Editorial: DPP finally adjusts to new role

Perhaps victory came to the DPP a bit too early when it won the presidential election last year. Now, after 18 months in power the party has finally completed its psychological adjustment to its new role. On Saturday, the DPP's party congress decided to elevate a 1999 resolution on Taiwan's future to the same level as the "Taiwan independence clause" in the party charter. It was an important step in the DPP's history and a new interpretation of the party's pro-independence platform. From now on, whenever the two come into conflict, the 1999 resolution will take precedence over the party charter's independence clause.

The DPP passed its pro-independence clause at its 1991 national congress. While many other ideas advocated by the DPP -- such as Taiwanese consciousness, a shared destiny (命運共同體), and the self-determination of residents -- have gradually gained acceptance in Taiwanese society, the pro-independence clause remains a regular target of attacks from other political parties in every election campaign.

The need for transformation into a ruling party prompted the DPP to recognize the existence of the ROC in 1999 -- in the form of a national congress resolution on Taiwan's future. That allowed the DPP's presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to adopt a more flexible platform on cross-strait relations, which in turn helped him win the presidential election. However, the party and its supporters have since been dogged by confusion over the status of the resolution, relative to the party charter. The party has now solved this problem by elevating the former.

The DPP's pro-independence charter has brought the party under immense pressure from interests both at home and abroad. Even after the DPP's presidential election victory, the opposition parties have continued to use the pro-independence clause to paint the DPP as a radical extremist party, thereby scaring away centrist voters. Many of those voters indeed have doubts about the symbolic significance of the clause and consequently about the DPP's efforts at moving toward a "New Middle Way."

On the other hand, radical pro-independence groups within the party frequently cite the clause in their criticism of the DPP's acceptance of the ROC. This has put the party leadership in a difficult position.

Beijing has used the independence clause as an excuse for refusing to communicate with the DPP. Beijing's top leaders have hinted many times that the DPP would have to abolish the clause before any cross-strait talks can be resumed. In Beijing's view, the pro-independence charter is an important index of the DPP's nature and also a psychological barrier. Had Saturday's pragmatic move come a week earlier, that would have been a major goodwill gesture from the DPP on the eve of the APEC summit. The fracas over Taiwan's representative at the summit could have had a very different outcome.

The historic mission and value of the DPP's pro-independence charter was the process of Taiwan's democratization. It clarified the goals of the democratic movement as well as the means to attain them. It also rallied the hope and motivation needed for democratization and helped to resist authoritarian rule.

But the times have now changed. After completing its historic mission, the Taiwan independence clause will become something of an ancestral tablet of the DPP -- and an important document from Taiwan's democracy movement. Saturday's change will give the DPP more leeway in handling the unification-independence issue and cross-strait relations. It will also provide more space for Chen's "New Middle Way." Meanwhile, the political division between the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union is also complete. As the DPP moves toward the middle ground, it will hand over the pro-independence banner to the TSU.