SPEAKING
FREELY Native Taiwanese son doubtful of
reunification By Lin Zhong-Phon
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Pleaseclick hereif you are
interested in contributing.
First, a
little background about myself. I am a native son of
Taiwan, one of the "Taiwanese natives" whose ancestors
migrated from China to Taiwan 360 years ago, in 1644 to
be exact. I have hardly ever participated in any
political event in my life. But I do enjoy reading
political news and editorials. Recently, because of the
forthcoming election this Saturday, March 20, in Taiwan,
discussions of the Taiwan independence issue and the
referendum on Chinese missiles are flooding the news
media. So I decided to put in my two cents' worth.
Reunification should be a unification of the
people, not just the integration of the territory. But
for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders,
reunification has meant only one thing, to protect the
integrity of the territory. And from the malicious ways
the CCP had been threatening us, it was becoming quite
clear that they were not trying to embrace us as
brothers and sisters. What they really wanted basically
was for us to capitulate and accept the CCP as our
overlord. And if we refused, they were willing and ready
to use force (most likely preceded by a rain of
missiles) to take the island "back" - that is, with or
without the Taiwanese people on it.
The Republic
of China (ROC), the government of Taiwan, was the
official government of China before the People's
Republic of China (PRC) came into existence. The CCP won
the civil war on the mainland and forced Chiang
Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT), the Nationalist Party, to
flee to Taiwan in 1949. It was only until the last
decade or so, when the military balance was shifting in
China's favor, that the CCP decided to drum up the war
cry and demand the immediate return of Taiwan to its
"rightful" owner in order to "preserve the integrity of
the territory".
The major reason the CCP was
pursuing reunification so urgently could be national
pride. But according to Macabe Keliher (Who cares about Taiwan? Not the
Chinese, December 24, '03), the majority of the
Chinese people weren't ready to sacrifice all their
economic gains just to liberate Taiwan. Another possible
reason was that the Taiwan issue "forced" the CCP to
increase military spending when it could have used the
funds to improve China's economy (see Avoiding another no-win war,
February 10).
However, this was just a lame
excuse. It is more like the narcissistic whining of an
elementary-school bully who was telling the geek, "I
have been beating you up so bad every day, now my hands
begin to hurt. And it's all your fault. Boohoo!"
China bullies Taiwan, other
countries Come on! All they - the CCP - have to
do is to stop beating up the little guy. Taiwan has
officially renounced its hostility toward China for more
than a decade. Yet China continues its hostility and
aggression toward Taiwan on the political and diplomatic
fronts. The CCP used its growing influence to bully
other countries to cut their ties with Taiwan. It is
relentlessly pursuing the isolation of Taiwan in order
to choke off its breathing room so that Taiwan would
have to face the two ultimate choices: surrender or die.
To put it in a different context, the CCP
claimed to own the deed to Taiwan. After all, the
communists stole it from the KMT fair and square 55
years ago. And now they wanted the island "back" and
they wanted it fast. (Does the term?"claim-jumper" ring
a bell, anyone?) It seems to me that such a claim was
based more on the "law of the jungle" than anything
else. Sovereignty claims are usually based on the
recognition of/by the international communities.
(Translation: the recognition of/by the major world
powers.)
That was how China lost Outer Mongolia
to the Soviet Union after World War II. And that is how
the CCP has staked its claim on Taiwan now. And since
China is a member of the major-world-power club today,
Beijing naturally has the support of the fellow club
members. There seemed to be very little Taiwan could say
or do about it.
However, if the CCP had actually
used force to take over Taiwan, it would have been a war
with no winner. The CCP would have committed a heinous
crime against humanity. It would have crossed the line
of basic human decency. And it would have lost the
support of many major world powers, and risked a severe
intervention that might have even led to regime change
in China. At the very least, the ensuing global
condemnation and boycott would have pushed the Chinese
economy backward 20-30 years. It would most likely have
resulted in chaos and discontent everywhere in China. It
might even have ignited the revolutionary flame and
precipitated a regime change from within.
The
proposal: A political con game? The CCP had been
proposing the "one country, two systems" model as its
reunification policy. It even claimed that as long as
Taiwan accepted the "one China" principle, everything
else could be discussed. What was there to be discussed
when the CCP always insisted that there is only one
China and the CCP is the only government of China? "One
country, two systems" practically means "one China with
two regimes, an overlord regime and a proxy regime". It
basically means the conditional surrender of Taiwan.
