TAIPEI - Almost every evening, 76-year-old Zheng Ling, a native of Fujian
province in east China, watches state-run television news coverage of Taiwan's
presidential election. The news, however, is only what China's censors want
citizens to watch. It downplays its rival Taiwan's democratic system, which
allows something mainland Chinese can only dream of - a chance to directly
elect their top leader. Instead, fistfights in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan
(Parliament), always get lots of airtime.
Few Chinese in communist-ruled mainland China actually know exactly how a
Taiwanese president is elected, including how the precincts are determined or
how the system prevents cheating. Some think it's akin to a trade union
election at their workplace. Often, they are left with the impression from
watching state TV
that it's chaotic.
Asked to compare Taiwan's political system to the mainland's, Zheng said: "I've
lived for several decades under the Communist Party. Of course our system is
better."
But his granddaughter, overhearing the conversation, snatched the phone from
him. "I think their system is good ... because it's a democracy; it's based on
votes by the people," said Zheng Yanmei, 20, even as she expressed disgust at
the mudslinging in the presidential campaigning across the Taiwan Strait, which
separates mainland China from the island.
At some level or another, mainland Chinese people are increasingly exposed to
democracy through Taiwan's presidential election on March 22. The important
race, which could possibly write a new chapter in cross-strait relations, makes
them keen to learn more about the island, which has been ruled separately since
the end of a Chinese civil war in 1949.
Subconsciously or intentionally - and whether the Chinese government likes it
or not - mainland residents are also learning about Taiwan's political system,
which is the the only real democratic system in greater China, including Hong
Kong and Macau.
And despite the biased coverage in Chinese media, most viewers know one thing -
it's a real election, which means people get to elect the person they like.
During the 2000 presidential election in Taiwan, Chinese people posted comments
on Internet chat rooms praising the election process. Some Chinese applauded
the Kuomintang (KMT) for stepping down gracefully after losing the election,
wondering how long it would take the Chinese Communist Party to do that.
It's no different this year. While state-controlled TV and newspapers report
sanitized versions of campaigning with little substance about the debates going
on, Internet-savvy white collar workers and others circumvent blockades set up
by China's Internet police and gain access to uncensored news. And those who
work in hotels or live in luxury apartments have access to satellite TV
channels not allowed elsewhere.
"Taiwan's political system has something the mainland can learn from, such as
greater freedom of speech, the encouragement of expressions of various
viewpoints, transparency, an impartial official merit system, and a strict
system to monitor official performance, etc," said Hunter Li, who works for a
high-tech multinational company in Beijing.
Increasingly, different generations, education levels, gender and perhaps more
importantly - levels of exposure to Taiwanese people or uncensored news about
Taiwan - distill different views about Taiwan.
Older people who grew up during the late-1940s civil war remember the KMT
troops fleeing to Taiwan - thus separating the island from the mainland - but
younger generations only learned about this from textbooks and propaganda.
In recent years, a growing number of people, especially in provinces like
Fujian with close contacts with Taiwanese, and those with access to unbiased
information, are entertaining ideas about Taiwan much different from that of
their parents' or grandparents' generations.
"My father and grandfather, they would insist that regardless of who wins or
loses, Taiwan must be reunified with China. However, a real reunification
should be good for both Taiwanese and mainland Chinese," said Chen Yan, a hotel
worker in Xiamen city, Fujian province, who is in her 20s.
"We are one family. Of course it must be good for both sides. As an ordinary
person, that's what I feel. It should be as simple as that. I don't want to
think about politics. Politics is too complicated."
Such views are being quietly shaped by several trends of increasing interaction
between people from the two sides. Civilian contacts are closer than ever, even
as the two governments have been at a stalemate for years in negotiations to
improve ties. The impasse has been largely due to Beijing's insistence that
Taipei accept the "one China policy" defining Taiwan as part of China, and the
current administration of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's refusal to do
so.
Trade is booming, with China being one of Taiwan's biggest export markets and
Taiwanese investments being one of the biggest blocs of investment in the
mainland.
Tens of thousands of mainlanders, mostly women, have married Taiwanese, and
many of them return to China telling stories about the superior social welfare
system islanders enjoy, including free health care and welfare for the lower
income brackets.
And an estimated 1 million Taiwanese business people and their families live on
the mainland, concentrated in areas including Shanghai, Guangdong and Beijing.
Taiwanese based in Taiwan also frequently travel to the mainland for work or
tourism.
At the same time, Chinese people who can afford it are able to visit Taiwan -
on package tours billed as business trips to get around the lack of formal
agreement between the two sides on tourism. Meanwhile, professionals employed
by Taiwanese companies can travel to the island on real business trips.
Visitors see the island is not "chaotic" as it's often painted to be by Chinese
state-controlled media.
Chen frequently meets Taiwanese businessmen at the hotel where she works. She
frowns on their promiscuous ways, but learns about their homeland nonetheless.
