Hoping to end polarization between the pan-blue and pan-green camps and reverse six years of government running on empty, President Chen Shui-bian (
But we should give more consideration to whether focusing on the issue of independence is in line with public expectations for cross-party and ethnic reconciliation.
The Mainlander Taiwanese Association recently released a survey on ethnic relations carried out in the Taipei area. It showed that 52 percent of respondents believe that Taiwan has a serious ethnic problem, and as many as 80 percent agreed that this problem is generated by politicians furthering the interest of political parties.
So is the ethnic issue a "natural" issue, or the result of manipulation?
The same survey showed that the public is divided over the 228 Incident.
Forty percent believe that discussion of the 228 Incident will increase ethnic tension, while 36 percent believe that discussion facilitates ethnic understanding.
Even non-Mainlanders are split on the issue. It should be noted that 54 percent of those sympathetic to the Democratic Progressive Party and 70 percent of those sympathetic to Taiwan Solidarity Union feel that such discussion facilitates understanding between ethnic groups, while 55 percent of those sympathetic to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party feel that it increases tension.
In other words, while we first thought that the 228 issue was a matter of ethnicity, further analysis shows that it has become a matter of cross-party conflict. That means that various approaches to 228 are decided by party affiliation rather than ethnicity.
The past 10 years of democratization in Taiwan have not hurt the interests of Mainlanders, but others have won few substantive benefits. After the issue developed into a party political matter following the transition of power in 2000, change in the political status of ethnic groups became linked to party affiliation.
Linking ethnic and party interests to each other lets us understand how the 228 Incident has changed from being a matter of soul-searching and understanding into one of cross-party conflict.
The survey also said that 70 percent of respondents felt cross-party reconciliation would facilitate ethnic reconciliation, which suggests that the public also sees a link between ethnicity and political parties. But 80 percent felt that cross-party reconciliation should be approached from a policy standpoint, and not on the basis of the unification-independence debate.
This suggests that the public desires attempts at reconciliation between the pan-blue and pan-green camps in order to avoid controversial political issues.
There is, however, quite some distance between the 10-point consensus reached by Chen and Soong and the public's wish to concentrate on policy.
With ethnicity now a party issue, any question related to party interests could reinforce conflict between ethnic groups. Is it a good thing that cross-party reconciliation begins from a unification-independence perspective and that these issues are directly connected to the parties and their electoral interests? This is a question that should be considered in some detail.
Hsu Yung-ming is an assistant research fellow at the Sun Yat-sen Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy at the Academia Sinica. Translated by Perry Svensson
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said on Monday that it would be announcing its mayoral nominees for New Taipei City, Yilan County and Chiayi City on March 11, after which it would begin talks with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to field joint opposition candidates. The KMT would likely support Deputy Taipei Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) as its candidate for New Taipei City. The TPP is fielding its chairman, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), for New Taipei City mayor, after Huang had officially announced his candidacy in December last year. Speaking in a radio program, Huang was asked whether he would join Lee’s
RSS