Since the overlord regime was a one-party
dictatorship, the proxy regime would have to be one of
the same. A democracy just wouldn't fit in at all. Lee
Teng-hui had incurred the wrath of the CCP leaders ever
since he transformed Taiwan from a one-party
dictatorship into a local democracy. His reforms
seriously compromised the reunification plan of the CCP.
Democracy simply could not exist in a country of
one-party dictatorship. Taiwan's market-based
capitalistic economy might be able to survive and even
prosper, as was showcased in modern China, but democracy
would most definitely fall victim to the iron fist of
the overlord regime.
Ever since Hong Kong
reverted to China's sovereignty in 1997, the CCP has
been hoping to use it as a showcase to convince the
Taiwanese people to accept the "one country, two
systems" model. Now almost seven years have passed and
what the CCP has been showing off in Hong Kong is making
us even more convinced that it's not going to work.
The people of Hong Kong have suffered serious
setbacks to their political freedoms. Their freedom of
speech had been under heavy shackles. Recently, the CCP
even warned them that the longing for democracy and
human rights was considered anti-patriotic, obviously
indicating that such views might even carry some adverse
consequences.
China: Activism may delay Hong
Kong democracy Two weeks ago, Martin Lee, a
pro-democracy legislator and a founder of the Democratic
Party in Hong Kong, went to the United States to meet
senators and officials in the administration of
President George W Bush. China's vice commerce minister,
An Min, told Hong Kong journalists in Beijing that Lee
was a traitor and that his father was an anti-communist.
The state-run China Daily in Hong Kong even attacked Lee
in a long editorial, calling him "a running dog of
colonialists, begging support from foreign forces".
It went on to say that Lee's appearance before
the US Senate might delay democracy in Hong Kong,
instead of promoting and hastening its arrival. (Did
they - the state-run media - mean they downgraded it -
democracy - from "not in your life" to "not in your
children's lives"?)
According to Lee, this was
the tactic used by the CCP during the horrible days of
the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. But if you ask me, I
would say it was just the standard procedure of the
communists' iron-fist policy.
The former British
governor of Hong Kong, Christopher Patten, also annoyed
the CCP immensely when he initiated the democratic
process of electing the next chief executive of Hong
Kong before he handed it back to China in 1997. However,
what he did was too little and too late, and it didn't
cause too much of a problem for the CCP. When Hong Kong
reverted to China, the CCP regained the jurisdiction of
the territory. The chief executive, whether elected or
appointed, is now an official of the PRC. His duty is to
execute the policies and orders of the central
government, the CCP.
On the other hand, the
government of Taiwan, the ROC, existed long before the
PRC was established. Taiwan is not a colony governed by
a foreign regime. The PRC has never had any jurisdiction
over Taiwan. A democratic system was built into the
constitution of Taiwan that dictated that the president
is elected to carry out the mandate of the Taiwanese
people. It (a democratic system) would most likely be in
conflict with the policy of the CCP if the Beijing party
ever became the overlord regime of Taiwan.
A
one-party-dictatorship KMT proxy regime would be able to
ignore the mandate of the people. But an elected
government of Taiwan, whether a Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) or a KMT regime, would have a serious
dilemma, especially if the mandate were validated
through a referendum. It certainly would pose a serious
problem for the "one country, two systems" model. If the
government of Taiwan were to accept such a model, it
would be tantamount to selling out the Taiwanese people,
surrendering their political freedom to the CCP in
exchange for the servitude position as a proxy regime.
Transforming the civil war into a class
struggle The CCP regime flatly refused to
renounce its hostility and aggression against Taiwan.
So, even though the two sides of the Strait are moving
closer and closer together economically, they are
drifting further and further apart politically. The CCP
leaders obviously understood the situation quite well.
That's why they are so afraid of a harmless referendum.
They knew they didn't have the support of the people, so
they knew they wouldn't like the result of a referendum
- any referendum. But instead of addressing the problem,
they were determined to use intimidation and isolation
to force a surrender, and then continued to use fear and
intimidation to govern Taiwan through a proxy regime.
With its 40 years of previous experience, the
KMT seems a perfect candidate for this job. (Who would
have thought that the experience of governing by fear
could be one of the job requirements?) I tend to believe
that the KMT leaders were not involved in this plan, but
the CCP leaders sure are willing to bet on them, and are
using fear and intimidation (what else?) to try to help
them win the presidency. And they were planning on
turning back the clock and using their iron fist to
reinstate the KMT as the one-party dictatorship regime
again.
It just goes to show how backward the
communists' political thinking is. It was in 1979 when
Deng Xiaoping came up with the policy of "peaceful
political accommodation with the KMT in Taiwan". By
transforming the civil war into a class struggle, a
victory can be attained easily and peacefully. By
aligning itself with the ruling KMT regime, the CCP
automatically brings the Taiwanese people and the island
under its control. Now, 25 years later, the CCP still
clings to the same policy, refusing to accept the fact
that the political landscape has changed drastically.
