Taiwan’s elections

It’s all right, Ma

Taiwanese democracy catches on—in mainland China

Jan 21st 2012 | TAIPEI | from the print edition

THE presidential and parliamentary elections that Taiwan held on January 14th were unusual. No party was engulfed in scandal, as was the ruling party at the time in 2008. No candidate was shot at, as the incumbent was four years before that. China issued no dire warnings, as it did in 2000. Nor did it reinforce such warnings by lobbing missiles into the seas around Taiwan, as it did in 1996. Indeed, perhaps most striking this time round was the reaction the polls aroused in China. There, some saw President Ma Ying-jeou’s re-election in a peacefully contested race as evidence that democracy might one day have a chance in China too.

Taiwan’s elections might have created a new source of instability in Asia that neither America nor China was keen to face. America is in a presidential election year and China, too, will soon undergo a sweeping change of its leaders. Officials from both countries had hinted strongly at the outcome in Taiwan that they preferred: another four years of Mr Ma. He can be relied upon not to goad an untested new leadership in Beijing into an alarming display of military posturing of the kind it put on the mid-1990s, on the occasion of the island’s first democratic election for the presidency. In the event, Mr Ma won with nearly 52% of the vote, and his Kuomintang (KMT) held the legislature.

It was a relief to both China and America. At the same time the composure of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was also reassuring. Its candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, came a solid second, with nearly 46% of the vote. The DPP accepted defeat gracefully, unlike the KMT in 2004, when it took to the streets and courts to contest victory by the DPP incumbent, Chen Shui-bian. Ms Tsai, a bureaucrat turned politician, had hoped to become the island’s first woman president. She resigned the chairmanship of the DPP after her defeat. Yet she deserves credit for turning round the fortunes of a party that was thrown into disarray by Mr Ma’s victory in 2008, and by the shock of Mr Chen’s later conviction and prison sentence for gross corruption.

Mr Ma’s re-election suggests that many voters shared the fears of Chinese and American officials that Ms Tsai might revive Mr Chen’s provocative approach in dealing with the mainland. This involved vigorously asserting Taiwan’s separateness and resisting any initiatives that remotely smacked of “one China” embracing both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Yet strong support for Ms Tsai (who happens to be far less of a China-provoker than Mr Chen was) also suggested that some Taiwanese are uneasy about the rapid pace of the rapprochement with the mainland under Mr Ma. His share of the vote fell, from 58% four years ago, and his party has a reduced majority in the legislature. It suggests Mr Ma will now have to move more cautiously in his dealings with China, particularly in any area that touches on questions of sovereignty—such as a peace accord, much talked about, in which Taiwan and China would pledge not to resolve their differences by force.

Gone is the speculation common in the early days of Mr Ma’s presidency that this year might produce a breakthrough in cross-strait relations. After a decade at the helm, China’s president, Hu Jintao, will step down as Communist Party chief later this year (in a process involving not a hint of democracy). Some had hoped he and Mr Ma would wish to leave their mark on history with the first ever cross-strait summit. But Mr Hu, it is now clear, is far more caught up with problems at home, including ensuring economic growth and social stability as leaders jockey for positions in the new line-up. Certainly, Mr Ma lacks domestic support for such a meeting, and he has made it clear that China must address him as president if ever there were to be a summit. As ever, China’s media, in their reports on the elections, found it hard to describe the elections as presidential, except sometimes in quotation marks.

Yet if a survey conducted by a mainland internet portal, Sina.com, is any guide, Mr Ma enjoys strong support on the mainland too. Though the Communist Party has an abhorrence of multiparty democracy, mainland websites gave extensive coverage to Taiwan’s elections, even offering live video feeds of the vote-counting. (The tightly controlled print media were more circumspect in their reporting.) Of more than 26,000 responses to a Sina.com poll asking readers who they would prefer to win, nearly 55% chose Mr Ma, whereas more than a quarter supported a China-friendly rival, James Soong (who took less than 3% of the vote in Taiwan). Nearly 20% chose the China-sceptic Ms Tsai. All this in a country which may not even vote in television talent shows.

