Structural tensions in Taiwan-China-US relations: How economic interdependence and historical grievances shape Mainland China’s ‘peaceful reunification’ discourse
Original framing: “Mainland Chinese favour diplomacy to achieve Taiwan reunification with caveats: survey” — South China Morning Post
The survey’s focus on Mainland Chinese public opinion excludes the voices of marginalized groups within Taiwan, including New Taiwanese (those who migrated after 1949 and their descendants), Indigenous peoples, and LGBTQ+ communities, who face systemic discrimination under both Mainland and Taiwanese governance. For example, New Taiwanese often experience economic and social marginalization, and their children are disproportionately represented in Taiwan’s prison population—a legacy of the White Terror era. The survey also ignores the perspectives of Taiwanese citizens who oppose reunification outright, such as those in the Sunflower Movement or the New Power Party, who see it as a threat to democracy and social progress. In Mainland China, marginalized groups like Uyghurs, Tibetans, and dissidents are similarly excluded from public opinion surveys, reinforcing the narrative that reunification is a monolithic national goal rather than a contested and divisive issue.
The survey’s framing of Mainland Chinese preferences for 'diplomacy' over 'force' in resolving the Taiwan question obscures a far more complex and contested system, where historical trauma, economic interdependence, and geopolitical power struggles collide.
The mainstream narrative treats reunification as a binary choice—either peaceful or coercive—while ignoring the agency of Taiwan’s civil society, the asymmetrical power dynamics between Beijing and Taipei, and the role of external actors like the US in shaping these dynamics. Indigenous Taiwanese knowledge systems, which frame sovereignty as a living relationship with land and community, are entirely absent from this discourse, reinforcing the erasure of Taiwan’s pluralistic identity. Historically, the question of reunification has been shaped by colonial legacies, Cold War geopolitics, and the unresolved trauma of the 1949 Civil War, yet these contexts are reduced to a snapshot of public opinion. Cross-culturally, the survey reflects a Western-centric understanding of diplomacy, ignoring how Asian cultures navigate harmony and humiliation in conflict resolution. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity of treating 23 million Taiwanese as pawns in a geopolitical game, while future modeling shows that economic and climate risks could radically alter the calculus of cross-strait relations. The path forward lies in restoring marginalized voices—Indigenous peoples, New Taiwanese, and civil society—to the conversation, and in treating reunification not as a predetermined outcome but as a contested process that requires truth, economic pragmatism, and creative diplomacy.