History had proved again and again that a
one-party (or, a party of one) dictatorship regime would
eventually fall by the wayside. Such regimes usually put
the survival of their tight grip on power ahead of the
interests and survival of the country. For example,
during World War II, Chiang Kai-shek's KMT regime would
rather fight the communists to secure its power than to
fight the Japanese to save the country. As a result,
some of Chiang's troops and generals mutinied in 1936
(the Xi'an incident). The mutineers ended up joining the
CCP because they realized that the survival of the
country should come first.
Mao's campaigns
devastated the people Many years later, the Great
Helmsman himself, Chairman Mao Zedong, initiated a
series of mass movements: the Hundred Flowers Campaign,
the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. Mao
would plunge the Chinese people into the deepest
despair, not to mention the millions of lives lost, just
to reaffirm that he still had absolute power over
everyone else. Even though his regime didn't fall, it
left the Chinese economy in a shambles and laid waste to
an entire generation of the Chinese people, who were
pursuing the counterproductive "eternal revolution" with
misguided zeal while destroying the country's culture
and economy.
It is commendable that the CCP was
able to put the people's interests first by formulating
a policy for a booming economy. But such a policy change
will most definitely require institutional and
ideological change, too. Political reforms usually go
hand in hand with economic reforms, and once you get the
wheels rolling, no one can turn it back. Eventually, the
elite class of the newly rich will demand a share in
political power. And the CCP will have to face two
difficult choices: crush them with military forces and
intimidate them into submission, or gracefully ease the
transition to a new democracy.
It wasn't
surprising that the CCP opted for?the first method and
crushed the rebellion in Tiananmen Square in 1989. (And
I thought it was just the children of the elite class of
the CCP, joined by the workers and the peasants, trying
to put up a peaceful demonstration for democracy.)
Judging from the success of the crackdown on
Tiananmen Square protesters (and the Falungong), the CCP
must be very proud of the effectiveness of its iron-fist
policy. The CCP could easily intimidate the people into
submission. So it was rather out of character (a crying
bully with an iron fist?) when it proclaimed that the
CCP regime wouldn't be able to survive if it were to
allow Taiwan to be separated. It was really just a
pompous excuse to justify its aggression against Taiwan.
On the contrary, it is far more likely that the
CCP regime couldn't survive the international
intervention and condemnation if it tried to take over
Taiwan by force.
Taiwan concerns: Real or
faked? In the last century, Taiwanese natives
twice suffered the indignity of being second-class
citizens. First, the Japanese occupied Taiwan for 50
years. Then came Chiang Kai-shek, whose KMT regime
turned out to be just another occupation force but far
worse than the Japanese. The KMT used fear and murder to
govern Taiwan for almost 30 years, and it used the
monopoly system to hog all resources and commerce. It
was a period known to historians as the "white terror"
that started with the 2-28 (February 28, 1947) incident.
I am not going to elaborate on that, but those who are
interested in the details should search the Internet
using those two key words.
It took almost 40
years before the KMT regime finally relented (thanks to
former presidents Chiang Ching-kuo and Lee Teng-hui) and
accepted the Taiwanese natives as brother and sisters.
Now the CCP, with a history of oppressing its own
people, wants to become our overlord. Can we safely
assume that there won't be another 40 years of being
second-class citizens that might even be topped off with
30 years of "Red Terror"?
With all the talk
about reunification and accommodation, the CCP seemed to
be unwilling and unable to address the one real concern
of the Taiwanese people: the fear of a tyrannical
overlord regime. The CCP simply refused to tolerate any
demand for democracy or voice of dissent in their
jurisdiction, as was showcased in Hong Kong. And by
continuing to intimidate us, the CCP only exacerbated
the problem and strengthened the resolve of the
Taiwanese people to resist.
In 1995, when Quebec
held a referendum for independence, the Canadian
government was able to let go and allow the people to
decide. If it had threatened to use force, as China did
to Taiwan, Quebec would probably have separated from
Canada. While Quebec was able to have a referendum for
independence even though it was just a province of
Canada, Taiwan was threatened by many to drop the
referendum because it would be considered "provoking"
China and "justifying" its use of force.
Isn't
that a double standard? If China had no problem with the
Quebec referendum, didn't it set a legal precedent on
international law? If so, it should allow the wayward
province, as China likes to call Taiwan, to have a
referendum.
