The Taiwan independence movement (TIM), which pursues the establishment of an independent Taiwan sovereign state, has been an important factor in the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Beijing threatens to use force against Taiwan should the island move toward permanent separation from China. In order to discourage people in Taiwan from taking such a radical move, which might trigger a war, most countries in the international community, including the United States, adopt a one-China policy and do not support a de jure independent Taiwan. There are not many books that systematically study the TIM, in particular, its relationship with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) – one of the two most important political parties in Taiwan. Dongtao Qi's book is the most up-to-date work to explore this issue.
The book consists of two parts. The first part studies the TIM in power from 2000 to 2008. Qi does an excellent job of analysing the dilemma faced by the DPP government, using the theory of movement government. When the DPP under President Chen Shui-bian tried to perform its governmental role by adopting a conciliatory policy toward China in 2000–2002, it upset TIM supporters. When the DPP government's performance did not meet public expectations, President Chen abandoned the conciliatory policy and adopted a strategy of confrontation to consolidate support from TIM fundamentalists in 2002–2004. He went further to take a radical strategy to provoke China in 2005–2008 in order to divert the Taiwanese people's attention from his family's corruption scandals and his government's poor economic performance.
Qi's findings are very persuasive. Indeed, the DPP as a movement government did play two different roles: the role of the national government and the role of the TIM leader. As Qi points out these two roles enjoy “two overlapping but still distinguishable support bases” (p. 11) and the TIM supporters “are more radical than government supporters on important movement issues” (p. 13) Therefore, when President Chen adopted a confrontation or radicalization policy, he was able to win greater loyalty from the TIM supporters. Nevertheless, such policies inevitably would deter some of the government supporters and this in part led the DPP to lose the 2008 presidential election. Chen took radical moves, as Qi suggests, for personal interests. But covering up corruption scandals was not his only consideration. An additional purpose was to leave a legacy of promoting Taiwan's sovereign status.
The second part of the book studies the development of the TIM from 2008 to 2012. It explains how the DPP under Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen's leadership was able to revive itself from the miserable defeat in the 2008 presidential election, and why Tsai was still unable to win the 2012 presidential election. Qi's analysis in this part is less theoretical and more narrative. Qi rightly reminds the readers not to treat the DPP and the TIM as an identical political force in Taiwan. But the TIM almost disappears in this part of the study. The discussions are all about the DPP – its factionalism, party reform, Tsai's leadership, campaign strategies, China policy and future challenges. The study gives a very good account of these party developments, which helps readers to understand how the DPP was able successfully transform itself from ruling party to opposition party, and prepare for a future return to power. But more attention should have been paid to exploring the development of the TIM and its relations with the DPP in this period.
Qi points out that the pro-independence attitude among the people in Taiwan has maintained a rising trend. But one should carefully define the TIM. If the TIM is treated as an organization, its membership is not large. If the TIM is regarded as an idea, it does enjoy the majority support among the Taiwanese people. Opinion polls conducted by different institutes, including the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University, whose data were used by the author for analysis, support such an argument. Even the tremendous improvement of cross-Strait relations in the period of the Ma Ying-jeou administration from 2008 to 2016 did not reverse such a trend. Chapter two of this book gives a brief introduction to the background and development of the TIM since the period of Japanese colonial rule. But it does not explain why the TIM has been able to grow in the face of a strong threat from China and an unfriendly international community.
Tsai Ing-wen won the 2016 presidential election and the DPP government took power on 20 May of that year. Qi's book offers a good theoretical model to analyse the DPP government's behaviour in the past. The model should be useful to study President Tsai's policy and her government's relationship with China and the TIM in the future.
