Itching for a Fight

When former President Lee Teng-hui stood in front of a crowd of 150,000 in Taipei this month to demand that the island's official name be changed from the Republic of China to Taiwan, China was expected to go, well, ballistic. Any move by Taiwan to prove its de facto independence enrages Beijing. When Lee, who was born in Taiwan, was running for President in 1996, Beijing fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait to scare voters away from supporting him. But Beijing's reaction to Lee's recent rally was surprisingly subdued. An official statement said the move had "seriously sabotaged relations" with China, but that's routine rhetoric. Next day, Taiwan's stock market hit new highs.

Beijing may have learned not to meddle in the island's affairs around election time. Taiwan's third presidential election will be held in March—and in the two previous elections China's attempts to influence the outcome have boomeranged. After China launched its missiles in '96—prompting the U.S. to rush two aircraft carriers to the region—voters gave Lee a landslide victory. Four years later China directed its ire at presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian, whose Democratic Progressive Party sprang from the pro-independence movement. Beijing branded him a "dangerous" separatist and threatened "a blood-soaked battle" to reunite with Taiwan. Chen was a long shot until then, but ended up winning. "China has learned to shut up," says Emile Sheng, a professor at Taiwan's Soochow University. "It knows now that its statements have the opposite effect than it intends."

Chen appears to be doing his best to provoke Beijing. On Sept. 1, Taiwan changed the wording on its passports to read Taiwan instead of the Republic of China. Yet he's still lagging in the polls. Chen badly needs a spat with China—but Beijing isn't taking the bait.