Taiwan's democratization dilemma

From a medium- to long-term perspective, Taiwan's democratization greatly contributes to the resolution of issues between Taipei and Beijing, but in the short run it has completely upset the calculations, not only of China but also of the US. Since the 1970s, both Beijing and Washington have been expecting Taiwan to make a deal with China that effectively ends the dispute about the island's status more or less on China's terms.

Democratization in Taiwan has made such a short-term outcome impossible. Now it is beginning to be understood that a genuine solution will be far more complex and less formulaic than expected. But democratization has also brought the promise of a genuine solution, for Taiwan now has a government that can genuinely speak for its people and therefore enter into legitimate and binding undertakings.

That opportunity for genuine settlement, however, is currently undermined and blocked by the current short-term approaches both from Beijing (unrealistic demands coupled with military threats) and Washington (unrealistic demands coupled with threats to withhold defense). It is time for all concerned to recognize that there is nothing simple or easy about the issues here; their solution will require substance and not mere slogans.

I urge Americans and other Westerners in particular to try thinking about the problem as if it were "European." Even with the best will in the world, the actual unification of the European Union is going very slowly, but this is a fact that does not surprise us, for we are accustomed to the idea that European states are complex and so are their differences. But when it comes to China, some Westerners still seem to imagine that a primordial, shared, and overriding "Chineseness" makes everything easier. This makes about as much sense as arguing that, because most of the European states grew out of the Roman Empire (which is true), European unification should be easy (which it is not). But the fact is that America's China policy has always assumed not only that reconciling the two sides of the Strait will be easy, but even that it will actually be well-nigh automatic.

The Impossible Happens

Few, I suspect, imagined in 1986 when he was in prison for political offenses that less than 20 years later Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) would be the duly elected president of the Republic of China. The most important reason was not that prison seemed a bad place to start, or disbelief that Taiwan would ever have real elections. The most basic reason was that most observers expected that, by the year 2000, Taiwan would long since have been absorbed into the People's Republic of China.

Democratization and liberalization are what have saved the island from that fate and great credit is owed to all who brought that about, both within the long-ruling KMT and in the brave opposition, and to the enlightened US approach that fostered it. The impossible has happened in Taiwan, as it has as well in a host of other states (and I believe will eventually in China as well). But it would be less than candid not to admit that some outsiders are very disappointed with this result and frankly not yet reconciled to it.

The Inner History of "Normalization"

Why all this should upset Beijing is perhaps obvious. But why also Washington, which is clearly unsure how to respond? Surely Washington favors democracy and furthermore has, through numerous oral and written assurances since the 1970s, not to mention legislation, made clear that it will stand by Taiwan?