A sad day when France bowed to
China Last month, President Jacques Chirac of
France spoke out in support of the CCP, trying to help
it intimidate the Taiwanese people. It was a sad day for
democracy when France, one of the oldest democracies in
the world, was willing to threaten the freedom of Taiwan
in exchange for some economic gains. It was a sad day
for world peace when Chirac was trying to persuade the
European Union to lift the arms embargo imposed on China
after the Tiananmen massacre while China was threatening
with renewed urgency to use force against Taiwan. It was
a sad day for the French people to witness their leader
disgracing himself by knuckling under to China's "carrot
and stick diplomacy" (see China may block Japan deals over shrine
visits, February 27).
The only solace was
that now the whole world probably better understands the
predicament Taiwanese people are facing.
Taiwanese people, who include many mainlanders
in what we call the New Taiwanese, talk about
independence only because we don't want another
tyrannical regime to become our overlord. And we are in
fact, if not in name, independent since China never had
any jurisdiction over us. But without the recognition of
the major world powers, any talk about independence
would never amount to any significant challenge to
China's claim.
So were the CCP leaders really
concerned that Taiwan might suddenly become independent
if they just blinked their eyes for a second? Do they
really need to make all the threat of using force just
because a voice of dissent is coming out of Taiwan? Are
they really so thick-headed that they actually believe
that a little rhetoric from the leaders of Taiwan would
cause irreparable damage to "the integrity of their
territory"? No, most definitely not. These concerns are
all bogus.
The CCP leaders are accustomed to
fierce power struggles that allow only the brightest to
get to the top. But they just can't shake off that
"perpetual class struggle" mentality. They always have
the need to crush any opposition with an iron fist
before any dissenting voice can become strong enough to
challenge their power. (Perhaps that's why they have
managed to stay in power for so long.) They used the
iron fist on their own people, they used it on their
political rivals, and they have shown every intention to
use it on the Taiwanese people. It's a good thing that
most world powers still support the status quo and a
peaceful resolution.
Status quo means no CCP
iron fist Under the status quo, the CCP has to
refrain from using its iron fist on us. However, if a
Taiwanese government were to accept the "one country,
two systems" proposal, not only would we would lose our
political freedom, but also the iron-fist crackdown on
us would become an internal affair in which the other
world powers would no longer be able to interfere or
intercede. All the Taiwan DPP leaders would become the
DPP "traitors". Can we in good conscience allow
ourselves to become second-class citizens for the third
time, and our leaders to become jailbirds again? (Many
of them were victims of the White Terror.)
Perhaps the CCP thinks victory is so close that
it refuses to give it up. But is it really that close?
And what kind of price is it willing to pay for that
victory? If China really wants to have the participation
of the Taiwanese people in the reunification process, it
needs to stop pursuing the civil-war victory and embrace
us as brothers and sisters. It needs to stop trying to
turn the old civil war into a new class struggle. It
needs to show some good faith by removing the missiles.
It needs to renounce hostility and stop intimidating us.
It needs to forget about the rhetoric of independence
and just treat us as equals.
It needs to
remember that it was a civil war that separated us, and
that the civil war was all about the rivalry of two
equals, not a class struggle in which the ruling class
needed to crush the proletarians with its iron fist.
If China could take all those steps, then all
the decibels about independence would most definitely
die out gradually. The CCP might even want to ask for a
referendum every four years to see if the Taiwanese
people are ready to embrace China, because it has known
all along that, sooner or later, Taiwan will return to
the embrace of its motherland. Why wouldn't Taiwanese
people want to be part of China with its immense
potential to be a great country? Why would we instead
choose to be a small fish in the pond, to be constantly
at the mercy of the big fish there? But how can we
embrace the motherland if the people there want us to
live under fear and intimidation for the longest time?
Notes:
In Part 8 of his series US-China: Quest for Peace
(Avoiding another no-win war, Feb
10), Henry C K Liu wrote: "The lingering Taiwan problem
also prevents domestic Chinese politics from focusing
fully on China's development needs by distorting China's
national priorities and in its allocation of scarce
resources toward military expenditures."
For witness accounts of the White Terror and the
Tiananmen Square killings, see
http://www.uglychinese.org.
For a complete account of the 2-28 incident by
professor Lee Shiao-feng, see
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archves/2004/02/28/2003100472.
Lin Zhong-Phon is a "Taiwanese native"
whose ancestors migrated from China to Taiwan in 1644.
He is retired and can be contacted at phoenixinthewoods@asia.com.
(Copyright 2004 Lin Zhong-Phon.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Pleaseclick hereif you are
interested in contributing.