Li Fan of the World and China Institute, a small Beijing organisation, says that these mainland expressions of support for Ms Tsai were a mark of dissatisfaction with the Communist Party and indicated a desire for opposition politics at home. Mr Li led a rare delegation of mainland academics to observe the Taiwan elections. His five companions were all first-time visitors to the island and were amazed by its politics. “They never thought Taiwan was so free and democratic”, Mr Li enthuses. “It had a very powerful effect on them.” He says the polls give the lie to the Communist Party’s notion that democracy begets chaos.

What’s wrong with peaceful evolution?

In the minds of the party’s critics in China, Taiwan has greatly evolved in recent years. Mainland officials used once to deter overt expressions of sympathy for Taiwan by labelling those who showed any rapport as KMT agents or people out to split the motherland. But now that the island has managed a peaceable shift from thuggish dictatorship to democracy, Taiwan is much more often cited as a model these days. Several prominent Chinese dissidents-in-exile gathered in Taipei for the elections, singing the praises of the island’s politics. One of them, Wang Dan, who was a leader of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, set up a “school for democracy” in Taipei last year.

One of China’s considered efforts in recent years to bolster support for Mr Ma and build a pro-China constituency on the island has been to allow Chinese tourists (most of them big-spending) to visit Taiwan. That may now be having the unintended effect of encouraging the spread of democratic ideas from Taiwan to the mainland. These were the first presidential and legislative elections to be conducted under the gaze of big numbers of mainland tourists (almost 1.3m came to Taiwan in 2011). Last June the two sides began allowing Chinese tourists to visit on their own rather than as part of tour groups, a move that helped some curious mainlanders to fly in to watch the elections. When they eased travel restrictions, political tourism was probably not what the mainland authorities had in mind.

from the print edition | Asia

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It’s all right, Ma

Jan 22nd 2012, 12:47

This title is questionable because another meaning is that the author refer to Taiwan as an independent sovergienty. In reality, many scholars of China Study constantly see Ma as the big hope and indicator when it comes to expecting the vision of China’s democracy. The author might have yet known Ma’s sayings on the last 2 days before the presidential election, that easily result in the confused thought of Ma’s cross-strait policy.

According to NHK World’s report, asked if he will visit mainland China if he is re-elected, Ma said he has no “such a plan” at the moment. He also ruled out the possibility of visiting China in his capacity as the leader of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT). HE ADDED he is the President of Taiwan and visiting China under another title “would still be unacceptable to the Taiwanese people”.

So we can overall know he has little difference from his predecessor Chen Shui-bian in Taiwan issue. If adding to his terribly internal policy in Taiwan, I feel very sorry of these inhabitants to choose such papaya-like government to lead this island living between Washington D.C. and Beijing. This outcome of election let me think of the Bavaria in 19th century existing between Austrian Empire and Prussian Kingdom, especially talking about Seven Weeks’ War in 1866. Ma’s political attitude toward central Beijing is keeping independent and separate from China in case of Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) attack while cheating those Taiwanese who still think that economic affair can pretend to do politically peaceful process or say “I am carrying out One China” out of their life savings only to weaken Taiwan’s own ability and finally annexed by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) without staying.

Moreover, it is indeed those protestors and lawyers who join Kaohsiung Incident in 1979 that is qualified as the typical experience of Asian democractic evolution. More and more Chinese bloggers support that the democracy of western style cannot wholly exercise in China. In addition, the fifth-generation China’s Communist Party (CCP) has been experiencing the democratic practice, which should be encouraged and discussed, for more than ten years, well-prepared to take the power in one year and actively lead Chinese into the next new China in the decade. Of course, instead of anti-democarcy Ma who pressured this DPP’s seniors on democracy concerned in his youth, China’s democratic reform should be recogonized as well as pushed forward by CCP himself so that China can dispose of the old-fashioned and get a new chance with realizing “One China, Two Systems” in Taiwan. Hey, you can’t say anyone who get more polls is called the more democratic side, can you?

