Gwynne Dyer, Contributor

United States (U.S.) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice did not go into much detail in her year-end message, but on one topic she was very clear: "We think that Taiwan's referendum to apply to the United Nations (U.N.) under the name Taiwan is a provocative policy. It unnecessarily raises tension in the Taiwan Strait, and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage."

But then, the referendum is not meant to benefit the people of Taiwan so much as the Democratic Pro-gressive Party (DPP), which is not precisely the same thing. The DPP, which draws its support mainly from those who would like the island of Taiwan to be an entirely separate country from China, has held the presidency for the last eight years. However, it won the 2004 election by a majority of only 0.22 per cent, and things look even grimmer for next March's election, so it desperately needs a gimmick.

Referendum

The referendum is the gimmick. The DPP has never dared to declare Taiwan's independence from China, because the communist regime in Beijing vows to use "non-peaceful measures" to thwart any attempt to divide the motherland permanently. So, the DPP always looks for substitute gestures that will signal to its supporters that it still means business. A referendum on changing the country's official name from the Republic of China to "Taiwan", held at the same time as the election, might just work.

Well, not change the official name, exactly, because the Chinese People's Republic has already said that is a red line that Taipei must not cross. The referendum just proposes that the government apply for U.N. membership as "Taiwan". The U.N. said no the last 12 times, when the government in Taipei applied under the name of "Republic of China", but maybe it will say yes if they call the country "Taiwan" this time. They're not very bright at the U.N.

Changing the name is not going to change Taiwan's reception at the U.N., and Chen Shui-Bian, the outgoing DPP president, knows it very well. Taiwan lost its U.N. seat to the People's Republic of China in 1971, 22 years after the Nationalists lost the civil war to the communists and fled from the mainland. It lost its seat because the regime in Beijing ruled more than 98 per cent of the Chinese population. It still does, and few U.N. members are going to risk losing the trade of such a huge country just to make 22 million Taiwanese happy. True, Taiwan is now a democratic country where even the old Nationalist Party, though still devoted to the concept of One China ruled by non-communists, has accepted the democratic rules. But having a nicer political system does not win you many points in international politics.

Nationalist card

The Taiwan government calculates that it can get away with this stunt because Beijing is hosting the Olympics next summer, and would not dream of spoiling the party by confronting Taiwan over a referendum on the (fake) name change on March 22. The Taiwan government is probably wrong.

Its assumption is that the Beijing regime, being a tyranny, can turn public opinion on and off like a tap. If it wants the Chinese public to be outraged about Taiwan's 'splittism', the protestors will come out on the streets. If it does not want a crisis, they will obediently stay home.

Chinese nationalism, which has always been obsessed with preserving the unity of the motherland, is reduced in this paradigm to a mere propaganda tool of the current regime.

Nonsense. The communist regime knows that its ideology is dead. It knows that its claim to power depends on producing rapid economic growth and defending the national interest, so it regularly plays the nationalist card, especially over Taiwan. But popular hostility to Taiwan's independence is real on the mainland, and the regime in Beijing cannot just ignore it.

This is a marginal case, for Taiwan will not be declaring independence in March, or even formally changing its name. But this is an event that falls on the borderline of the tolerable for Beijing, and its response, even in the Olympic year, will depend on whether it thinks it can manage the news of the referendum. If it thinks that it will be blamed by the public for failing to defend Chinese unity, then stand by for the mother of all crises to erupt in the Taiwan Strait in early March.