是一把「雙刃劍」。
「中國正在嘗試向台灣示好，」他說，「但是，我認為在普通民眾當中，針對中國的反感相當之深。人們也非常不喜歡馬英九總統。所以這兩方的會晤可能不會改變人們的想法。」
台灣的問題部分在於經濟增長緩慢，儘管有大量中國遊客和兩岸貿易助推，但台灣上季度的國內生產總值(GDP)還在縮減。很多人擔心，對中國大陸的投資損害了台灣自身的工業發展。而且即便是台灣經濟態勢較好的時候，工資水平的增長也是停滯的，兩岸貿易的大部分好處都流向了少數台灣商業精英。
不過，他們更大的擔憂在於中國的意圖。北京視台灣為中國領土，認為將來必須要統一，必要時還會動用武力。而人們之所以對馬英九的政策舉行示威，是因為擔心中國正在利用貿易，來取得多年來靠軍事恐嚇所不能實現的東西。
雙方都表示，周六的會晤意在鞏固和平關係，確保未來的繁榮。「這次馬習會能夠舉行，對台灣、對大陸、對世界都是正面的事情，」馬英九在周四舉行的新聞發佈會上講道。
但在台灣，很多人都認為，這次會面是在嘗試影響1月的選情。北京過去就曾嘗試壓制台灣民眾對傾向獨立的政治人物的支持。在1996年大選前夕，它曾向台灣附近水域發射了數枚導彈。它還將注意力傾注到國民黨一邊，以破壞台灣前總統陳水扁的影響力。陳水扁試圖正式確立台灣分離於北京的地位，因而惹怒了北京，一些時候還觸怒過華盛頓。
太陽花運動的領導人物之一林飛帆表示，「中國一直在嘗試運用不同的方法來影響台灣。」他還說，「台灣大多數人都明白，他們為什麼想要現在會面。」
已經從北京的中國社科院退休的台灣問題研究員李家泉認為，鑒於國民黨候選人朱立倫(Eric Chu)目前在民意調查中落後於蔡英文，所以大陸政府將習馬會看作改變選情的一個機會。「之所以選擇這個時機，就是因為眼下國民黨情勢危急，」他說。
「這次會面是為了提振遭遇挫折的國民黨的士氣，」他接著說，「另一方面也遏制民進黨的勢頭。」
但李家泉承認，這步棋勝算很小，因為台灣選民對於拉近和大陸的關係，已經產生反感。他表示，「我不敢說這招真的會起效，但我們總要做些什麼，挫挫民進黨的銳氣。」
台灣很多分析人士預測，此次會面只會進一步拉低國民黨的選情。蔡英文已經就這一議題對馬英九發起攻擊，譴責他在倉促之間宣布這個消息，還警告他不要做出妥協，損及台灣的地位。
「在台灣，贏得大選的方式，是成為兩個選項中相對不太危險的那一個，」位於台北的中央研究院(Academia Sinica)政治學者內森·F·巴托(Nathan F. Batto)說。他指出，陳水扁當初極力追求台灣的主權，惹惱了中國，因此被選民拉下了台。「但是過去四年里，我覺得馬英九把自己變成了更危險的那個選項。他與中國的交往太急切了。」
另一些人表示，批評馬英九的聲音忽略了一個事實，即他的政策大大緩解了兩岸的緊張局勢，也大大降低了大陸和台灣發生武裝衝突的可能性。「他應該得到比現在更多的認可，」來自台灣的知名科技投資人、前谷歌中國總裁李開復說。
民進黨表示，如果該黨在1月的大選中獲勝，也願意接受與習近平會晤的提議。但北京方面堅持，雙方首先要承認台灣是「一個中國」的一部分，民進黨則拒絕這一立場。它還呼籲，在與大陸官員會晤方面，應該提高透明度，並加強立法機構監督。
北京也在為民進黨重新執掌台灣政權這一可能性做準備。最近幾年，它曾邀請好幾位民進黨人士到大陸與地方官員會面。但如果蔡英文如願當選，她無疑會放慢推動台灣與大陸建立更密切經濟聯繫的腳步。
這樣一來，習近平手中的選項就很有限了。「統戰思維是失敗的，只是中共從未自我反省，」香港《蘋果日報》記者李平在一篇文章中，這樣評價通過經濟手段來追求政治目的的做法。
Jane Perlez對本文有報道貢獻，Yufan Huang自北京對本文有研究貢獻。
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