President Chen Shui-bian (陳 水扁) announced last Thursday on the front-line island of Tatan that he would like to invite China's President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) to visit for tea and a chat. Senior media representatives accompanying him, including myself, felt that he was taunting Beijing.
This was particularly apparent because two days before, on May 7, Chen had concluded in an exclusive interview with Reuters that "little can be expected" of China's heir-apparent Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). His tactical strikes, coming in rapid succession, have been both accurate and severe. Apart from responding with its old clich? about "accepting `one China'" Beijing has had virtually no energy to fight back. A-bian's bold actions show that he has changed remarkably since taking office.
After closely observing him during his two-day tour, I realized that he has improved dramatically from a year ago. If I were to describe the changes in one sentence, I would have to say that from the confidence he has continuously been amassing, he is now establishing his autonomy and leadership. That is to say, he is beginning to finally come into his own.
Both the well-known political analyst Chin Heng-wei (
Since taking office Chen has been virtually a lame-duck president under the attacks and insults he has suffered from both inside and outside the country. Naturally, some of the factors behind this failure concern himself or pre-existing and external conditions, such as crude and inexperienced policymaking, a lack of talented personnel within the DPP, the influence of former president Lee Teng-hui (
In his comments on Tatan, Chen panicked Beijing by saying that he wants to send the director of the DPP's China Affairs Depart-ment to China as the head of a delegation to carry out "reconciliation between political parties." He obviously wanted the Chinese leaders to know that the Chinese Communist Party's other half in any negotiations or cooperation is no longer the KMT and is instead the DPP that he heads.
No sooner had the card of "reconciliation between political parties" been thrown down than a powerful ripple effect was felt within Taiwan. In particular, when he rebuked opposition leaders for preferring to meet with politicians on the other side of the Strait rather than meeting with himself, Chen put the two main opposition parties in the awkward position of appearing to be allied with the communists. They had no alternative but to feign innocence.
A-bian's "reconciliation between parties" amounts to killing two birds with one stone. It delighted his supporters, but it also caused those who oppose him to think hard about a counterattack strategy. A unificationist scholar was quoted in the unificationist United Daily News as saying, "This looks like a high-stakes gamble, but A-bian might win."
The meaning underlying such words fully reflects their anxiety that stems from being at wit's end. They can only superficially attack him for what they say is his "trying to turn people's attention away from the drought and the sluggish economy." But such criticism clearly underestimates the far-reaching effects of playing this card.
Apart from the issue of cross-strait relations, in two days of frank discussion with media representatives, A-bian also threw out some tidbits about domestic politics.
He said, "Lee Teng-hui forgot to account for quite a few things." And he criticized the TSU under Lee's guidance as being, "like the New Party of the past." These two statements were also each strategically intended to kill two birds with one stone.
The first comment both points out "the importance of establishing a system" and implies criticism of Lee. The future interactions between these two men will bear some scrutiny. Did Chen intend to highlight his differences with Lee in this manner and walk out from under Lee's shadow? The same statement could also be seen as lifting the curtain on reforms of political culture to root out authoritarianism and patriarchy.
Chen's remark was evidently an attempt to sow discord in the TSU and to cut off its relationship with Lee, perhaps in the hopes that the TSU can correctly see the reality and surrender to the DPP and the mainstream values he represents.
If Chen can truly be himself from his third year in power onwards and govern the country with the same confidence and charisma he demonstrated during his Taipei mayorship, I believe he will enjoy considerable success and further smooth his path to re-election. However, we can also expect those who oppose him to continue to harass him and criticize his "heavy-handed ways." However, the opposition's strategies will have limited effect if they are lacking in creativity. In fact, they could even backfire.
Chen is seeing gradual im-provement in his position. I personally hope that, with his confident and charismatic governance, he can help Taiwan's political culture become more mature and refined. I hope he can thoroughly eradicate the authoritarianism and patriarchalism of Eastern society that still exists in Taiwan. Only then will the transfer of political power not lose its significance.
After all, establishing the rule of law and creating a new political culture will be the achievements for which Chen will be praised by posterity, regardless of whether he is re-elected or not.
Rick Chu is editor in chief of the Taipei Times.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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