Wed, Mar 23, 2005 page8

• Chen is a plain speaker

  • By Michael Turton
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  Stephen Carter (Letters, March 9, page 8) echoes a commonplace and highly naive anger at President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for striking a deal with James Soong (宋楚瑜) and agreeing to refrain from changing the nation's status. Carter accuses Chen of being "delusional" for imagining China would change, and of not loving Taiwan.

  Carter's unreflective response fails to take into account Chen's position at home, changing strategic realities in Asia and the long-term needs of Taiwan.

  Three major factors govern Chen's decision. First, Taiwan needs to be governed, not merely presided over, and the continuing deadlock in the legislature is hampering reform. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) cannot be dealt with; it is is perpetually stuck in opposition due to its theology of the Return to China. But Soong's People First Party (PFP) appears solely concerned with self-aggrandizement and potentially can be bought. With the assurance of the support of at least some PFP lawmakers, perhaps Chen can assemble a majority in the legislature and pass the reform bills the country so desperately needs.

  Chen's options in this regard are limited by the factionalized nature of Taiwan's politics, the lack of party discipline, a political system that emphasizes the local over the national and of course the political corruption institutionalized under the KMT. Taiwan's political system simply offers him little room to maneuver.

  A second problem Chen must solve is keeping the PFP and the KMT apart. Even if the PFP does not cooperate with the DPP, by striking a deal with Soong, Chen has further blackened Soong's name among his future partners, who already hate him for betraying them in the 2000 election and handing Taiwan's governance over to the Taiwanese. Hence Chen's move pays dividends in the struggle between the authoritarian-oriented KMT and the DPP.

  Given all this, I doubt anyone in his right mind imagined that Chen was ever going to change the nation's name, hold referendums and declare a revolution. The climate in neither the domestic nor the international arena will support such a move at the current stage.

  In other words, Chen promised not to do something that was never going to happen anyway, in exchange for real material support. Dealing with his enemies in fact shows his ability to think outside of the box.

  The third factor influencing Chen's move is the shockingly rapid decline of the US as a world power under the Bush administration. Chen's administration must somehow come to grips with the fact that the major supporter of Taiwan, the US (which in any case has always preferred pro-China candidates to Chen), is a fading power, deeply in debt, divided at home and hated by the rest of the planet.

  The invasion of Iraq essentially sealed Taiwan's fate, and it did so in two important ways. First, it expended valuable prestige, military power, and treasure fighting an illegal and immoral war, and even worse, losing that war. In the sands of Iraq died the moral legitimacy the US needed to build a coalition to oppose China. Second, and more importantly, it has weakened the US so profoundly, especially economically, that a war with China would almost certainly break the US. This dangles an additional carrot in front of China: Invading Taiwan would permit China to confront the US with the terrible choice of either yielding to China -- and thus yielding its hegemony in Asia -- or else fighting China and facing economic collapse.

  China may well invade Taiwan to bring about the latter alternatives, irrespective of anything it might gain by annexing Taiwan.

  The international situation is further complicated by two other factors. First, there is the longstanding European antipathy to a democratic Taiwan and Europe's eager kowtowing to Beijing. Without the support of Europe and the US, Chen's tactical choices are limited. Second, Chen's own military at home is rife with pro-Beijing sympathy among the officer class. Thus he waves a sword that will shatter like glass if it is ever actually wielded.

  Looked at in light of all these factors, Chen's comment that pro-independence moves are "delusional" looks more like that rarest of political acts, plain speech, than any reversal of previous positions or lack of knowledge of China. As long as the foreign and domestic political situation constrains Chen's freedom of action, he will be forced to engage in creative politics at home, and to play for time on the China front. Now is not the time for stirring language and stiffened backs. In the case of democracy in Taiwan, never has it been more true that the meek will inherit the earth.

  Michael Turton
  

  Wufong, Taichung County
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