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Strange bedfellows in
Taiwan
By Laurence Eyton
TAIPEI - Strange bedfellows are a current
feature of Taiwan politics. As China's rubber
stamp National People's Congress, or nominal
parliament, is set next week to discuss its
"anti-secession" law, giving a domestic legal
basis to attack an independence-headed Taiwan,
this is hardly the time for the Taiwanese to be
demonstrating disunity. Nevertheless, that's the
domestic political situation on the island,
following an agreement between two archenemies to
cooperate - to the disgust of their erstwhile
allies.
The two are President Chen
Shui-bian of the nominally pro-Taiwan independence
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and James
Soong, chairman of the hardline
reunification-driven People First Party (PFP).
Chen has been chasing Soong like an importunate
lover since the beginning of the year in a
strategy that is seen by his supporters as
baffling or foolish and, in any case, utterly
outrageous.
Chen's problem stems from the
lackluster performance of the DPP and its
erstwhile ally, the smaller Taiwan Solidarity
Union (TSU), in legislative elections last
December. The two pro-independence parties, known
collectively as the pan-green alliance (after the
color of the DPP emblem), were expected to win a
majority of seats, thus reversing the opposition
dominance of the legislature, which ensured that
Chen's first presidential term (2000-2004) was
wasted, deeply mired as it was in
executive-legislative gridlock. Largely as a
result of Chen's highly flawed campaign tactics,
this was not to be and the new legislature, which
convened for the first time at the beginning of
last month, is almost identical in its overall
makeup to the outgoing one.
For Chen this
was a huge blow. Now in his second and
constitutionally limited final presidential term,
his legacy could well be eight utterly wasted
years. As a result Chen has been seeking some way
to put together an alliance to break the gridlock
and move much-needed legislation forward.
Ideologically it might have made more
sense for Chen to try an alliance with the
Kuomintang (KMT), the largest of the opposition
parties, if only because the Kuomintang (KMT) has
a strong faction of native Taiwanese who are in
many ways indistinguishable from DPP moderates,
and who have a natural interest in seeing Taiwan
retain its de facto independence and its economic
prosperity.
The problem with this is that
KMT chairman Lien Chan still cannot accept that he
lost the presidential election a year ago, and, in
a childish temper tantrum, refuses to deal with
the government in any way whatsoever, unless Chen
hands him, as the leadership of the alliance that
dominates the legislature, the right to form the
cabinet. This is something the DPP will not
consider.
As a result, Chen has been
seeking some sort of rapprochement with Soong and
the PFP, despite the fact that the DPP and PFP are
ideological opposites, and also in spite of
unfortunate personal history between Chen and
Soong - Soong being responsible, in his
martial-law bully-boy past, for Chen's spending
eight months in jail on trumped-up politically
motivated charges.
Throughout January,
which Soong spent in the United States, there were
persistent rumors of negotiations and go-betweens,
all of which were formally denied, as well as
speculation that Chen might even offer Soong the
premiership.
While this would have been a
shock to a lot of DPP supporters, there is a
historical precedent when in 1990, president Lee
Teng-hui of the KMT, who was elected on a
reformist platform, gave the premiership to
four-star general Hau Pei-tsun, a well known
ultra-conservative.
While many in Taiwan
were shocked at the time, the appointment is now
seen as one of Lee's most masterful tactical
strokes against the conservatives who at the time
were standing in the way of democratic reform, in
that it split their ranks while subsequently
General Hau's lackluster performance destroyed him
politically and crippled his cause.
Soong,
who was close to Lee at the time - now they are
sworn enemies - was, however, too canny to fall
for the same trick, if indeed anything of the sort
was proposed.
On February 24, after having
been trailed in the media for a fortnight, Chen
and Soong finally met. The result of the meeting
was a 10-point agreement that had the PFP crowing
with glee and the DPP pan-greens (green the color
of the DPP emblem) spitting in rage. The substance
of the 10 points of agreement - and of the pan
green's dismay:
1) The country's name remains
the Republic of China - the name inherited from
the mainlander exile regime of Chiang Kai-shek,
which fled to the island after losing the civil
war to the communists. Taiwanese nationalists,
however, are keen to change it to Republic of
Taiwan;
2) Chen agreed not to declare
independence, nor to change the national
designation, push for inclusion of the so-called
"state-to-state" description of Taiwan-China
relations in the constitution, promote a
referendum to change the status quo concerning the
independence issue or unification, and not to
abolish either the National Reunification Council
or the National Reunification Guidelines.
