China’s policy toward Taiwanese local government and Taiwan’s reaction strategy：Case study of the forth government of Kaohsiung city

The cross strait relationship has major influence on Taiwan’s political and economic development. The Chinese government changed its Taiwan policy after DPP took the presidential office. It adopted different policies against Taiwan’s central and local governments. For those local governments held by DPP, China government set up a series of united front policies, such as tourist and procurement, to circumvent those root supporters like farmers and fish men for DPP.
This research focused on the fourth Kaohsiung City Government （2006-2010）led by Mayor Chen Chiu, to tell how a local government reacted to the changing cross straight situations. Based on principles of democracy, human right and sovereign independence, she interacted with China flexibly in order to pursue her goal of vote maximum. She went to China as a DPP mayor to promote Kaohsiung Organizing Committee. Under the protest from China, she still asked Dalai Lama to pray for those suffered in the 88 flood. She played the “The10 Conditions of Love”, a recorder of Rabiye Qadir, during the Kaohsiung Film Festival. She interacted with Chinese government with both stance and flexibility. Therefore she became highly popular and won the second term successfully.
This research found out that Mayor Chen would make her policies differently at any point of time based on the following conditions: first, the interaction between Taiwanese and Chinese governments, second, the outside environment considerations. This research, then, make its policy suggestions. First, for the short term, Taiwan’s local governments should base on values of freedom, democracy, human right and Taiwan sovereignty to interact with China smoothly and nicely. Second, for the long term, DPP and KMT shall build up a negotiation platform to make common China policy. Based on this “Taiwan Consensus”, we wish that cross straight relation can be normalized to be cooperative and peaceful.