| The Cross-Strait non-political exchanges, such as commercial activities, are in fact what Taipei and Beijing willingly seek for to stabilize the Taiwan Strait. However, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Kuomintang (KMT) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) differ in approaches to realize them and in, to some extent, the goals of implementing them. When those different methods interact, they spark a process of political bargaining with their political causes at stake. Negotiation over the three direct links is subject to parties' political premises surrounding the interpretation, acceptance and declination of the one China principle.;Comparing the dealings with negotiation on the links issue (including direct postal, transportation and trade) by three actors across the time span from 1990 to 2009, I find twists and turns in their policies. Those changes account for policy convergence and divergence among the KMT, DPP and PRC. The conditions leading to the relative unity and polarization in Taipei's political scenes are the change of the KMT's and a country's leadership brought up by the transfer of power in 2000. Whether or not and how much China can gain more leverage vis-a-vis Formosa depend on Taiwan's presidents' preferences which are affected by various ideas from different people, besides presidents' and the political climates at the time. |
