[Editor’s note: This article was first published on the China Times news website on November 11, 2026, under the original title “From Confrontation to Dialogue Across the Strait: The Historic Opportunity of the Peace Initiative.” It is reposted here with the author’s authorization. Click here to read “Kuan Chung and Ting Shou-chung Lead the Launch of the ‘Cross-Strait Peace Initiative'” in Chinese. To read the commentary in Chinese, click here.]
The current international situation is turbulent and unsettled. The Russia-Ukraine war, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and the U.S.-Iran military confrontation are all in full swing, highlighting the fragility of the regional security order amid intensifying geopolitical competition. U.S.-China strategic competition continues to escalate, and the Taiwan Strait has been described by The Economist as “the most dangerous place on Earth.” War is no longer just distant international news; it is a security question that Taiwanese society must confront seriously. How to prevent the Taiwan Strait from becoming the next battlefield has gone beyond partisan competition and the unification-independence dispute; it is a major issue bearing on the lives and safety of people on both sides of the strait, on economic development, and on regional peace.
At this historic turning point, it is heartening to see the “Cross-Strait Peace Initiative” — promoted by former Examination Yuan President Kuan Chung, former legislator Ting Shou-chung, and others, and jointly launched or endorsed by more than 260 figures from industry, government, and academia — formally release its declaration and policy platform at its founding conference on November 12. The initiative puts forward five propositions: peace first, respect for history and reality, promoting dialogue and mutual trust, negotiating a final political arrangement, and shared prosperity. Its significance lies not only in opposing war, but in attempting to move beyond the existing blue-green political standoff and to find a new peace discourse and an institutional way forward for cross-strait relations, long deadlocked.
1. Peace First: Elevating the Issue from Competing Political Positions to Strategic Security
The most commendable aspect of this initiative is that it places “peace across the Taiwan Strait” above all else, rather than pre-setting unification, independence, or any particular political system as a precondition for peace. Peace is both a political goal and a fundamental value underpinning the protection of people’s lives, property, and freedom. In other words, the initiative is highly inclusive: whether one advocates a cross-strait peace agreement, a peace framework, a framework for peaceful and stable relations, or a military crisis-management mechanism, all can fall within the scope of its discussion — demonstrating considerable strategic vision and political inclusiveness.
Since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) returned to power in 2016, institutionalized official consultations across the strait have been suspended for over a decade. Beijing has kept up pressure on Taiwan through military exercises, diplomatic suppression, economic and trade restrictions, and legal measures, while Taiwan has strengthened its defense deterrence, international security cooperation, and economic resilience. The two sides’ security policies have fed off each other, gradually producing what international relations theory calls a “security dilemma”: measures taken by one side to enhance its own security are perceived by the other as threats, driving the spiral of hostility ever higher.
The peace initiative, therefore, does not dismiss the importance of national defense and security altogether; rather, it argues that military deterrence and political dialogue should complement each other. Deterrence without communication can heighten the risk of miscalculation, while dialogue without security guarantees can hardly build lasting peace. How to turn cross-strait relations from a “spiral of hostility” into a “spiral of mutual trust” is precisely the initiative’s most important strategic value.
2. The Chinese Nation: Moving Beyond the Binary Opposition of “Taiwanese” and “Chinese” Identity
The Cross-Strait Peace Initiative’s call to “respect the historical context of belonging to the same Chinese nation and the reality of cross-strait division” carries special political significance. For a long time, Taiwanese society has been divided over the identities of “Taiwanese” and “Chinese,” and this division is often turned into a tool of partisan competition and political mobilization. Yet ethnic identity, cultural identity, and national identity are concepts operating at different levels, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Although the Kuomintang (KMT) and the DPP interpret the Republic of China’s constitutional status, the direction of national development, and cross-strait relations differently, both operate politically within the current ROC constitutional framework, and recognizing a shared belonging to the Chinese nation is only right and proper. The two sides of the strait share common historical and cultural roots, even as they have different political systems and ways of life. From a historical and cultural standpoint, the “Chinese nation” can serve as a discursive resource for seeking common ground; from a realpolitik standpoint, it respects the diversity of national identity and democratic choice within Taiwanese society.
The importance of this initiative lies in its attempt to break free of the binary frame that “identifying as Taiwanese means one cannot identify with the Chinese nation.” To be sure, some in Taiwan today hold that Republic of China national identity does not necessarily entail Chinese national identity, and still less can ethnic and cultural commonality be directly equated with the legitimacy of political unification. Yet only by acknowledging that identities can overlap and coexist in their diversity — and by not forcing everyone to accept a single ethnic positioning — can “belonging to the same Chinese nation” become a bridge to mutual understanding rather than another source of political division.
3. Dialogue Instead of Confrontation: The Greatest Common Denominator Without Preset Political Preconditions
The Cross-Strait Peace Initiative stresses replacing confrontation with consultation and advancing common interests through cooperation, and it does not make the “1992 Consensus” or any other specific political proposition a precondition for dialogue — its most politically flexible and inclusive feature. The KMT, for instance, advocates resuming institutionalized cross-strait consultations on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, while the DPP advocates dialogue conducted on the basis of parity and dignity and without preset political preconditions. The two parties fundamentally disagree on the political basis for talks, but that does not mean they cannot reach a minimum consensus that “the two sides should talk.”