"Their living standards are better than ours," said Chen.
While most mainland Chinese believe Taiwan is a renegade province of China
which must be reunified and should not become independent, some young Chinese
people such as Chen adopt more flexible attitudes.
"The older generation really cares about reunification, but our generation
feels if it's not resolved, just keep things the way they are. We can accept it
as long as there are no barriers to contact between the two sides," Chen said.
Chen added that some things cannot be resolved, and the Taiwan issue might be
one of them. She sometimes laughs at the melodramatic reunification propaganda
on mainland TV, including a commercial showing an old lady and a child longing
for reunification by the shore.
"Older people think Taiwan is a part of China's territory but ideals and
reality are two different things. Things can't be as perfect as we want. Young
people's views are not so conservative, that it must be this way or that. They
think, you are you and I'm me and that's ok."
It's unclear how common her views are, as the Taiwan issue is one topic too
sensitive for survey companies to touch, but Chen is not alone.
To be sure, most mainland Chinese, especially some young Chinese men, still
strongly oppose Taiwan being separated from China.
Men take tougher positions At the hotel where Chen works, her male colleagues chimed in while she
was on the phone. They said that regardless of whether the KMT's presidential
candidate Ma Ying-jeou or Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank
Hsieh is elected, Taiwan's next president better not push for independence.
"If they are unkind toward us, we will be unkind toward them," one male
colleague said.
China has warned that it will go to war to take back the island should the
island formally declare independence, but such rhetoric has been minimized
under Chinese President Hu Jintao's administration, which adopts a more
pragmatic approach by trying to increase ties between the two sides.
A growing number of ordinary Chinese believe unification should not come at all
costs. "All of us are children of the dragon [a common way Chinese people refer
to each other]. Why do we have to kill each other?" asked Li.
"For this issue, a calm attitude is very important. Of course, for both sides
calmness is not a weakness. A calm attitude at all times shows a party of
culture and confidence. It's not difficult for one to be calm."
Those with friends or relatives in Taiwan also strongly oppose attacking the
island. "We of course don't accept war because it'll only hurt the two sides'
people," said Chen, who has friends married to Taiwanese men and living in
Taiwan. "If there's a war, then what would happen to the mainlanders who
married and moved to Taiwan and can't come home? What will happen to them?"
Increased contacts could come about if Ma is elected and he manages to carry
out his campaign promises of striking a deal with China to allow regular direct
flights across the Taiwan Strait and to allow at least 1,000 Chinese tourists
to visit a day, with up to 10,000 daily in coming years.
This could potentially expose many more mainlanders to the true picture in
Taiwan. And more mainlanders with exposure to Taiwanese could begin to think
like Chen.
Although the DPP has warned about an influx of mainlanders, including brides
and guest workers, ironically, this could work in Taiwan's favor; Chinese
tourists or other visitors will see the open, democratic and multiparty society
Taiwan is and the benefits of preserving this as well as using it as an example
for China.
This does not worry the Chinese Communist Party, said Lin Jialai, a
Fujian-based member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC) attending the ongoing annual sessions of the National People's Congress
and CPPCC in Beijing.
"China's mainland is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Taiwan has
multi-party elections. The two sides' compatriots have different systems," said
Lin, also a former senior economist at Fujian province's department of science
and technology. "The mainland has 1.3 billion people; it's up to us to decide
what kind of road the mainland should lead.”
Exposure to Taiwanese politics also exposes problems in a democratic society,
including false accusations, partisan fighting and legislative gridlock.
"The system might be good, but some of the politicians are not. Every time we
watch TV, we see them fighting in the legislature and using swear words on each
other. It's a bad influence on young people," said Zheng Yanmei. "I'm sure
there are people stirring up trouble and manipulating things behind the
scenes."
Most mainlanders support KMT candidate Ma, who has expressed strong desires to
build closer economic ties with the mainland and who has presented China as
more of an opportunity than a threat, compared to his rival Hsieh.
"Under the DPP, Taiwanese people's lives did not improve much," said Gao Chao,
a former journalist and now a property investor.
Zheng Yanmei, the granddaughter, agreed: "If Ma Ying-jeou wins, if he
implements direct flights between the two sides, it might be better for both
sides."
Her grandfather once dreamed of going to Taiwan to see his father, who fled
there in 1949, after his wife died, leaving Zheng behind to be raised by his
paternal grandfather. Zheng, whose father has since died, still has a
stepmother and several half-siblings in Taiwan, whom he would like to meet. But
his ailing health and inadequate finances prohibit him from traveling.
Zheng Yanmei hopes she can fulfill her grandfather's dream, but is more excited
about seeing the island often referred to as China's "treasure island", than
meeting relatives.
"Right now very few people can go to Taiwan," Zheng Yanmei said. "I really want
to go to Taiwan to sightsee and see Alishan and Sun Moon Lake and I especially
want to try Taiwanese food."
Cindy Sui is a freelance journalist
based in Taipei.
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