618 { China’s Quest
Democratic self-government by the people of Taiwan required abandoning
the myth that the ROC ruled over the Chinese mainland. In 1992, shortly after
legalizing many cross-Strait contacts for the first time, Taipei issued “New
Guidelines for National Unification” that postulated “two political entities”
with “parity” within “one China,” which was the ROC. The ROC still had
de jure sovereignty over the mainland of China, the New Guidelines stated,
but had de facto control only over Taiwan, Penghu, etc. The PRC exercised
de facto control over the China mainland. These ideas were incorporated in
a White Paper several days later and were again embodied in Lee Teng-hui’s
April 1995 response to Jiang’s eight-point proposal.^14
Democratization of Taiwan politics meant that long-taboo topics could
be openly discussed. Now they were debated with enthusiasm in Taiwan.
A central issue became Taiwan’s group identity. Who were the people of
Taiwan? Chinese? Taiwanese? Or both? And what did each of those identi-
ties signify in terms of Taiwan’s relations with the ethnic Chinese people and
state across the Taiwan Strait on the mainland, the PRC? And what did this
signify in terms of Taiwan’s own political institutions? A strong and articu-
late minority, represented politically by the DPP, insisted that the historical
experience of the people on Taiwan was so different from that of the people
on the Mainland that they had become a different people, a different nation,
Taiwanese, not Chinese. As such, the people of Taiwan were entitled to the
right of self-determination and to rule themselves in freedom and democracy
as a sovereign, independent state accepted as a full member of the global com-
munity of sovereign states. These advocates of Taiwan independence took
green as their symbolic color.^15
A somewhat larger opinion group argued that pursuit of Taiwan indepen-
dence was unrealistic and even dangerous given the established policy posi-
tions of the United States and the PRC. A quest for Taiwan independence
was likely to trigger a confrontation with China, possibly even war, in which
Taiwan might not have US support. Taiwan already had the substance of sov-
ereignty, plus the support of the United States, under the existing arrangement
as the Republic of China. The oldest and most fundamental meaning of sover-
eignty (tracing back to the formation of centralized monarchies in the fifteenth
century) was that an authority was actually able to impose its will on a particu-
lar piece of territory, and by this standard there was no question that Taiwan
was sovereign. The best course for Taiwan, these people urged, was to enhance
the international status and recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
This point of view took blue as their color and was broadly represented by Lee
Teng-hui’s group within the KMT. From this perspective, the crucial task was
to expand the international living space of the ROC. Several years later, many
traditionalists who favored greater stress on eventual unification rather than
enhancing Taiwan’s international status would leave the KMT, creating a new
meaning for “blue”—sometimes referred to as deep blue.