Who's influencing who across the
strait? By Jens Kastner
TAIPEI - In numerous interviews given to
Western media before and after he took office in
2008, Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou said his
cross-strait policies would make China more like
Taiwan and not the other way around. He spoke of
his government's responsibility to further the
democratic development of all ethnic Chinese
communities, and labeled Taiwan a beacon of
democracy to Asia and the world.
However,
though Ma will try for a second four-year term at
next year's presidential election, there are no
signs that China has become less autocratic nor
that Taiwan has been actively helpful in this
regard. Ma's most bitter opponents go further -
they allege
that under his
Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) government,
Taiwan is becoming a dictatorship.
When
Western leaders comment on China and human-rights
abuses, Beijing is quick to dismiss this as undue
interference. As Ma by contrast is the leader of
the Taiwanese, whom Beijing refers to as
"compatriots" and "brothers", observers say he
could have more of an impact on decision-making in
Beijing.
However, over the past few
months, Ma failed to call for the release of
detained Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo in a
statement congratulating him for winning the Nobel
Prize. He also has not spoken out over the lock
down of a Tibetan monks' monastery in Sichuan or
the disappearance of celebrity artist and
dissident Ai Weiwei.
Making matters worse,
recent statements by a fervently pro-Taiwan US
representative indicate that the Ma administration
not only refrains from promoting democracy and
human rights in China, but actively works against
them. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican,
last week protested Chunghwa Telecom's (CHT)
decision to terminate satellite services for
"pro-democracy and pro-Falungong" channel New Tang
Dynasty Television (NTDTV). Chunghwa is Taiwan's
largest telecommunications company with the
Ministry of Transportation and Communications its
largest shareholder.
According to
Rohrabacher, NTDTV's broadcasts to China help
break a Chinese blockade on free information and
promote democratic sentiments. The US
representative indicated that CHT's decision was
the Taiwanese government interfering to curry
favor with Beijing.
"If Taiwan does not
support the struggle for freedom of thought within
China, I see no need for America to support
Taiwan," Rohrabacher reportedly wrote to Ma.
Other criticism directed at the Ma
administration is more scathing. Some compare him
to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin or former
Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, both seen
as having made their countries less democratic.
In early April, academics and former
officials from the US, Canada, Europe and
Australia accused the Ma government of abuse of
power.
The group said the KMT's acted with
political timing in March when it accused 17
former officials from the opposition Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) with violating the
National Archives Act for failing to hand over
documents during the transition of power in 2008.
"To come up with this matter three years later,
when the primaries for next year's presidential
elections are underway, suggests a political
motive."
When the KMT government somewhat
awkwardly reacted by implying that foreigners
shouldn't comment on Taiwan's internal affairs,
Jerome Keating, a retired professor from National
Taipei University and one of the open letter's
authors, hit back by stating "the Ma government
responded in exactly the same way that the Chinese
Communist Party responds when any of its abuses of
human rights and the right of law are questioned",
and that "So close in wording and method were the
responses of the two regimes that they seem to
have been taken from the same handbook on
authoritarianism".
In a further blow for
Ma and his KMT's democratic credentials, on May 2
the Washington-based think-tank Freedom House
lowered Taiwan's ranking for press freedoms
When interviewed, foreign and Taiwanese
analysts all came to Ma's defense. However, they
acknowledged that in terms of Taiwan's impact on
China's democratization, Ma had likely boasted a
bit too much.
"I think that what Ma said
at that time was merely diplomatic language for
the Western media. In fact, Taiwan is not large or
important enough to influence China's political
institutions," said Li Chi-Keung, professor at
Taipei's Tamkang University Graduate Institute of
China Studies.
In regards to Taiwan's
falling press freedom ranking, Li holds it that
it's not an overly serious matter. He points out
that during the DPP's 2000-2008 term, KMT-leaning
media too complained about what it perceived as a
deterioration of press freedom. "Many Taiwanese
feel that the media is a source of social chaos
and hope the government regulate it more," said
Li.
Yves Tiberghien, a visiting associate
professor at National Chengchi University, doesn't
ascribe to the notion that cross-strait
cooperation in general under Ma or the Economic
Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) Beijing and
Taipei signed last year has made Taiwan more
autocratic.
"It integrates Taiwan's
economy more with China's economy, but does not
have a negative impact on Taiwanese democracy.
Taiwan is in fact having a thorough open debate on
the ECFA," he stated, nonetheless acknowledging
that on the other hand, the assumption that the
ECFA could have an impact on democratizing China
was an exaggerated one and probably one that was
not achievable, at least in the short or medium
term.
Professor Ronald A Edwards, a China
expert at Tamkang University in Taipei, said
Beijing's main concerns were short-run inflation
and unemployment, not fundamental political
changes, Ma's hands were bound in the first place.
"There is little any outside country's
leader can do to initiate political change within
China," said Edwards.
"I don't think Ma
can do much to promote China's democratization.
Not even the United States or the EU [European
Union] can do anything," said Dr Zhang Baohui, an
expert on East Asian democratization and associate
professor at the Department of Political Science
at Hong Kong's Lingnan University.
Wong
Yiu-chung, a professor at the same department and
an expert on China-Taiwan-Hong Kong relationships,
agrees that Ma had simply been cautious.
"In his current term, Ma has been focusing
on boosting Taiwan's economy by setting up more
economic linkages with mainland China, such as the
ECFA. Therefore he dares not to offend China,"
said Wong.
Unlike Ma's fiercest opponents,
the Hong Kong professor doesn't see the prospect
of Ma making Taiwan autocratic, let alone him
becoming a strongman.
"I think Taiwan is a
real democracy, and Ma certainly cannot be
compared with someone like Putin. Even if he wants
to control Taiwan more, he lacks charisma on the
one hand and on the other, the checks and balances
in the political system would prevent him from
doing that."
Also the opinion of Kou
Chien-Wen, an associate research fellow at
National Chengchi University's Division of China
Politics, doesn't differ from those his academic
peers expressed in Asia Times Online's interviews.
According to Kou, Ma couldn't have possibly made
China more democratic in the less than four years
he has held office.
"Ma is not God. In
addition, as Ma was elected to serve Taiwan
people, he cannot and should not jeopardize
Taiwan's political and economic interests in order
to push China toward democratization."
Jens Kastner is a Taipei-based
journalist.
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