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Taiwan's divided identity key to polls

Two news items will likely become important footnotes to tomorrow's election. One is about the Chinese government's recent ban on any repeat of the kind of election held three years ago for township chief in Buyun, Sichuan Province -- an election it now describes as a "fortuitous event." [Editor's note: the Dec. 31, 1998 direct elections in Buyun were the first of their kind and conducted without official approval.] Direct elections in China remain limited to the level of village heads and urban district heads.

The other piece of news is the CNN report about Beijing's attempts to manipulate tomorrow's elections in Taiwan in the hopes of preventing the Taiwan Solidarity Union from winning enough seats to help establish a pro-government majority. The report also said Beijing has promised to support the KMT "to ensure the DPP's defeat" in the legislative elections.

Taiwan has held two direct presidential elections and is now holding its fourth national legislative elections. But an undemocratic country that only allows village and district head elections is trying its best to interfere in Taiwan's polls and gobble up Taiwan.

Even more peculiar is the fact that Taiwan' opposition parties and politicians, who enjoy the fruits of democracy, are siding with the despots and using aid from said same despots to gain power. This is the reality of Taiwanese politics: a pro-China opposition versus a government determined to safeguard Taiwan.

Why did the New Party spin off from the KMT? Why did former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) come up with his "special state-to-state relations" dictum? Why did People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) so easily become the leading light of the pro-China factions? Taiwan's divided national identity -- created by long periods of alien rule -- is in fact the greatest threat facing national security.

Recently some political scientists have asserted that Taiwan has already been democratized and that confrontation between the oppressors and the oppressed no longer occurs. For that reason, they believe that the withdrawal from politics by scholars and their adoption of political neutrality is a positive sign, a sign of progress.

I believe it is dishonorable for such scholars to remove themselves from the equation at a time when Taiwan faces resurgent Chinese oppression, its status unclear and its national identity divided.

It would be ironic if the development of democratic politics served only to fuel the above differences and to aggravate the crisis facing the nation. Limiting democracy, however, will bring new problems.

We do not need to contemplate a return to the past. Lee has said, "Democratization is localization." It is compatible with Taiwan's historical experience and involves a form of strategic thinking that resolves the issues concerning democracy and the nation at one and the same time.

Lee has taken action to solve the crisis facing Taiwan. He has helped to establish a new party and used his campaign appearances to explain his ideas. His localization dictum is a litmus test exposing the pro-China platforms of Soong, New Party convener Hsieh Chi-ta (謝啟大), KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and a host of other "pan-blue" candi-dates. These politicians have been unwilling to face up to the simple question of "local versus alien." Instead they deliberately twist the issue to sow ethnic discord. Their pro-China sentiments are beyond doubt and yet they keep shouting "Love Tai-wan" slogans.

Are voters really so gullible that they will swallow this?

Chen Yi-shen is an associate research fellow at the Academia Sinica's Institute of Modern History.

Translated by Francis Huang
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