In 2005’s summer, former prime minister Wu Yi, then Liaoning Provincial party’s secretary Li Ke-qiang, the next prime minister from this year, and the PLA’s outstanding general Wang Si-hsin met Taiwan’s Chen Shui-bian and Lu Show-lian (Anne Lu), listening to some DPP’s history and, of course, as well as delivering demand for unity with Beijing. In addition, Bo Xi-lai, who was listed as TIME annual 100s with the next President Xi Jin-ping, is massively-praised by Chinese blogger and expand Bo’s unique idea of mixed Mao-democracy of multiparty system. Bo gets more and more supporters from Chongqing experience while being a partnership with Xi, whose faction is the same as Bo’s princiling party, although the incumbent Hu Jing-tao forced Bo to step down face to face at least 2 times in 2011. Even on the military side, Liu Ya-zhou, the most prominent scholar of military strategy in Asia, talked of China’s future, especially for the competition with United States and Japan, about the 2010-2020 predict in his well-known research “Contention for Big Power”, which inferred the followings.

“The transformation from authority to democracy unavoidably happens in this decade. China may undergo the enormously utmost change. The political reform is a historical entitlement to have us finish. Impossibly, we have no way to retreat.”

Conclusively, the most of CCP’s fifth-generation big heads see democratic reform as the positive way to expand China. And I think KMT’s victory that relates democracy to Beijing very few with limited access. Whether democratic thoughts can exercise relies on CCP rather than some individuals, who lack of the notion of hierarchy. As Banyan once talked of in column, if Taiwan still take the political attitudes against Beijing, in five years Beijing may take military means to get this island. Economic ties or affairs never represent political thoughts, neither does sovereignty.

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這篇是會回覆有刊在雜誌紙本的正文，之前那篇是在Banyan 亞洲政治討論區電子佈告的文章。這篇雜誌的編輯很希妄作這次台灣2012民主選舉和中國大陸的連結，拿出新浪的「民調」，似乎有一些風吹草動。筆者這時提出國際上有人說是被內地稱為「中國的馬英九」的薄熙來，另外在2010年8月的鳳凰週刊刊出「西部論」的劉亞洲上將有提出「民主偉大變局」之說。若真是偏統且國民黨又能連續再有下一任2016當選連任，則巴伐利亞化和德意志帝國19世紀末的形式合併在所難免。

“The transformation from authority to democracy unavoidably happens in this decade. China may undergo the enormously utmost change. The political reform is a historical entitlement to have us finish. Impossibly, we have no way to retreat.”「authority」有誤，應該是翻成「authoritarian」，「十年之內，一場由威權政治向民主政治的轉型，不可避免地要發生。中國將會出現偉大的變局。政治體制改革是歷史賦予我們的使命。我們不可能有退路。」這句是劉將軍，亞洲首席戰略名家和超越日本學者的軍事專家，空間換時間的大國崛起策曾經讓不少人嚮往，但偏於紙上談兵且政治現實所致，雖一時美談，如溫家寶前總理2010年上CNN專訪時提及「政治改革」等，但權力的誘惑一直不是一般學者至販夫走卒所能操控得了的。習近平今天提要連選能連任，那他說過的會有模倣西方總統制，會全都坐視不理嗎？

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筆者有些感慨怎麼高雄事件（美麗島事件）的主角們凋零後，又再一次的在政治舞台上落敗，選民其實對於這種所謂的普世價值追求和民主制度確立有時候顯得消極，所以民進黨的老一輩的仍然和一般台灣社會大眾生活沒辦法融入。台彎的西方式民主、混合式政治是很劇烈變動，在一開始僅僅少數人的呼喚和掌權人的容忍，與中間社會層級或稱利益者的摩擦而來的，這所謂「中華民國憲法」還在用國民政府在南京時的一套，民法是蔣介石北伐剛完訂好的，當時台灣還在日本人的手裡，沒有台灣出生的人參與編訂。現在說中國大陸受到台灣這邊的民主法治是不錯的，妥當嗎？台北哪個鴨子這麼乖說民主制度這麼完美了，法治上已沒有人受不平的對待和官場的官威沒有再欺壓到民眾。中國大陸應尋求自身的改善，就筆者也很探求馬克思主義原意者，追求社會上的正義及經濟分配合理刻不容緩，倒不是說愛台還是學個李光耀多慈祥就應付好了。筆者最後有提到兩岸問題除了偏內政類別外，一個中國的國際上常識是主導權一直在北京那邊，也就是馬的當選算讓西方國家先喘口氣，但是後續的態度馬必須謹慎和緩，的確在APEC峇里兩邊陸委會和國台辦對口見面後，馬選擇了和習近平「路過」高峰會。