Looking back at the Ma Ying-jeou administration from 2008 to 2016, the two sides used the 1992 Consensus as the basis for interaction, restored institutionalized consultations between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), signed 23 agreements, and expanded economic, trade, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges. The two sides also reached a tacit understanding on a diplomatic truce. This experience shows that political mutual trust does help reduce conflict and create room for cooperation, even though the distributive benefits, democratic oversight, and political risks of those agreements remain subject to differing assessments.
Notably, the Cross-Strait Peace Initiative neither requires all participants to accept the 1992 Consensus in advance, nor excludes those who advocate it. This way of thinking — “no preset political conclusions; first build a consensus for peace” — holds the potential to cross party lines. The civic platform can begin by building trust through tourism, education, city-to-city exchanges, economic and trade cooperation, and crisis prevention, and then gradually foster the social conditions for the two sides’ authorities to resume consultations.
4. The Final Arrangement: From the Zero-Sum Game of Unification Versus Independence Toward an Open Political Imagination of Community
The initiative’s call for the two sides to jointly negotiate a final political arrangement on the basis of peace, equality, and mutual respect is the most forward-looking of the five propositions — and the one most in need of careful discussion. Its significance lies in the fact that it does not pre-specify what political system the two sides must ultimately adopt, but instead leaves open the possibility for different political options to enter public discussion. Whether it is the mainland’s proposal of “peaceful reunification and one country, two systems,” or the Chinese confederation, Chinese union, Chinese commonwealth, cross-strait political integration, and the German “roof theory” model of unification once discussed within Taiwan, or even ideas drawing on the European Union’s multi-level governance and community institutions, all can become subjects of comparative study and political debate.
In the past, former President Chen Shui-bian floated ideas related to political integration; former Vice President Annette Lu advocated a Chinese confederation and “One Chung-hua”; former DPP Chairman Shih Ming-teh advocated a “Greater Chinese Commonwealth” and later proposed a “Greater One China Framework”; former Chairman Lin Yi-hsiung advocated a common market and a customs union; and former Chairman Hsu Hsin-liang and acting Chairman Chang Chun-hung also proposed a cross-strait common market. A number of blue- and green-camp politicians and scholars have likewise discussed commonwealth, confederation, federation, and community models. Although these proposals differ greatly on sovereign status, the distribution of political power, and institutional feasibility, they jointly demonstrate that the future of the two sides need not be a choice only between immediate unification and permanent confrontation.
However, openness about political arrangements does not mean that all options enjoy the same democratic legitimacy or practical feasibility. Acceptance of “one country, two systems” is low in Taiwanese society in particular, and no final arrangement can sidestep democratic procedures, popular consent, freedom and human rights, and security guarantees. Cross-strait peace negotiations should be an open-ended political exploration, not a unification negotiation with a foregone conclusion. Peace across the strait should come before any final arrangement, just as respect for the people’s will and consent should come before any change in the political system.
5. A Civil Initiative: From a Peace Consensus Toward an Institutionalized Peace Architecture
The true value of the Cross-Strait Peace Initiative should not stop at the issuance of a declaration and a joint endorsement; it should go further and be translated into a peace mechanism capable of operating on a sustained basis. The participation of more than 260 figures from industry, government, and academia shows that some members of Taiwan’s social elite share a common concern about the security situation in the Taiwan Strait, but the number of signatories cannot be taken as directly representative of public opinion in Taiwan as a whole, and the initiative all the more needs to win recognition across parties, generations, and ethnic groups. Whether it can broaden its influence will hinge critically on whether it can bring in different political positions, generations (young people in particular), professional fields, and civic organizations, and avoid being seen as an appendage of any particular organization or political camp.
The Cross-Strait Peace Initiative platform can start with “low politics” issues — transactional, functional, economic, and cultural matters — by building a cross-strait civic dialogue network, promoting academic and youth exchanges, studying military crisis management, and advancing economic and trade cooperation and public health collaboration, thereby gradually forging a cross-party consensus on peace policy. More importantly, it should translate “opposing war” into concrete institutional designs for “preventing war,” including crisis notification, reducing military miscalculation, restoring institutionalized consultations, and exploring the feasibility of a cross-strait peace framework.
The greatest significance of the Cross-Strait Peace Initiative is not that it will immediately resolve the unification-independence dispute in Taiwanese society, but that it elevates peace into a shared value transcending that dispute; not that it predetermines the political endgame, but that it ensures the people of Taiwan have the opportunity to discuss their future in peace. The initiative proclaims a vision of peace, struggle, and love for Taiwan. Only by replacing confrontation with dialogue, reducing hostility through consultation, and securing peace through institutions can the Taiwan Strait avoid the risk of war and create a historic opportunity for lasting peace and shared prosperity across the strait.
(Chin-tsai Liu is an associate professor at the Department of Public Policy and International Affairs, Fo Guang University, Taiwan.)