Uncle Sam claims there is only "One China," but I have seen two. One China is the enormous and authoritarian Peoples Republic (PRC) encircling one of every 5 people on Earth and governed by the Communist Party since 1949. The other China, the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), is democratically governed and inhabits a number of islands uniting 23 million citizens across the Taiwan Strait. The geographical distance between the mainland and the ROC is not great, perhaps 90-100 miles at high tide. The political distance between the two--well, they are light-years apart. [from Part I]

The backdrop to all economic relations and political relations between Taiwan and China is the simple fact that Taiwan and the mainland don't talk together formally. They haven't since June 1995, when Beijing unilaterally suspended talks with Taipei over former president Lee Teng-hui's visit to visit his alma mater Cornell University. When the mainland stopped talking, it insisted (and still insists) the key to restarting dialogue is Taiwan's acknowledgement that there is "one China." And that means Taiwan is an integral part of China, which is governed by the PRC, of course. Once Taiwan acknowledges there is "one China," then the "details" of the relationship, Taiwan's rights and protections, can be discussed. It's not unlike inviting China's fox into Taiwan's chicken coop.

Taiwan for its part has insisted on "one China with separate interpretations." During the last presidential campaign Chen Shui-bian characterized mainland policy as "special relations between two counties." And during our meeting last December, the president re-iterated that he would willingly talk with China's leaders...but not with the pre-condition of "one China" as Beijing interprets it. So the issue just sits. It will take creativity to break the log jam.

One such attempt at solving the impasse goes under the title of the "1992 Consensus," the origins of which are themselves cloudy. In 1991 and along with the MAC's creation, Taiwan established the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a quasi-government agency, to negotiate with the mainland. The PRC, on its side, established the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS). ARATS Chairman Wang Daohan now insists the two sides reached a "consensus" in 1992 in which each side agreed to define "one China" as it wished. It was a sort of agreement to disagree, while seeming to agree. Many believed such a formulation was confusing at best and a recipe for future conflict. It was worse than no agreement. SEF secretary-general Shi Hwei-yow has denied such a consensus ever existed, as has President Chen Shui-bian.

In short, there is not even an agreement to disagree. There is just disagreement about how the two sides of the Strait should relate to each other. And it is my reading of the majority of Taiwanese to whom I spoke that they are very clear on the differences and the disagreement. Taiwan is a democracy; the PRC is not. It's quite simple, and very complicated.

From the political perspective the MAC also faces challenging defense questions. For example, to emphasize its intention to reunify Taiwan, the PRC continues to build its threatening short-and-medium-range missile force in Fujian Province opposite Taiwan. That ploy has worked in opposite ways. Clearly it has encouraged Taiwan to bolster its defenses, which I will discuss in a later article. But some say the PRC's ploy also could demoralize the Taiwanese, making them believe they cannot win a long attrition campaign and bringing pressure on the ROC government to accede to the PRC's drive to unify the 2 sides of the Strait. It's a bit of a rock-and-a-hard-place for the ROC government.

There is yet another political divide between the mainland and Taiwan, which directly impacts on domestic politics and was shared by a long-time Taiwan analyst. It is the politics of ethnicity, or how long one (or one's family) has been on the Island of Taiwan--for 400 years, for 200 years, or since the exodus from the mainland in 1949 with Chiang Kai-shek. To show how ethnicity plays into the electoral politics of the Legislative Yuan, mayoral and local races on December 1, the Taiwanese press frequently reported that many local analysts considered this election the final consolidation of the "Taiwanese vote." First a president was elected who was born on Taiwan (Lee Tung-hui), although still from the long-ruling Nationalist party (or mainland-originated KMT). Then a president was elected, Chen Shui-bian, who was not from the KMT but from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) founded on Taiwan. And finally the Taiwanese elected a parliament on December 1, having the DPP, rather than KMT, as its largest party. The government has been fully "Taiwan-ized." And although ethnic politics are not as conflicted, as they are in some states like Israel or Afghanistan, they still frame the canvas upon which the political hues of "blue" (KMT-mainland) and "green" (DPP-Taiwanese) are being painted, ever brighter.

Life-sized issues challenge the cross-Strait relations between Taiwan and the mainland, nations that both attract and repel each other. The Mainland Affairs Council is at the vortex of these seismic challenges probing whether there is one China or two and how to reconcile quite disparate views of global reality. Resolution of Pandora's puzzle is murky at best. The easy answer is: only time will tell. That also may be the only answer--at least for now.