Basically, the pan greens see these
positions/concessions a retention of the
shibboleths of Taiwan's unhappy past under
mainlander exile rule - and an unconscionable
abandonment of almost everything they deem
important;
3) The constitutional reform project
will not involve issues of national sovereignty,
territory, or the status quo across the strait -
another huge blow to pan-green aspirations;
4)
A special framework should be established for
cross-strait interaction - a pet project of
Soong's;
5) More economic, cultural and
academic exchanges with China and progress if
possible on establishing direct links. To
pan-green Taiwan nationalists, cultural and
academic links with China are anathema, and
economic integration a threat;
6) Any change in
the cross-strait status quo requires the approval
of the people of Taiwan - with no suggestion as to
how this approval is to be elicited;
7) Taiwan
will buy the arms necessary for its defense - but
Soong has not committed to support the NT$610
billion (US$19.8 billion) arms package the US has
been trying to sell Taiwan since 2001;
8)
Taiwan will not engage in an arms race with the
other side; furthermore, Taiwan will proactively
seek to establish a "military buffer zone" -
nobody really has a clue what this is supposed to
mean;
9, 10) These points focus on ethnic
reconciliation and harmony, in particular the
passage of a law against ethnic discrimination.
Given that it used to be the mainlanders who
discriminated against the Taiwanese majority, this
is liable to be misunderstood; actually it is a
concession to Soong and his predominantly
mainlander-backed party that seeks to stop
exclusion of mainlanders by Taiwanese - for
example, the covert "no-mainlander" company hiring
policies.
The inter-party consensus has
been seen by the pan-greens as Chen giving way on
almost every point. It is hard to see any place
that Soong has made any real concessions.
Certainly there was an excess of triumphalist
chest thumping from the PFP in the wake of the
agreement, while the pan-greens were mortified.
The most vigorous attacks have come from
the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and some have
clearly stung, provoking Chen to defend himself by
saying that Lee Teng-hui, the TSU's "spiritual
leader" couldn't change Taiwan's name when he was
president, nor could he if he were president now.
Chen claimed not to have sacrificed anything, but
merely to have pushed to the back burner those
difficult issues the resolution of which requires
a far greater consensus in Taiwanese society than
presently exists.
In practical terms Chen
is probably right. Issues such as the country's
name, and its status, are not going to be resolved
in the next three years, the time remaining in his
second term. So, from his and others' point of
view, it makes sense to admit that and get on with
more practical bread and butter matters - such as
passing long-delayed bills reforming the
supervision of financial institutions.
The
problem is, however, that the issues that Chen is
putting into mothballs are precisely the issues on
which Chen fought his re-election campaign last
spring. The 10-point consensus therefore
represents a rejection of almost everything he
advocated on the campaign trail. Dismayed at what
one newspaper called Chen's "apostasy," pan-green
voters felt they have been sold a false bill of
goods; there is palpable sense of disillusionment.
There is also a schism. The TSU has said
it will no longer work in concert with the DPP,
though the loss of the support of its small
legislative caucus is probably not as much of a
problem as the TSU's excellent publicity machine
that will henceforth have a more "gloves off"
approach to Chen and the DPP. On top of this, four
of Chen's advisers quit in disgust, although one
was persuaded to stay on after a tete-a-tete with
Chen on Thursday.
How did Chen wander into
this mess? Long-time Chen watchers believe it is a
classic example of Chen's lawyerly background,
with its emphasis on sensible deal-brokering,
getting the better of his political nous.
Whether the 10-point consensus will
actually change anything remains to be seen. No
sooner had it been announced than it seemed that
both sides were trying to find wiggle room. The
DPP, for example, said that the president's pledge
not to change the name of the country would not
affect the project to change the names of
Taiwanese institutions currently using the name
"China" - China Shipbuilding Corp, China Steel,
China Petroleum, and so on - to "Taiwan," which
was termed a totally different project.
The PFP, meanwhile, said that it would
only approve the arms budget if it was "suitably
revised", which is widely understood - given
Soong's desire to curry favor in Beijing - to mean
the removal of eight submarines, armaments most
opposed by China, which might be used in a
cross-strait conflict.
The real problem
with the controversial agreement is that it has
sapped the spirits of the pan-greens just at the
time when they need to be at their most
vociferous, decrying China's "anti-secession" law
as loudly as possible. The last impression Taiwan
wants to give is that it doesn't much care. But
the pan-greens are feeling too betrayed,
disappointed and angry to really vent their spleen
yet.
Laurence Eyton is deputy
editor in- chief of the Taipei Times. He has
worked in Taiwan for 18 years.
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