TAIPEI - Hundreds of thousands of
Taiwanese citizens took to the street over the
weekend to participate in demonstrations either to
support or oppose embattled President Chen
Shui-bian. Political analysts are worried the
deadlock will not be broken in the short term as
major political leaders refuse to back down or
compromise.
The leader of the anti-Chen
movement, former chairman of the ruling Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) Shih Ming-te, has
gained a new political life
and pledged to continue leading street
demonstrations until Chen is ousted. According to
the anti-Chen camp, it will initiate more
demonstrations around Taiwan in the upcoming
month, including mobilizing 5,000 protesters to
surround the Presidential House and even launching
an islandwide labor strike.
President
Chen, meanwhile, assigned the secretary general of
the Presidential Office, Mark Chen, to convey his
promise to his supporters on Saturday that he
would definitely stay in office until the end of
his term on May 20, 2008.
"There is no
sign indicating any of the politicians wants to
end this confrontation," said Hsu Yung-ming, an
assistant research fellow at the Academia Sinica.
He said the anti-Chen campaign will help Shih to
form an independent political force with people
who are disappointed with both the ruling DPP and
the major opposition Kuomintang (KMT). But the
campaign will also stroke Chen's followers' anger
and consolidate their support of the embattled
president.
Frustrated with the first
family and Chen's inner circle's involvement in
corruption scandals, Shih initiated an open-ended
anti-corruption campaign with around-the-clock
demonstrations in front of the Presidential House
on September 9, and vowed not to end it until Chen
stepped down.
The anti-Chen movement
reached its climax on Friday evening when hundreds
of thousands of protesters, mostly dressed in red,
marched in the rain on the streets encircling the
Presidential House, chanting, "Dump A-bian"
(Chen's nickname). Taipei police estimated that
360,000 people participated the demonstrations,
while the organizer claimed the figure was between
750,000 and a million.
Striking back,
pro-independence associations and the DPP staged a
rally in front of the Presidential House on
Saturday afternoon to show their support of Chen
and claimed that 150,000 participated. Taipei
police estimated 60,000 took part in that rally.
In the pro-Chen rally, Koo Kuan-min,
Chen's former senior adviser who once urged the
public to give the president another six months to
prove his governing capability, told the crowd, "I
asked him not to step down unless he is found to
have committed crimes compromising internal and
external security [for which the constitution
authorizes impeachment]. How could they ask a
president who received 6 million votes to step
down after a demonstration participated [in] by
only some 300,000 people?"
The DPP and the
Presidential Office had tried to end the
confrontation by initiating a dialogue with Shih.
But Shih has insisted there is no room for
negotiation. On the other hand, he suggested that
six politicians - Vice President Annette Lu,
former president Lee Teng-hui, KMT legislative
Speaker Wang Jin-ping, former KMT chairman Lien
Chan, People First Party chairman James Soong, and
the KMT's incumbent chairman, Ma Ying-jeou - sit
down and hammer out a solution. The DPP and Lee
Teng-hui's Taiwan Solidarity Union, however,
immediately turned down the idea.
"Shih
has made the game a zero-sum one. That's why it is
so difficult to find a solution," said DPP
legislator Lai Ching-te, noting that neither an
achievable solution nor an acceptable politician
to mediate an end to the stalemate is on the
table.
The campaign, mainly dominated by
the opposition party supporters, has revitalized
Shih's political life, which ended with three
election failures, including two legislative
elections in Taipei and one Kaohsiung mayoral
poll. But some analysts have challenged him for
shaping himself as a tragic hero, after he raised
concerns about an assassination attempt and asked
his supporters to "keep moving forward if anything
happens to me" before the Friday parade. After he
safely arrived at the destination of the march,
Shih knelt down and claimed the demonstration was
"a victory for the Taiwanese people".
"Without A-bian's poor performance, the
[anti-Chen] momentum would not be so significant,"
said Antonio Chiang, former deputy secretary
general of the National Security Council.
Chen is under investigation for the
alleged illegal use of presidential executive
funds earmarked for state affairs, amounting to
NT$35 million (about US$1 million) a year. His
wife, Wu Shu-chen, is accused of collecting
falsified invoices from her friends to redeem
money from the funds.
Chen and Wu were
questioned by prosecutors early last month but
were cleared of any wrongdoing, the Presidential
Office claimed. An investigative report is to be
released this month, but the anti-Chen group
already asserts that Taiwan's legal system is
unreliable.
Chen's wife has also been
accused of accepting shopping coupons for the Sogo
department store and failing to declare her
jewelry assets. His son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming,
is on trial charged with insider trading. Also, a
onetime close aide of Chen, former Presidential
Office deputy secretary general Chen Che-nan, is
under prosecution for corruption and insider
trading.
Still, the ruling DPP insists
that there is no direct evidence of wrongdoing by
President Chen and has chosen to stand with him,
reiterating that his departure should be decided
through constitutional procedures. However, it
does not explain how Chen should accept
responsibility for his family's alleged
wrongdoings.
The party's major stars have
decided to endorse Chen out of concern for their
own political interests. Three of the DPP's four
potential presidential candidates, including
Premier Su Tseng-chang, incumbent DPP chairman Yu
Shyi-kun and former premier Frank Shih, have
expressed their support, since Chen's stepping
down would result in Vice President Lu's taking
the lead in the 2008 presidential bid. But aside
from party chairman Yu, the other three didn't
show up at Saturday's rally supporting Chen, as
all of them want to distance themselves from the
scandals.
"What [the] DPP needs to do is
marginalize Chen, and create some space for
Premier Su to fulfill Chen's platform," said a
former DPP legislator, who declined to identify
himself.
Chen, on the other hand, has
shown no intention to stop fighting. In a move to
divert attention and demonstrate his authority,
Chen plans to push for referendums for a bid for a
seat in the United Nations in the name of "Taiwan"
instead of the "Republic of China" and on the
disposal of the KMT's assets, which historically
have been mixed with the government's.
Furthermore, he has vowed to initiate
constitutional reform, which has aroused concern
in Beijing and Washington.
"The Bush
administration will oppose any action which
appears to destabilize the present situation in
the Taiwan Strait area, any unilateral action to
change the status quo," said former US ambassador
Harvey Feldman, a Taiwan expert at the
Washington-based Heritage Foundation.
According to media reports, Chen is
scheduled to hold a national-security meeting soon
to discuss the UN-bid referendum, which reports
suggested is likely to be held along with the
legislative elections at the end of 2007 or with
the presidential election in 2008.
To
avoid any possible escalation of tensions, the
director of the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office,
Chen Yunlin, is paying a visit to Washington to
gauge the United States' attitude toward the
island's constitutional reform.
Apart from
such concerns, both Beijing and Washington have
chosen to remaining neutral on the anti-Chen
campaign, apart from remarks of the vice chairman
of mainland China's Association for Relations
Across the Taiwan Straits. Wang Zaixi said the
Friday anti-corruption demonstration "was a
movement of righteousness". But Wang said this was
his "personal view" and whoever Taiwanese people
chose as a leader, the mainland would pay close
attention but not interfere.
After the
significant march on Friday, Shih Ming-te is
confident of winning the battle. According to his
camp, it will temporarily remain in Taipei to
consolidate the anti-Chen momentum and eventually
initiate more demonstrations around Taiwan. But it
is halting large-scale demonstrations after
several violent disputes broke out between
supporters of the two camps over the weekend.
"It is not worth creating division in Taiwan
for A-bian. His regime is moribund ... how silly
to battle for a deceased regime," said Antonio
Chiang.
Ting-I Tsai is a
freelance writer based in Taipei.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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