Just four months ahead of Taiwan’s election for a new president, Beijing has unveiled guidelines for turning Fujian province into a model zone for “integration” with the island’s residents, in an attempt to advance peaceful reunification. According to the plan, jointly issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council, China’s cabinet, the coastal province will be a gateway to the mainland for Taiwanese residents and companies, smoothing people exchanges, trade and investment.
The intention is to create interconnected day-to-day living between the mainland port city of Xiamen and the Taiwan-controlled island of Quemoy, also called Kinmen. Visitors from Taiwan would no longer need to register for temporary residence in Fujian and be encouraged to settle, buy houses and engage with the social-welfare system.
This new road map for cross-strait integration appears to build on a series of initiatives over the past decade, after Beijing issued a directive in 2009 to enhance “economic integration” between Fujian and Taiwan by 2020.
In 2019, President Xi Jinping called on the province to explore a new path for integrated development with the island. Events such as the pandemic and Sino-US political tensions over Taiwan have slowed progress until now.
KMT’s Hou pledges strong military and talks for Taiwan to keep Beijing at bay
KMT’s Hou pledges strong military and talks for Taiwan to keep Beijing at bay
At a forum in Xiamen in June, when state leader Wang Huning flagged formulation of a plan, Taiwan’s initial response was to call upon Beijing to stop “military intimidation”. Beijing’s state planner, meanwhile, says it is even ready to build a high-speed, cross-strait railway to Taiwan, a vision Taipei dismisses as “wishful thinking”.
In the short term, observers say, hopes of advancing integration by leveraging Fujian’s proximity to Taiwan and similarities of language and culture may founder on concerns about Beijing’s sweeping new counter-espionage law and its slow economic recovery from Covid, which has dampened business confidence.
However, while the proposal for interconnected living may seem a novel scheme, it is surprising in hindsight that it was not conceived earlier – perhaps because of perceived security risks. If it takes off, it could change cross-strait, people-to-people relations and open another avenue for closer ties and a pathway to integration beyond just trade and commerce.
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Coming before the presidential election, it sends a signal that only through cross-strait peaceful relations can people’s well-being be secured. After the ill-fated free-trade agreement between the mainland and Taiwan, Beijing is now taking a more people-oriented approach towards reunification in which the use of force may not be ruled out, but remains the last resort.
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